Making Raw Cat Food for Do-It-Yourselfers

Serving variation: Place the mix into ice cube trays and freeze. Pop them out after a few hours and you've made your own nuggets! These can be really handy as they thaw quicker than a larger container. Useful for when you're like me and forget to get a container out of the freezer the night before. They also come out to a mostly uniform size of about 1 ¼ ounces, so portioning is easier.

 

Remember to hand wash your grinder parts; don't put them in the dishwasher.

 

See! It's really pretty easy. I make a batch of food about every two weeks, and it takes about an hour and a half including cleanup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                            

The approximate ingredient cost for this recipe breaks down as follows:

 

• $1.86 for the supplements
• $11.16 for the chicken thighs (at $2.49/lb)
• $3.00 for the chicken hearts (at $2.99/lb from Hare Today, plus a bit for the shipping)
• $1.22 for the liver (at $2.79/lb)
• $1.26 for the eggs (at $3.79/dozen)

 

This works out to about $2.65 a pound, since this recipe makes about 7 pounds of food, using 2 cups of water, which weighs about 17 oz. The chicken thighs can also frequently be purchased at less than $2.49 a pound, which can bring the cost down substantially. This compares very favorably to canned food, especially when you consider that there are no fillers or by-products or carbs.

 

 

 

Use turkey thighs and/or drumsticks. Don't use only turkey necks or wings as the bone to meat ratio and thus the calcium to phosphorus ratio would be off. You can use chicken livers and hearts, as getting quantities of separate turkey hearts and livers is probably not do-able. Follow the rest of the recipe as shown.

 

Here I am assuming you would be grinding a whole dressed bird, minus head, feet and entrails. Use the same recipe as above. Again, it's OK to use chicken hearts and liver. If you have them, include the organs that came with the bird in the total weight of liver and heart.

 

 

A kitty favorite! Follow the instructions above if you are using a dressed rabbit i.e. no head, entrails, feet, etc., or if using rabbit parts.

 

 

Thaw the meat in the fridge. You can mix it up as soon as it's thawed enough to mix; it doesn't have to be completely thawed. It's OK to re-freeze after mixing; since the meat was originally frozen immediately after grinding, it didn't sit around growing bacteria Using pre-ground is a real time saver! Just add in the slurry mixture and portion out, and then freeze.

 

 

Hare Today offers whole ground rabbit, this includes the head, which is a very good thing even though it may not sound appetizing! When using this grind, omit the liver and heart since the organs are already there in the grind. You can also omit the fish oil, as the Omegas are supplied by the eyes and brains from the head. That's the reason including the head in the grind is a good thing. My cats absolutely love the rabbit! They will eat it first every time if given a choice. Add the 4000 mg taurine even though the rabbit organs are included, just to be sure. Some taurine may be lost by freezing or by grinding, so it can't hurt to play it safe. Taurine is water soluble, so you don't have to worry about your cats getting too much.