Homemade cat food: part II

About a month ago, someone posted a recipe for a mix to add to cooked
meat, to use for feeding cats a home-cooked diet:

Vita-Mineral Mix (water-soluable vitamins)

1-1/2 c. yeast powder (brewers yeast powder)
1/4 c. kelp powder or granules
1 c. lecithin granules
2 c. bran
2 c. bone meal or calcium lactate

In addition to this, it was recommended that you add cod liver oil
a few times a week.

However, in no place did this say anything about taurine. Since I'm
going to be feeding my cats cooked meat, I need to add taurine, right,
since the cooking destroys the amino acid? Isn't that why you'll see
"taurine" in the list of ingredients on any can of cat food - because
it's cooked meat?

So I went to the store and bought all the ingredients. I also bought
taurine, because I think that's necessary, too. Should I mix it in
with the Vita-Mineral Mix? If so, in what proportion?

Or should I just add some to their food at feeding time? Does anyone
do this? If so, how much do you give them, per meal?

I'm going to start with Gerber all-meat baby food as the base. I was
thinking that maybe I'd also cook up some ground turkey and mix that in.
Would that make sense? Then add the Vita-Mineral Mix plus the taurine.

Anyone have advice, warnings, etc?

Thanks,
Joyce

On 2007-05-05 20:05:05 -0500, said:

About a month ago, someone posted a recipe for a mix to add to cooked
meat, to use for feeding cats a home-cooked diet:

Vita-Mineral Mix (water-soluable vitamins)

1-1/2 c. yeast powder (brewers yeast powder)
1/4 c. kelp powder or granules
1 c. lecithin granules 2 c. bran
2 c. bone meal or calcium lactate

In addition to this, it was recommended that you add cod liver oil
a few times a week.

However, in no place did this say anything about taurine. Since I'm
going to be feeding my cats cooked meat, I need to add taurine, right,
since the cooking destroys the amino acid? Isn't that why you'll see
"taurine" in the list of ingredients on any can of cat food - because
it's cooked meat?

So I went to the store and bought all the ingredients. I also bought
taurine, because I think that's necessary, too. Should I mix it in
with the Vita-Mineral Mix? If so, in what proportion?

Or should I just add some to their food at feeding time? Does anyone
do this? If so, how much do you give them, per meal?

I'm going to start with Gerber all-meat baby food as the base. I was
thinking that maybe I'd also cook up some ground turkey and mix that in.
Would that make sense? Then add the Vita-Mineral Mix plus the taurine.

Anyone have advice, warnings, etc?

Thanks,
Joyce

Have you read through www.catinfo.org? That's probably the best site to check.

wrote:
Anyone have advice, warnings, etc?

Check out this page:
http://www.catnutrition.org/foodmaking.html

--
Victor M. Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam he
Email me he

Karen wrote:

Have you read through www.catinfo.org? That's probably the best
site to check.

No I haven't, but I will now!

Thanks!
Joyce

Victor Martinez wrote:

Check out this page:
http://www.catnutrition.org/foodmaking.html

Thanks!

Joyce

I appreciate people giving me some links to sites that offer information
about making homemade catfood. However, both of the sites turned out to
be focused on raw-food diets, and I'm planning to feed cooked food. I'm
either going to cook it myself (in the case of buying meat) or I'm going
to buy baby food, which is already cooked.

The Vita-Mineral Mix powder that was posted here last month was a
supplement designed to be added to cooked meat. It adds in the nutrients
that are lost with cooking. My only concern was that the recipe didn't
include taurine, which would also be lost in cooked meat, and I don't
understand why it was left out. I will be adding taurine, but because
it wasn't in the recipe, I don't know how much is appropriate.

I don't want to deal with raw meat. It's one thing for a cat to hunt
and eat a fresh-killed rodent or bird. It's another to buy commercial
meat that might have salmonella on it - I don't want to take that risk.
And I don't want to buy raw meat that is prepared specifically for
cats, because at this point I simply don't trust the pet food industry.
If I feed my cats meat that is sold for human consumption, I know it
has the quality control used for human-grade food. And while we all
know that's not perfect either, at least it's better than what passes
for "quality" in pet food.

I know about the company that makes the raw venison for cats, etc, and
as I remember, that brand had some recalls, too.

I really don't want to get into a discussion about raw vs. cooked. I've
already made the decision to feed them cooked meat, so I'm asking for
support and advice about that. If someone on this newsgroup is feeding
their cat home-cooked meat, I would really appreciate some advice about
supplements. Here's that Vita-Mineral Mix recipe again. Oh, by the way,
I ended up buying the calcium lactate rather than bone meal.

Vita-Mineral Mix (water-soluable vitamins)

1-1/2 c. yeast powder (brewers yeast powder)
1/4 c. kelp powder or granules
1 c. lecithin granules
2 c. bran
2 c. bone meal or calcium lactate

Thanks!
Joyce

wrote:

Anyone have advice, warnings, etc?

crawling up from bed after tummy bug from h*ll, typing with white and
shaking fingers

Joyce, you're right, you need to add taurine. The supplements I give
mine contain taurine (though I feed them raw meat). One pill contains 25
milligrams of taurine, and it says to give them 1 pill per 2 kilograms
of cat. These supplement pills are specifically meant for cats. Sorry
about the metrics, but I'm too tired right now to convert.

HTH

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.

On May 7, 7:53 am, Marina wrote:
wrote:

Anyone have advice, warnings, etc?

crawling up from bed after tummy bug from h*ll, typing with white and
shaking fingers

Joyce, you're right, you need to add taurine. The supplements I give
mine contain taurine (though I feed them raw meat). One pill contains 25
milligrams of taurine, and it says to give them 1 pill per 2 kilograms
of cat. These supplement pills are specifically meant for cats. Sorry
about the metrics, but I'm too tired right now to convert.

HTH

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.

Take care of yourself Marina. Purrs for a speedy recovery.

Winnie

Marina wrote:

crawling up from bed after tummy bug from h*ll, typing with white and
shaking fingers

Ugh! A good friend of mine just had a bad tummy bug, too, which she has
attributed to food poisoning. It's miserable no matter what causes it,
though. Hope you feel better soon!

Joyce, you're right, you need to add taurine. The supplements I give
mine contain taurine (though I feed them raw meat). One pill contains 25
milligrams of taurine, and it says to give them 1 pill per 2 kilograms
of cat. These supplement pills are specifically meant for cats. Sorry
about the metrics, but I'm too tired right now to convert.

Thanks so much! It's good to hear specific numbers - I don't want to
over- or underdose them. And no worries about the conversion - I use an
online converter and can easily get the amount in local units. (I won't
need to convert the pill's units, because we use mg's also, but the cat's
weight, yes.)

Thanks,
Joyce

Marina wrote:

wrote:


Anyone have advice, warnings, etc?


crawling up from bed after tummy bug from h*ll, typing with white and
shaking fingers

Joyce, you're right, you need to add taurine. The supplements I give
mine contain taurine (though I feed them raw meat). One pill contains 25
milligrams of taurine, and it says to give them 1 pill per 2 kilograms
of cat. These supplement pills are specifically meant for cats. Sorry
about the metrics, but I'm too tired right now to convert.

HTH

I'm so sorry to hear you are not feeling well, Marina.
Lots of purrs and very gentle hugs,
Polonca and Soncek