Semi-Homemade Cat Food

I started with three chicken thighs.  TBG got a large tray for the pup and we wanted to use them up before they started to smell.  You can always tell if the meat you are raw feeding is fresh by how it smells.  Even smelly stuff smells worse once it starts to get old...  But I digress!

The quarters cooked a long time in the small crock.  From 5PM last night until 8AM this morning.  I wanted the meat falling off the bones.

 

I wanted the bones to be really well cooked so I could mush them up.  There's still calcium in them and the marrow is full of protein.



 Along with the mashed up chicken and bone, I added a small amount of ground eggshells.  That was for calcium too.  The bones have calcium but it does get leached into the stock as it cooks.  There are a couple of ladles of broth in there for more flavor and hydration.

For this batch, I mixed Felidea (half can already in the fridge) and Evo (full can).  These were both chicken/turkey formulas.  I feed kitten food -- not senior.  Senior food counts all old pets as overweight and they formulate the food to cut calories.  I feel seniors need good protein and my guy is not fat.  I want him to have some extra flesh in reserve and because he is old, he is losing muscle mass.  Thus, I am a proponent for high quality protein for senior felines.  I add extra stock to the mixture because all cats need to be hydrated but is is super important for old men like mine who have kidneys that have been working for a very very long time.

I made two vitamin B complex pills into powder in my coffee grinder.  B vitamins are important for good health and I give one pill per day to the dog (half in the AM, the other in the PM, coated with coconut oil).  The pills can be bitter, which is why I mix them with food like this.  Vitamin B is water soluble so you can't over dose them on it.  It makes it easier for their body to metabolize their food and create energy from it.

Proof positive:  Kitty Boy Loves His Food!!!  He is 20 and has a healthy appetite.  He has a bunch of senior health problems but he is a happy cat.  He just keeps going.  His food is the best we can buy and we make it  better (and more affordable!) by adding real chicken to it.  He has arthritis, cataracts, old kidneys (which we told were failing five years ago but now show normal numbers), epilepsy (or some sort of seizure disorder) and chronic dental disease.  These things shorten the normal cat life-span to about twelve. But not for this guy.  And we believe it is the food.

Teddy gets to lick the big bowl.

I get a jar of stock out of it.

Everyone wins!!!!!