hopefulandhungry

Homemade Cat Food

Check out our Fur Babies….Maya is our older, female cat that I’ve had since not long after I moved to Seattle.  She is a petite little thing and has had stomach issues for the last few years.  Friends and I joke that she has an eating disorder because she is so tiny and often would be throwing-up after eating her food.  But, seriously, she does have some sort of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and has had to be on a prescription, hypoallergenic diet for several years now.  I’ve asked repeatedly that she get a job to help pay for her food, but being the princess that she is, she doesn’t want to lift a finger (or paw!).

Bode, our new, younger male cat is very attached to Hubby and I.  He follows us around wherever we go in the house (we think he may have abandonment issues because the first people to adopt him took him back to the Animal Rescue place after they found out they were moving out of town).  Last time we went on vacation, we came home and I left my half-unpacked suitcase out.  Next thing I know, Bode is in there taking care of business.  When I wiped up the urine it was pink and he wet on our bed that evening as well.  After a day at the vet and a bacterial culture, it came back clear and it was determined that his bladder infection was due to stress and that he may need to be on anti-anxiety meds one day!  Before the culture came back the vet put him on a prescription food for a few days and when I read the ingredients I was mortified-the first ingredient was pork by-products!

We really do feel that we might just have the most high maintenance cats around.  But, after spending a small fortune on prescription food and vet bills, Hubby had the wonderful suggestion of making our own cat food.  I bought the book Lapping It Up for Cats on Amazon.  The book explains how big name cat food companies don’t care about what you are feeding your pets and that they’ll pretty much put any type of protein source it in (bad quality meat, tumors, even euthanized cats!).  And at the end of the book it’s filled with several different recipes, most contain a protein, carb, fat and then you add the essential powders that your cat will need.

Below is the Tabby’s Chicken Hash Dinner

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lb. chicken (I use dark meat, it’s cheaper and a little fattier-which the cats need)

1 cup brown rice

1 cup cottage cheese (in the pictures below, I subsituted greek yogurt, I didn’t have the cottage cheese on hand)

1 hard-boiled egg

6 tablespoons alfalfa sprouts

100 mg. Taurine (Taurine is an amino acid that is essential for feline health, we buy the powder form from Amazon)

Directions:  Boil chicken in a large pot until meat falls off bone, cut chicken into small bites.  Cook rice to package directions and set aside.  In a food processor combine chicken, rice, cottage cheese, egg, alfalfa sprouts and taurine.

We usually double or triple the recipes in the book because we are feeding two cats and then you don’t have to make it as often.  We change up the recipe everytime.  Maya mostly likes the ground turkey recipe.

We give each cat about 1/3 cup in the AM and PM.  Maya has gone from 5 to 7 lbs since the food change up, has not had as many vomiting issues and both cats seem bright-eyed and spunky.  I will admit, it’s one more thing to add to the To-Do list each week, but the time outweighs the cost of expensive prescription food filled with questionable ingredients and we have happy, healthy cats!