How to Make Your Own Cat Food at Home?

how to make your own cat food

Your cat would be at its best health when you feed them a homemade diet. However, several pet parents feel that preparing cat food at home can be a tasking affair. Once you start preparing cat food on your own, you will realize that it isn’t as complicated.

With commercially manufactured food, you might not be aware of all the ingredients added to it.

However, when you have complete control over the ingredients that go into the cat’s food, you can maintain proper health for your pet.

Here it is important to know how to make your own cat food?

But, before you start the preparation process, you need to know what goes into making your pet’s food.

One of the necessary is the best cat food bowl to feed your cat either wet or dry food. Having a good quality and suitable bowl makes the eating experience more smooth for cats.

What Should Your Cat Food Contain?

Your cat’s diet isn’t just about serving meat. Although meat plays a critical role in developing your pet’s body, you should aim for a balanced diet.

Here are some important elements that should be a part of your cat’s diet:

  • Abundant Water
  • Egg yolks
  • Fat
  • Bone
  • Meat
  • Organs
  • Nutritional Supplements

The goal here is to come as close as the natural hunting diet preferred by the feline species. You must have noticed that the list doesn’t contain carbohydrates.

It is because cats do not need a lot of carbohydrates like us to sustain their health.

If you plan to feed your cat a vegan or vegetarian diet for the long term, it can negatively affect their health.

Most of all, preparing big batches of cat eatables at home would be cheaper than purchasing branded ones.

Depending on the space available in your freezer and the cats at home, you can prepare a big batch, store it for a week or two, and serve in portions by slightly heating it.

Homemade food can bring about several health benefits for your cat, even those who suffer from medical conditions.

First, however, you must consult with veterinarian and discuss the ingredients that can go into the meal to ensure you don’t feed them anything that can worsen their condition.

Should You feed Raw Food to Your Cat?

While cats are hunters by nature, they thrive on a raw diet given the optimum supply of nutrition. However, this might not be doable for domesticated house cats. With raw food, there is always a risk of bacterial or parasitic infection.

In addition, you aren’t aware of the prime source of raw meat. It could be from your local farm or the packaged commercially farmed raw meat; you can never determine what has been fed to the animal.

So, it is safer to cook or heat the eatables before serving. If you are aware of the source of the meat, you can surely provide your cat with some raw meat-based food. However, there is still a risk of health issues such as salmonella infection.

Equipment Necessary for Preparing Cat Food at Home

When preparing cat food at home, you need to keep certain things in mind and, most of all, have the right equipment to get the job done with ease. So let us check out the necessary equipment you need to have by your side.

1-Grinder:

A major part of your pet’s diet is meat or similar protein components. So, you would need something that can grind it all, including the bones.

This ensures cat doesn’t have to struggle with the ingredients or get choked up on big pieces that are hard to chew on.

Ensure you select a powerful grinder that fits well into your budget.

Things such as ligament, skin, or cartilages can jam your grinder. So, look for equipment that has a reverse function to let you grind with ease.

2-Sharp Knife:

When preparing cat food at home, make sure you have a sharp knife by your side that can cut through the meat pieces with ease.

However, you also need to keep your safety in mind and wear gloves to protect your fingers and hands while chopping through the food.

3-Poultry Shears:

Poultry shears are specialized clippers that are designed to cut bird bones. Keep in mind they might not be able to cut down the bones of larger animals. So, use them only for poultry bone cutting purposes.

4-Meat Cleaver:

If you plan on working with a complete carcass, having a high-quality meat cleaver would be ideal. However, when working with parts, you don’t have to use the same.

5-Mixing Bowls:

When mixing all the ingredients, you should have stainless steel mixing bowls by your side. The stainless steel material won’t rust or leech out any harmful chemicals during the mixing process.

You will need a minimum of three mixing bowls. Use the small one for mixing the supplements and eggs together. The medium-sized bowl can be used to hold the ground items.

The large one can then be used for mixing up all the ingredients together.

6-Glass Freezable or Plastic Containers:

If you plan on preparing a big batch, ensure you store them in an air-tight container inside the freezer. Alternatively, you can also use Ziploc bags for the purpose.

7-Gloves (Nitrile or Latex):

Having gloves can help reduce contamination of edibles and even avoid possible cuts and bruises during the chopping or mixing process.

8-Cover the Work Space:

You can use paper, an old newspaper, or even a plastic sheet to cover the work surface. Doing this can make the cleanup process much faster and easier.

9-Kitchen Scale:

It is important to give your cat the required amount of food and nothing less or more. If you mistakenly provide your cat with more eatables, they might end up gaining more weight.

On the other hand, fewer provisions would decrease the energy levels while depriving your pet of nutritional requirements.

So, as per your veterinarian’s recommendations, ensure you feed the right amount of food by measuring it with a kitchen scale.

10-Chopping Board:

Get a chopping board that fits into your dishwasher easily for the cleaning process. In addition, the chopping board will help you with easy dicing and slicing.

11-Good Amount of Freezer Space:

When preparing in multiple batches, ensure you have a good amount of space in the freezer to avoid getting spoiled.

12-Eggs and Meat:

Keeping your pet’s health in mind, ensure you get top-quality meat and eggs for the recipe. Felines tend to refuse consuming meat that isn’t fresh.

Chicken hearts are also great for the health of your pet.

So, make sure you source them from a reliable farm.

13-Supplements:

For a homemade pet diet, supplements aren’t optional. Skipping the supplements can leave your recipe incompetent for providing enough nutrition.

With time, it can lead to serious health issues due to a lack of nutrition.

Some of the important supplements necessary for the process of making a cat diet include:

Taurine:

You can use powdered taurine for nourishment. It is generally available in capsules of 500mg combination. You can buy loose powdered taurine online as well.

Wild Small Fish or Salmon Oil:

Make sure you get this oil in the capsule version as opposed to liquid options. Once the seal is opened, this liquid might go rancid fairly quickly.

Instead, get edible gelatin capsule variants and pop them into the grinder when mixing all the ingredients.

Please refrain from using oil from the cod liver as it contains a high amount of vitamin A, leading to toxicity when consumed by felines in large amounts.

Vitamins:

When getting vitamins for your cat’s dietary needs, make sure you get the powdered version in capsule form instead of the liquid capsule variants.

Lite Salt:

Your feline friend requires some iodine to function properly. Make sure the lite salt contains a good amount of iodine. If you can’t find lite salt, you can replace it with regular table salt (iodized).

Make sure you half the salt amount when using the regular variant.

Psyllium Husk (Powdered):

This is an optional ingredient that tends to add fiber to the recipe without adding a lot of carbohydrates. If your cat has constipation issues, it might be necessary to add psyllium husk to smooth out the defecation process.

You can remove it later once the pet’s constipation issues have been resolved.

Depending on your fur friend’s age, health, current weight, and physical activities, you need to measure out the right amount of food that should be fed to your cat. Ensure that the eatables are stored properly inside the freezer.

Clean the bowls properly after mixing the ingredients to avoid contamination from food remnants from the previous batch.

As a caring pet parent, you need to know how much-wet cat food is for cats is necessary for a day and how long it takes for a cat to digest food to offer more.

If you have a dog at home, then knowing why cat food is bad for dogs help you to keep your both pet healthy.

Conclusion

Remember, your cat’s health is in your hands. So, food made with proper ingredients and nutrition in mind can help keep your cat free of any diseases in the long run. Make sure you switch the protein base regularly.

You can use options such as whole chicken, turkey, quail, pheasant, duck, Cornish hen, rabbit, fish, etc. You can also add grounded eggshells into the mix if your cat has low phosphorus in the body.