Back when the tainted petfood scandal broke earlier this year, I resolved to make my own catfood. (Which is to say, I would continue to eat my own regular food, but I would make catfood for my cats).
It wasn’t until I met someone who did it herself that I was inspired to take the plunge. My Northern Industrial Tools Electric Meat Grinder finally arrived, and I took it for a test drive with a whole chicken I bought.
I’m a squeamish city boy not used to handling wildlife. Never seen a whole chicken before (except at the petting zoo). I was surprised to find a little paper bag full of organs inside the chicken– quite a convenience! I had no idea chickens had evolved to the point where their vital organs grew in paper bags.
It was hard not to anthropmorphize the chicken. Peeling the skin off was a bit of a chore. It reminded me of trying to wrestle the dress off a… well never mind.
I also discovered the importance of having a good sharp knife (I don’t). After a few minutes of hacking the chicken ceased looking like a prom date and more like Alien.
I worried about the bones. This grinder is not rated for bone crushing, but my informant assured me it handles chicken bones without a problem. So it does. First I sent the bones through using the coarse filter, but found the bone fragments a little big for my comfort. So I sent it all though again using the fine filter, so that the resulting bone fragments had a consistency of fine sand.
My recipe was simple. I added water and taurine; there are other things I could (and should) add in like psyllum, once I get them.
But the proof of the pudding was in the eating… of which there has so far been little. All my indoor cats have so far turned up their noses, but the ferals outside love it.
The problem I think is that they’re addicted to dry food. I started feeding Purina One for Sensitive Systems to Squid, who has a sensitive tummy, and when everyone turned out to like it, I just fed that to everyone by default. So training them out of the dry food habit will be a chore.
Here are links to the instructions I followed:
http://www.catnutrition.org/pictorial.php
http://www.catinfo.org/makingcatfood.htm
And here is a really excellent and detailed blog post about the ins and outs of making your own catfood. I highly recommend it.