Home-cooked May Be A Hit !!!

darg

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I just finished my first batch of Homemade with Alnutrin (with eggshell calcium). I finally tracked down Turkey thighs locally. Only prepared one thigh which weighed in at 19.2 ounces (454 grams) and about 1.3 ounce (36 grams) of chicken liver (cant find turkey liver locally). I based the ratio of meat to liver and amount of Alnutrin from the simple chicken thigh recipe on the Alnurtin website. If I did the math right (I think I did, hopefully), it came out to 7.8 grams of Alnutrin. I partially cooked (baked) the turkey thigh and liver. I think I'll cook the Turkey a little less next time but I'd say it was maybe 60% cooked. I cooked the turkey thigh with the skin on but discarded the skin afterwards.

I only added a couple ounces of water in addition to the drippings from the turkey. I cut the turkey into small cubes and processed in the old food processor. I ended up with a moist but not soggy pate. I figure that I can add a little of water at feeding if need be.

I only fed about a tablespoon with one freeze dried turkey morsel crumbled on top but it appeared to be a hit. He cleaned the plate. Honestly, I was shocked. Especially because he's never eaten table scraps of chicken or turkey. He always rejected them outright. I don't want to celebrate too quickly because he's a finicky beast with IBD (and potential problems with chicken) but hopefully I can add this to his diet of canned and commercial raw. It will definitely save me some money.

If someone finds an error with my math in regards to how much Alnutrin I used, please let me know. I know that's important.

Also, not sure how to figure out the calories per weight of the food.
 
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lisahe

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Very glad to hear this, darg! Our cats just love Alnutrin, I'm so glad I finally started making it a few months ago.

I use the premeasured packets to avoid dealing with the math so am not sure what to say about your calculations!

Fingers crossed that your cat continues to enjoy his food!
 

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Hey darg
That’s great that the food is a hit!
I think it sounds like you did fine.

At the website of the Alnutrin manufacturer,
knowwhatyoufeed.com
They have a nutrient calculator where you put in the types and percentages of the ingredients in the cat food recipe you want to make, and it tells you how much of each ingredient, including how much Alnutrin, to use. It then gives a breakdown of the nutrients and calories.
 
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darg

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Hey darg
That’s great that the food is a hit!
I think it sounds like you did fine.

At the website of the Alnutrin manufacturer,
knowwhatyoufeed.com
They have a nutrient calculator where you put in the types and percentages of the ingredients in the cat food recipe you want to make, and it tells you how much of each ingredient, including how much Alnutrin, to use. It then gives a breakdown of the nutrients and calories.
I didn't even see that. I'll look for it.

Thanks. That helps a great deal.
 
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darg

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Well, I spoke too soon and jinxed it. He's not big on the homemade at all. I can get him to eat it if I mix a small amount in with his Rawz canned with some freeze dried crumbled on top but he won't touch it otherwise.

He has shown more interest in the Stella and Chewy's Selects. He's not entirely thrilled about it but at least showing some interest. The Selects look like a very finely ground turkey but they also contain a good deal of probiotic fermentation products. I'm guessing that those add some flavoring too.

I bit the bullet and spent 28 bucks on a manual grinder and I'm going to try grinding the turkey rather than using the food processor. Hoping it's more of a texture thing seeing how he seems at least somewhat interested in the S&C Selects. I'm still going to partially cook the Turkey but a bit less than last time. I don't have a great feeling about the manual grinder (especially for the skin) but I'm still not prepared to invest in an electric since I have no use for it besides making cat food and I'm still skeptical that he will ever really want to eat it.

Shouldn't have spoken so soon and gotten my hopes up. A bit discouraged but I'm not giving up yet. He's a frustrating beastie.
 

lisahe

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Yes, texture can make all the difference! If you can pull the meat, to make shreds, he might really like that. (Our pickier cat loves pulled meat, probably because it takes so long to pull!) I mix things up with texture of cooked meats: pulled shreds, cut chunks of various shapes, minced by knife, minced by processor, thoroughly chopped and nearly pureed by processor, etc.

I don't blame you about not wanting to invest in a big grinder. I don't think I would, either, even if I were making raw food: like you, I'd be skeptical that our pickier cat would continue to eat the food!
 
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darg

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Yes, texture can make all the difference! If you can pull the meat, to make shreds, he might really like that. (Our pickier cat loves pulled meat, probably because it takes so long to pull!) I mix things up with texture of cooked meats: pulled shreds, cut chunks of various shapes, minced by knife, minced by processor, thoroughly chopped and nearly pureed by processor, etc.

I don't blame you about not wanting to invest in a big grinder. I don't think I would, either, even if I were making raw food: like you, I'd be skeptical that our pickier cat would continue to eat the food!
Thanks lisahe.

I can try some pulled and some chunks but he has never touched any of the chunky or shredded wet foods. He licks the gravy sometimes but won't even try a nugget or a shred. The only exception is rehydrated freeze dried. He prefers them dry but he'll still wolf them down if they are rehydrated. Honestly, if the freeze dried wasn't so expensive I'd probably just give in and make that his staple. He'd become a freeze dried addict but if he tolerated the bone, I could live with it. Outside of that, he will only eat the pates and it seems the closer to a puree the better. But I'll give it a shot anyway. You never know.

If I can come up with a homemade that he will readily accept even if it had to be mixed in with some canned, I could live with that. That's about where he is with the S&C selects.
 
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lisahe

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Thanks lisahe.

I can try some pulled and some chunks but he has never touched any of the chunky or shredded wet foods. He licks the gravy sometimes but won't even try a nugget or a shred. The only exception is rehydrated freeze dried. He prefers them dry but he'll still wolf them down if they are rehydrated. Honestly, if the freeze dried wasn't so expensive I'd probably just give in and make that his staple. He'd become a freeze dried addict but if he tolerated the bone, I could live with it. Outside of that, he will only eat the pates and it seems the closer to a puree the better. But I'll give it a shot anyway. You never know.

If I can come up with a homemade that he will readily accept even if it had to be mixed in with some canned, I could live with that. That's about where he is with the S&C selects.
Yes, the bone is a huge consideration for us, too, which is why we've switched to mostly Primal pork (6% bone) and smaller amounts of Northwest Naturals (10% bone) for just one meal a day. The S&C Selects are great since they're boneless.

If your cat is like ours, you probably need more feeding modes. For us that's homemade and a little canned. In your case, maybe you could mix freeze-dried with canned or homemade? (Our cats don't really like to mix modes but it seems like your cat does.)

BTW, what is your cat's name? ;)
 
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darg

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Yes, I'm mixing freeze dried with canned now. And also canned with the S&C selects. He hates the Primal raw frozen turkey but I keep trying every so often. But just a couple of those small nuggets mixed in with canned and he'll usually eat a few bites and walk away. The Primal is 50% less than the S&C selects so it would be nice if he'd eat it but he wants nothing to do with saving me a few pennies.

Right now he's been getting 1 or 1 1/2 of the S&C select patties mixed in with his canned once or twice a day plus a few S&C freeze dried nuggets mixed in with his canned throughout the day (I feed 3X per day). Maybe a dozen or so of the freeze dried nuggets per day, total. They are about 4 calories per nugget so maybe 20-25% of his calories come from the freeze dried with the bone. I think I'm comfortable with that. He isn't having any tummy issues anyway.

If I could substitute homemade for the Selects and maybe get him to 40 or 50% homemade over time, I think I'd be happy with that. Both from a diet perspective and saving a couple of bucks a week. If it doesn't work out, I think he's getting a pretty good diet now between the Selects, good canned (Rawz and S&C) and the freeze dried.
 
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darg

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So, an hour after lunch today he's still hungry. I take a cube of the homemade, cut it in half (about 1/2 ounce), warm it and crumble up a freeze dried morsel and mix it in. Figure he's going to walk away as usual but no, he eats it. He's maddening. :)

PS. His name is Gizmo
 

lisahe

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So, an hour after lunch today he's still hungry. I take a cube of the homemade, cut it in half (about 1/2 ounce), warm it and crumble up a freeze dried morsel and mix it in. Figure he's going to walk away as usual but no, he eats it. He's maddening. :)

PS. His name is Gizmo
Your Gizmo sounds like our Ireland! I'm glad he ate the food, though. (The real trick is to find out what will make him finish his lunches for several days in a row. Consistency is where it's tough with Ireland.)
 
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darg

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I got the manual grinder a couple of days ago and made my second attempt at homemade yesterday. Deboned and removed half the skin from two turkey thighs. Just shy of 2 lbs before cooking. I baked, covered, at 350 degrees for about 24 minutes, turning the thighs over half way through. One thight was thicker than the other and got cooked a little more, maybe 50%. The larger one a little less, maybe 40% cooked through. Collected all the drippings and put the thighs in the fridge to cool. Cut them into chunks and stuck them in the freezer for a few minutes to firm up.

The manual grinder worked great. I was really surprised. I sent the turkey through twice, once with the coarse plate then a second time with the medium/fine plate. It even did a good job with the skin. I used freeze dried turkey liver this time and also a small amount of pumpkin (only 2%). I used the fresh / freeze dried conversion chart on the rawcalc site. Crumbled up the liver and mixed it and the pumpkin in with the turkey, drippings, water and Alnutrin. Ended up having a texture much closer to the S&C Selects than my first batch. Spooned into ice cube trays and froze. Then stored the blocks in a couple of freezer bags.

Jury is still out but he gobbled up a small snack of it mixed in with some canned very early this morning. Right now as long as I mix 2:1 canned to the S&C Selects raw he will eat it. So, I did the same 2:1 canned to the homemade and he cleaned the plate (only about 20 calories). Fed him his morning meal just now with the same ratio and he cleaned the plate. I do still crumble in a couple of S&C freeze dried morsels into his wet foods and don't plan on changing that. But in the near term, I'd like to get to 50/50 canned, homemade.

We'll see how it goes.
 
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darg

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Primal and S&C are tooooo expensive!!!
Yes, they are expensive. But it's not so bad if they are fed as supplements to more affordable foods. Right now I'm working on getting to half canned and half homemade. But I'll continue to use the S&C freeze dried raw as a topper and occasional treat on it's own. And I'll probably continue to buy the S&C selects for some variety. I only have one cat, not multiple cats, so it's manageable money wise.
 

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The Stella and chewy freeze dry are killing me with the bone content it’s totally constipating my one girl and I have had to add miralax to her wet food to compensate....
 
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darg

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The Stella and chewy freeze dry are killing me with the bone content it’s totally constipating my one girl and I have had to add miralax to her wet food to compensate....
How much of it are you feeding? Maybe you can cut back on it?

I noticed my cats stools had less volume and a little drier after switching from dry food only to high quality canned plus the S&C freeze dried. When I started to add in some commercial raw and the home-made I'm making, the stool frequency decreased a little bit. He seems to poop every 1.5 days compared to his pooping once a day when he was on all dry food (Blue Buffalo sensitive stomach). When he was younger, he ate Young Again dry for a while and pooped every other day.

At any rate, there is no bone in the commercial raw that I'm feeding (S&C selects) or the home-made that I make. The only bone he gets is in the S&C freeze dried raw but it accounts for maybe 20% of the calories he eats per day. He doesn't seem to have any problems going.
 

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The Stella and chewy freeze dry are killing me with the bone content it’s totally constipating my one girl and I have had to add miralax to her wet food to compensate....
Yes, those seem very bony! One of our cats gets constipated on foods that are 10% bone and only fed once or twice a day. (Our cats are fed five times a day so that's not much...) Even after cutting way back on bone, to just one Primal meal with just 6% bone, I'm still giving her small amounts of pumpkin (now reduced) in two meals a day. That seems to work.

Like darg darg , I feed a lot of homemade plus the S&C Selects, all of which are boneless. That leaves the Primal meal (6% bone) and a canned meal (varying bone).

Beyond something like pumpkin, you could try egg yolk powder. I'm not sure if that helps Ireland or not but she likes it! Cats' motility decreases with age, meaning that constipation can increase, so reducing bone content has been a priority. Ireland gets cranky and loses her appetite when she's constipated -- she does still poop, though since the cats are fed very meaty food, much of it raw, they don't poop much at all.

Good luck, cat princesses, this can be a tricky one.
 
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darg

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In terms of canned, I'm feeding more of the Rawz canned now than I am the S&C canned because Gizmo prefers the Rawz. But the S&C canned does have some pumpkin. I've also been adding 3% pumpkin in the homemade I've be making. I don't know how much is in the S&C and the 3% in my homemade isn't much but maybe those are both helping offset any constipation issue from the bone in the S&C freeze dried (and whatever may be in the canned, if any).
 

lisahe

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Wow, 3% pumpkin sounds like quite a bit to me! Then again, like so many other things, pumpkin may act differently on different cats. Our cats get a total of less than 1/8 of a teaspoon a day, per cat, and when I increased Ireland's pumpkin a tiny bit for a few days, she seemed to get a little constipated all over again! Pumpkin's used for both constipation and diarrhea so it can be tricky to find the right balance.

I think/hope I've found the right amount, though I'd really rather not have to feed pumpkin at all! I may try not feeding it when we run out, though I'm not sure how wise an idea that would be since cats' digestion can be so mysterious. :dunno:
 
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darg

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3% works out to 14 grams of pumpkin per 454 grams (1lb.) of the finished food. Considering that close to half of the food that he gets contains no pumpkin at all, he's really not getting much pumpkin. If I get him eating more of the homemade I'll reduce the pumpkin.
 
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