Question For Those Who Make Their Own Homemade Wet Cat Food

Would some minced chicken with a bit of salt be enough? How do you make your homemade wet cat food? Thanks.

By "wet" do you mean canned?

"Wet" usually just means anything that's high in moisture. I don't know of anyone who makes their own canned food, but many people here make their own raw or cooked recipes.

No, it wouldn't be okay to just add salt to minced chicken. Cats don't need added salt to their diet and the lack of essential nutrients would cause your cat to suffer malnutrition and eventually die.

If you're going to make homemade food you have to do a lot of research and make sure you're adding the right amount of all of the essential nutrients. There are lots of established recipes posted on these forums. Check out catinfo.org for more good recipes and info.

There are also numerous premixes you can add to boneless meat that can ease you into homemade. If you’re lucky, your cats might like EZ Complete which will allow you to balance a single serving of boneless meat or make large batches.

I encourage you to read through how to make it at one of the sites below. Then when you understand that it’s not just meat that’s needed to keep a cat healthy, a premix can ease you into homemade before taking the full do it yourself approach.

Feeding Your Cat: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition – Common Sense. Healthy Cats.
https://feline-nutrition.org/

divyanka2111 said:

Would some minced chicken with a bit of salt be enough? How do you make your homemade wet cat food? Thanks.

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Chicken, with or without salt, is not a complete nutritious diet for a cat. It lacks all the essential vitamins and minerals a cat needs.

"Home made" food is moist, both raw and cooked foods. If you mean cooked, then yes the mixture is wet. I don't think anyone here cans their homemade diet mixture. The mixture is just frozen into serving portions. A portion is taken out to thaw as needed and then fed.

The easiest way to make a homemade cooked or raw diet is to use plain boneless skinless meat of your choice (chop or grind yourself. Never use the already ground meat from the supermarket) and add in a pre-mix and some water. The pre-mix contains all the vitamins and minerals. EZComplete is a popular one and you get get a small sample bag to try, Food Fur Life - EZ Homemade raw food for pets!

LTS3 said:

use plain boneless skinless meat of your choice (chop or grind yourself. Never use the already ground meat from the supermarket)

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My rule of thumb is slightly different, mostly because I don't have a processor or grinder. I will buy boneless grind but only if it's frozen. I won't touch boneless grind in the refrigerated section. Many supermarkets use gases or chemicals or packaging to make refrigerated meat look a little fresher than it is. They want to sell old meat because spoilage is expensive. They lose that incentive with frozen meat. And if your cats enjoy red meats, there are a bunch of beef burger alternatives (wild boar, elk, bison, lamb) available in the frozen section as 1 lbs boneless grinds.

Azazel said:

By "wet" do you mean canned?

"Wet" usually just means anything that's high in moisture. I don't know of anyone who makes their own canned food, but many people here make their own raw or cooked recipes.

No, it wouldn't be okay to just add salt to minced chicken. Cats don't need added salt to their diet and the lack of essential nutrients would cause your cat to suffer malnutrition and eventually die.

If you're going to make homemade food you have to do a lot of research and make sure you're adding the right amount of all of the essential nutrients. There are lots of established recipes posted on these forums. Check out catinfo.org for more good recipes and info.

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This would be in addition to dry food, not the only food

Everything we've said still applies. Meat alone is not balanced nutrition. For starters, meat lacks calcium in sufficient amounts. But it's not just, "well, he gets calcium from dry food." The ratio of calcium to phosphorus in the diet is also important. Too much phosphorus from meat and not enough calcium from bone or supplementation can make his body too acidic. Calcium isn't just for supporting teeth and bones but also building a store of base to balance out acid in the body.

The easiest thing to do would be to order some EZ Complete or ask for samples (most of the premix companies will send samples or sell samples for cheap) and add that to a serving of meat: 1 scoop of EZ Complete to 1.5 ounces of meat to make a 2 oz serving of food. As far as I know, EZ Complete is the only one that can balance a single serving. Everything else has to be added to 1 lb of boneless meat (or more) to make batches of food.

Food Fur Life - EZ Homemade raw food for pets!

divyanka2111 said:

This would be in addition to dry food, not the only food

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Then it would be considered a treat and shouldn’t make up more than 10% of the cat’s daily diet. You can feed plain cooked chicken as a treat, no salt or other spices/additives.

Azazel said:

Then it would be considered a treat and shouldn’t make up more than 10% of the cat’s daily diet. You can feed plain cooked chicken as a treat, no salt or other spices/additives.

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It's difficult to assess what 10% is when the other 90% is dry food. 1 ounce of cooked chicken is approximately 50 calories. So for every 225 calories of nutritionally complete cat food, he can have a 1/2 ounce (14 grams) of cooked chicken without any seasonings.