Homemade Cooked diet- did I get it right?

danaNM

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Hi everyone, I would really appreciate the insight from some of the homemade food experts here!

I've been on and off feeding my cat Toby canned commercial and homemade raw, following the Lisa Pierson recipe. The first time I used bone meal instead of bone, second time I borrowed my friend's grinder and used real bone. He seemed to do well on it, but maybe was a little constipated at first. He had cystitis about a year ago, so I am paranoid about phosphorus amounts and bladder crystals. However he just had senior blood work done and everything looked good. He's 12 years old now and is a healthy weight.

Then pandemic happened so I just switched to canned again for a while... but today tried to get back on the horse since the meat shortages seems to have calmed down and I haven't been able to find a canned food both he and I really agree on.

Lately Toby hasn't been finishing his food that quickly, and I'm a vegetarian, so the raw meat factor was causing me a lot of anxiety in general, so I decided to try a cooked version. But every time I have done this (this was only the third batch of homemade, but I made A LOT), I end up anxiously googling and wondering if I messed up somehow! I was happy to see a lot of people here doing homemade cooked diets. It seems like a lot of people compare raw to kibble... when there a homemade cooked is going to be better than many (most?) canned foods.

Does this look OK? I just discovered the amazing recipe lists here, and notice they seem pretty similar to what I did, with maybe a few differences (esp. manganese).

This was the recipe I used (again based off Lisa Pierson, but I cooked all the meat first and then added the supplements and bone meal after grinding).

I feel like all these recipes seem so simple until I actually do them, and then somehow I always end up second guessing myself!

Does this look OK?? (This was a quadruple batch):
- 12 lbs meat: 10 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, plus 2 lbs mixed hearts and gizzards. Weighed meat before baking. Included cooking liquid.
- 16 oz chicken liver
- 4.5 cups of water to compensate for losses in cooking
- 8 eggs (boiled) plus a few of the shells. I tried to soft boil them but ended up hard boiling. Oops!
- 9 tablespoons bone meal (the direct conversion from the Pierson recipe would have been 9.3 T but I reduced a bit since I added the egg shells, plus the last time Toby got bone meal he was a bit constipated).
- 40,000 mg fish oil
- 1072 mg vit E
- 4 Vit B 50 complex capsules (NOW foods)
- 8000-9000 mg Taurine (my scale only goes to g, so it was 8+ g)
- 4 tsp Morton Lite Salt w Iodine
- a couple gelatin packets (this wasn't on the recipe but have seen it added in some that call for bone meal)

I cooked the meat, chunked up some of the gizzards, then food processed the rest. I ground up the egg shells with the supplement slurry using a stick blender. I always end up adding additional water when I feed to warm it up, so I know it's a bit "dry" at the moment.

My main anxiety is over using bone meal (I am always worried I got it wrong), as well as chicken breast without the skin. I didn't want to be deboning thighs all day. But if the breast is really not ideal I will prob get thighs next time. I think once they are cooked they will be pretty easy to debone?? I was just thinking that since all the pre-mixes call for "any meat", then it shouldn't matter all that much? Going to monitor his weight as well.

I see a lot of folks here using egg shell as the calcium source. Going to look into that more... but would like to use up the bone meal I already purchased.
 

Furballsmom

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Hi!
I'm not an expert, but if your boy isn't having constipation issues any more I'm thinking you're doing ok with that part of it :)
 

MissTuna

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The reason a lot of people using eggshell other calcium carbonate is because bones and bone meals are high in phosphorus. It’s fine for kittens and young cats as they require high amount of phos in their diet. But id be cautious with senior cats and that’s why Dr Pierson kept emphasizing in her recipe that it’s not for cats with CKD. However, if your cat is perfectly healthy I don’t see anything wrong with using bone meal, as long as you keep an eye on the blood work :)
 
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danaNM

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Thanks for your response! I'm thinking for the next batch I might try it with eggshell to be on the safe side.

About a year ago we had a scare where we thought Toby might have a urinary blockage, and the ER bill for just one day of treatment would have been $4,000.... ! Thankfully it was cystitis which resolved completely, but ever since then I have been super cautious about preventing crystals!
 
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danaNM

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Sorry to revive an older thread, but I had another question...Seems like every time I make a batch of food I have new questions!

I notice the amount of bone meal vs. eggshell varies quite a bit between recipes, and I'm not sure which is best to follow.

For example, I've been following the Dr. Pierson ratios of things, and using 2.33 Tablespoons of bone meal per 3 lb of chicken muscle meat (it also bothers me that this amount is not give by weight, since the bone meal can be very fluffy or very dense). When I made it I reduced to 2 T but also threw in the egg shells from the eggs I used.

In the homecooked recipes Google drive file by mschauer mschauer (which is amazing!), the cooked chicken recipe uses only 1 Tablespoon of eggshell powder for 5.5 lbs of chicken muscle (thighs plus hearts).

Still another recipe on Recipes uses about 3 Tablespoons for 3.875 lbs of muscle meat (3 lbs thighs plus 14 oz hearts).

I know that eggshell has barely any Phosphorus, is that why there is the discrepancy? Or is it just varied to change the Ca to P ratio? I have thought that the amount of bone in the Dr. P recipe might be too high for my cat, so if I can reduce it and stay balanced that would be great.

Anyone know how many actual eggshells are needed to make up 1 Tablespoon? It would be nice if I could use the shells from the eggs that go in the recipe and account for the calcium correctly.

Also... I got some gelatin to add as well. Based on the recipe at catnutrition.org it looks like adding about 2 Tablespoons per 3 lbs of meat would be good. Does that sound right?
 
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danaNM

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To update my recipe and method, after much calculating and spreadsheeting, here's what I did! A friend did some actual measurements and found that a chicken thigh is about 88% muscle and skin. So I used that to calculate how many bone-in thighs were needed to get the right amount of muscle/skin (I worked it out as about 3.4 lbs of bone-in will yield about 3 lbs muscle/skin raw... if anyone knows otherwise please correct me!).
Here is the base recipe (Dr. Pierson's bone meal version, plus I added gelatin). This amount of bone meal should give about a 1.2 Ca:phosphorus ratio.
Poulty muscle meat (thighs preferred)3lbs
Chicken Liver3.5oz
Morton Lite Salt w/ Iodine1tsp
Bone Meal19.6grams
Fish oil (1,200 mg capsules)10000mg
Taurine2000mg
Vitamin E (400 IU) (268 mg capsules)268mg
Vitamin B-50 Complex (50 mg capsules)50mg
Water1cup
Eggs
(optional)
2eggs
gelatin (optional)2Tablespoons

I used a different technique to prepare it that was WAY more simple on my end (way fewer dishes), and I think actually got him more of the nutrition from the bones because it included more of the cartilage. I was inspired by the way people use pressure cookers. I don't have one... but did have a big pot with a tight fitting lid.

This is what I did, once the chicken was cooled it only took about an hour to prepare and clean up!
Weigh out chicken and cook fully: Cook in large pot with tight fitting lid, add the required amount of water so it stews. I cooked for about an hour for 9 lbs of thigh muscle (10.2 lbs bone-in). Allow to cool (took several hours to cool, so this could be done the day before if you wanted to plan ahead)
While thighs are cooling, weigh out and cook the liver. I cooked it with a scoop of the chicken cooking liquid in a small saucepan.
Weigh out the supplements and crush B-50 vitamin with a mortar and pestel, or rolling pin.
Remove most of the meat from the cooking liquid. Check that no bones were left in the liquid.
Add supplements (except gelatin) in the cooking liquid (cooled so nutrients aren't destroyed!)
Separate the eggs and add yolks to supplement slurry. Either save whites for recipe or cook the whites and add with meat.
Mix supplement slurry with an immersion blender. Add liver and blend.
Remove bones from muscle meat. If you stewed the meat, the meat should basically fall off the bone.
Mix supplement slurry with meat, blending some of the meat with the immersion blender, and leaving some in chunky shreds for texture.
Add gelatin if using and mix well.
Distribute into jars and freeze!
 
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danaNM

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One other question that's been bothering me. I tend to freeze the food in mason jars, then move to the fridge to thaw. In the past Toby had an issue with eating food that was too cold and regurgitating it, so I will add some hot water to the food right before feeding to warm it up and add extra water to it.

I am nervous that I might be damaging the nutrients. I tend to only add enough water to bring it to slightly warm, but I do use water straight from the kettle, so some of the food would be getting hot....

I've seen people put the food in plastic baggies and warm up in a bath of warm water... but this seems to be so wasteful of plastic bags.

What do people think? Should I try just feeding it cold again and see how he does? Or a different way of warming it? Or am I just being paranoid?
 
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danaNM

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Well, the jars have about 4-5 meals worth in them. But I could scoop it into a smaller container at each feeding and do the water bath that way.
 

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I put the jar with raw into a small pot/bowl with warmish water - heated up to 140F. It takes about 5 minutes for food to warm up, quicker when I stir it. I also add some cold water into the jar to give more moisture, I think it also speeds the warming up.
 
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danaNM

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Great, thank you!
 
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