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Lazy Orange House Cat

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I'm considering cooking for a cat who is impossible to feed. The base of his food would be the leanest ground chicken I can find, with egg. This would be cooked. Absolutely no raw anything with this cat. I need to balance this out. I can get Taurine from work, but is there a vitamin/mineral supplement that I can add that won't add vegetation, fat, or flavouring?
 

Maurey

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EZComplete can be used with cooked food. Just makes sure you keep all the juices from the meat.
 

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I'm considering cooking for a cat who is impossible to feed. The base of his food would be the leanest ground chicken I can find, with egg. This would be cooked. Absolutely no raw anything with this cat. I need to balance this out. I can get Taurine from work, but is there a vitamin/mineral supplement that I can add that won't add vegetation, fat, or flavouring?

Yes, it's called a pre-mix.

TC Feline is available in Canada: Shop Online

The TC Feline cooked meat recipe: Cooked Meat

Know Better is another brand also available in Canada: Cat Food - Know Better for Cats

With the above, all you need is the cooked meat. You don't need to add in eggs or additional supplements. Doing so may cause a nutritional balance or, in the case of too much calcium, constipation. An occasional treat of a raw egg yolk or cooked whole egg is fine.

If you want to add in some things like organs, Alnutrin might be better. A Guide To A Balanced, Homemade Cat Food - Alnutrin Supplements
 
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Lazy Orange House Cat

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EZComplete can be used with cooked food. Just makes sure you keep all the juices from the meat.
I tried EZComplete with Ramona awhile back. Nobody in the house would touch it (including the feral cat from the zoo) and I wound up throwing the entire batch out. I think I wrecked my slow cooker, too.
LTS3, I'll check those out, thanks. I want this to be as simple as possible. He has EPI, IBD and SID and digests nothing well. I want to be able to keep it as low fat and plain as I can. His naturopath wants him to eat egg, so that's why I want to include the egg.
 

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Alnutrin's pretty simple in terms of ingredients; the only thing that might not be absolutely necessary is some egg yolk powder but it sounds like that would be a plus for you. I use it with cooked meat and our cats enjoy it as longs as I don't feed the same kind to them all the time! The one downside (at least for me) is that the supplement doesn't include liver so you have to add that yourself.
 

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I second the suggestion for Alnutrin. Since everything will be cooked, you should go with a premix that adds calcium. Alnutrin seems to be a taste-neutral powder (not that I've tried it myself.) When trying to balance with my own store bought supplements, the B vitamins smell like feet. Despite my Krista's legendary adoration of feet, she did not like any batch that I added B vitamins. Better to stick with Alnutrin (or TC Feline) than try to do it yourself.

Alnutrin does require the addition of liver. If you don't want to deal with cooking liver, you can use freeze-dried liver at about 1/3 the called for amount. There's a calculation for replacing fresh with freeze-dried. But every time I've run through it with different types of freeze-dried liver, it comes out between 1/3 and 1/4. If you really want the calculation, let me know. It's not a difficult calculation. But it does require a visit to the USDA food database, and a little explanation.

All of these pre-mix powder companies have a samples program where they will send you a sample--enough to make a batch or two--for a dollar or two.
 

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daftcat75 daftcat75 , I think you're right about Alnutrin likely being neutral in taste. (Not that I've tried it myself either.)

I also have my calculations for using freeze-dried liver. It's somewhere around 5-6 grams per pound of meat but if you need the number, L Lazy Orange House Cat , I'll be glad to check it for you. (I know it's in other threads somewhere on the site as well!)
 
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Lazy Orange House Cat

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I've just ordered Alnutrin for Montgomery, so we'll see how this goes. I have to say that I'm really impressed by the customer service at Alnutrin. They took the time to answer all my questions and were very friendly.
 

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I've just ordered Alnutrin for Montgomery, so we'll see how this goes. I have to say that I'm really impressed by the customer service at Alnutrin. They took the time to answer all my questions and were very friendly.
Glad to hear it! It's a great basic supplement. I hope Montgomery likes the food.
 
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Lazy Orange House Cat

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He won't, at least not at first. He'll eat it grudgingly if he can't pick it out, and then eventually warm up to it. I just hope he can digest this. Fingers crossed!
 

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The one downside (at least for me) is that the supplement doesn't include liver so you have to add that yourself.

I started experimenting
Yes, it's called a pre-mix.

TC Feline is available in Canada: Shop Online

The TC Feline cooked meat recipe: Cooked Meat

Know Better is another brand also available in Canada: Cat Food - Know Better for Cats

With the above, all you need is the cooked meat. You don't need to add in eggs or additional supplements. Doing so may cause a nutritional balance or, in the case of too much calcium, constipation. An occasional treat of a raw egg yolk or cooked whole egg is fine.

If you want to add in some things like organs, Alnutrin might be better. A Guide To A Balanced, Homemade Cat Food - Alnutrin Supplements

I finalized my wet food recipe, but it was only supposed to be for moisture intake. Well now, none of the cats want any other wet food but the homemade stuff.

I use a meat and usually beef liver as the organ and a little bit of starch as a thickener.

Would you say all I would need to make it a balanced meal is the Alnutrin? (They still free feed on Orijen as the main source)

Your post is exactly what I was hoping to find 😄

Have 10lb of chicken waiting in the fridge right now but want to get the right vitamins first!
 

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I started experimenting



I finalized my wet food recipe, but it was only supposed to be for moisture intake. Well now, none of the cats want any other wet food but the homemade stuff.

I use a meat and usually beef liver as the organ and a little bit of starch as a thickener.

Would you say all I would need to make it a balanced meal is the Alnutrin? (They still free feed on Orijen as the main source)

Your post is exactly what I was hoping to find 😄

Have 10lb of chicken waiting in the fridge right now but want to get the right vitamins first!
Yes. Alnutrin is well suited to complete meat and organs. If you are not using bone-in meat, use the Alnutrin with Calcium. Feeding meat without a calcium supplement is the biggest mistake people can make with homemade and raw when feeding meat alone. Whatever calcium the body needs that doesn’t come from the diet comes from teeth and bones instead. 😿

Nutrition is a balance, not a finish line. So while keeping a backup food in their diet is always a good thing—to weather out supply and production interruptions and make it easier for others to care for your cats on a holiday or in a pinch— it won’t make up for an incomplete recipe.

Alnutrin seems to be flavor neutral. I haven’t tried it myself. But I never had a rejection of Alnutrin if Krista liked the unsupplemented meat first.
 
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Lazy Orange House Cat

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I'm glad its neutral. Montgomery has a nose like a bloodhound. I've had dishes pushed back toward me, I've had food spat back in my face. I've looked in his saucer to find he's neatly eaten every scrap except the new food even though I did my best to hide it. Sometimes he just sniffs it, sits back, pins his ears and gives me the stink-eye.
 
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Lazy Orange House Cat

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Okay, got the Alnutrin, have the freeze-dried liver. He has his own pot, spoon and grater. One pound of extra lean ground chicken is in the refrigerator for tomorrow evening.
 

daftcat75

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Okay, got the Alnutrin, have the freeze-dried liver. He has his own pot, spoon and grater. One pound of extra lean ground chicken is in the refrigerator for tomorrow evening.
If you’re not going to cook the meat, I would surface bake it for, well, I don’t know. But you generally don’t want to use preground meat unless it was purchased from a company that specializes in raw meat for pets. Because ground meat for humans suffers from abuses that the butchers assume you will cook away: sitting in the case too long or the grinder doesn’t get cleaned as often as it should. Unless you know and trust your butcher, a lot of the time the meat they are selling is at odds with what you should be using.

I’m sure if you search here or Google, something should come up for “surface bake” and “raw meat”.
 
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Lazy Orange House Cat

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Its going to be very well-cooked. Montgomery is not to have anything raw. His small intestine has enough issues with holding onto bacteria as it is and I've been well-warned to stay away from raw food with him. I understand that cats in the wild eat a wide variety of prey, but he is not a cat who would have survived in the wild.
 
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