Came up with something Palomine will eat... opinions?

[krdahmer]

Ok so I tried something the other day for Palomine ( the one who refuses to eat the dry food) and he went nuts for it, I'm just wondering if it has enough stuff for him.

Ingredients: (this is the second batch- I made it much larger than the first)

3 cooked chicken breasts
6 large hard boiled eggs
3 tbsp. cottage cheese
3 tbsp. plain yogurt
1 tbsp. catnip
1 ribbon of kitty vite around the bowl
1/2 cup water

I take all that and just puree it in the food processor. I split it up into about 6 cups and freeze it, each one does 2 days.

He actually seems to be a little less desperate for food now, like he is getting some nutrients. He will eat Merrick canned as well, I just don't think I could afford a diet strictly of that.

I know many of you are making your own food, so what do you think?

[mummummum]

I'm not very familiar with home prepared diets for kitties and can't say I know what "kitty vite" is but I would add cod-liver oil to get a preformed source of arachidonic acid as well as seafood or heart as a better taurine source. I'm also a believer in raw veggies but that's my

[BMDLuver]

Kitty vite is basically a vitamin booster. The diet above is high in protein, low in carbs.. you might want to try to get some starch in their ie. pasta, potatoes or rice.. also, I think you can buy a taurine supplement to add. Definitely need some additional omega in there as well, just a half caplet of salmon oil should help with that per serving. Cats are really a whole new world in raw to me so others may have much better advice.

[sugarcatmom]

I agree with BMDLuver that you need to add a taurine supplement (you can get capsules at health food stores), and salmon oil is a great idea (better than cod-liver oil, which I think tends to be too high in vit A or something). But please don't add any starch, cats do just fine without the carbs.

[krdahmer]

Thanks guys, I'll definitely try the taurine supplement and salmon oil. I did however not add the carbs on purpose... especially after the big food scare this year, I'm not comfortable adding rice and the like. I just grabbed the kitty-vite because the pet store was all out of the multi-vitamin. I was also thinking of adding some of the dry food I feed so that he has something to crunch in it to clean his teeth, and perhaps get him back onto the dry a bit too.

[Jim Hall]

could palomine perhaps have a dental issue
one of my cats suddenly refuse any of the dry food and we found out she had a dental problem that was making her mouth sore

[krdahmer]

I don't think so, I mean he had no problem chewing on some chicken bones my hubby accidentally left out.

[PetFriendly]

I think I would leave the carbs out too, unless they came from some sort of fruit or veggie... You might want to try sweet potato, apples, pears? That is a carb their bodies are designed/have evolved to digest.

[sugarcatmom]

Originally Posted by krdahmer

I don't think so, I mean he had no problem chewing on some chicken bones my hubby accidentally left out.

Or maybe he just knows dry food isn't good for him!

There is one thing that might be a concern if you were to feed this recipe long term and that's the calcium to phosphorus ratio. I realize that the dairy ingredients might partly be there to add calcium, but dairy also contains phosphorus (in fact, cottage cheese has twice as much phosphorus as calcium).

According to the latest (2006) National Research Council report on feline nutrition, cats should be getting a ratio of 1.125 (so, 180mg of calcium and 160mg of phosphorus per 9 lb cat per day). Your recipe is heavy on the phosphorus side (chicken has a ration of 0.09, so very little calcium). You could add bone meal, but I'd have no idea how much unless you were to calculate all the values for the various ingredients. So ya, are you sure you don't just want to feed a good canned food? I don't want to discourage you from making your own, but raw is actually easier cause you can use bones for the calcium.

[krdahmer]

I might try raw for him, and he does get Merrick's as well. It was just that when I switched foods this last time he went through a little period where he turned his nose up at everything, so the eggs really got him back to eating. (I tired the cat nip on the dry and on the Merricks and he still wouldn't eat either...once I gave him the egg stuff he was happier to eat the merricks too.) I can cut out the cottage cheese I just added it cause he loves to eat mine if I leave it unattended.

He's also going to the vet for a check up in the near future so I may ask them to check his teeth and take in a poo sample (although good luck to me getting one... with six I can't tell whose is whose and when I seperate them, they refuse to go... ).