Be it that you want to cater a new kind of taste for your cat or that you are suspicious of a product that's entirely made of offal in times of avian and pig flu.
Even cat's that are refusing to eat their usual food (e.g. when they are sick) sometimes react very positive to self made food.
Lots of studies indicate how superior self made cooked or raw food is compared even to the most expensive cat food. And, believe us, your furry nosed friend will also know the difference!
Alternative Cat Diet: B.A.R.F.
The so called natural diet BARF (it means both Bones And Raw Food or Biologically Appropriate Raw Food depending on who you ask) which was originally used by dog breeders has also swapped into the cat owner communities. Today a lot of cat breeders feed their cats appropriate raw food which keeps their cats stronger and healthier than with canned food. Barfing is more than a mere trend: More and more vets advice their patient's owners to try the new diet because raw food is so much closer to the original diet wild cats ate before they were domesticated.
Of course, a grown cat who ate dry and canned food all her life won't eat raw meat from one moment to the other - no matter with how much love you cooked it. The changeover from normal cat food to B.A.R.F. takes time and patience.
Therefore we advice you (especially if you only want to cook cat food as a variation to her usual food) to feed your cat diligently cooked meat enriched with some other things.
A Cat Food Recipe that you can cook Yourself:
Here is a good recipe that you can easily follow and even change on your own depending on which ingredients you have:
Ingredients (for 4 serving or 2 days):
- 200 g raw, natural (free of salt and other spices) chicken
- 10 g vegetables (for example broccoli) or (soaked) wheat bran
- 4 salmon oil capsules (for each dish one)
Preparation:
Cut the chicken into medium sized cubes (approximately 1-2 cm edge length). Remember: You want your cat to chew it and not to gobble it down.
Put it together with the hackled vegetables or the wheat bran into a pot and cover it with as little water as possible.
Heat the pot and let it boil for 5 to 10 minutes until the chicken is done. Pour off the water carefully and fill one fourth of the cat food into a clean feeding dish (The remaining three fourth of the food should cool down and be put into the fridge until you need them.).
Wait until the food is tepid. Now break the salmon oil capsule and mingle the oil with the food.
It's done. Call you cat!
PS: If you aren't disgusted by it you can also cook the giblets for your cat. Giblets and other innerts are abundant in vitamins and trace elements and also very popular among cats. So if you've got 50g of giblets you, of course, only take 150g of chicken instead of 200g.
This recipe can be changed easily. For example you can take fish instead of chicken or a different kind of vegetables.
You cat will love it!
Picture: CC 2.0 by Kai Hendry