Restarting on home-cooked food again….

I must confess I had been rather lazy….

Ever since moving house and not having a stove for 2 weeks, busy unpacking, etc., I depended solely on wet canned food (Natural Balance) for my brood.

Then, a new semester started and there was so much work….

(The above are all lame excuses, of course!)

It became so convenient to use canned food and since Dr S said this was one of the 3 brands that she would recommend, I thought it would be okay to just use them for my cats.

It took Weiwen’s photo of the healthy looking ovenbaked food she prepared and served for her cats to jolt me awake (from my lazy, hazy, crazy days of slumber – thank you, Weiwen!) and this evening, I cooked for my cats and Bobby again.

This time, I didn’t have much in the fridge, so I used chicken keel, pieces of chopped up drumstick, chicken skin, carrot and celery. The chicken is antibiotic-free (I get it from Jusco or the Cold Storage).

I steamed them in the pressure cooker, and then I thought for once, I should try blending the food, just to see if my brood would like it.

A few days ago, I made Bobby’s stir-fried chicken, but none of the cats liked it.

Right after the pressure cooking was done, I blended the food and it was all nice and warm….yum, yum…like chicken broth. Even the bones were soft enough to be completely pureed. However, raw bones are better than cooked bones because raw bones has bone marrow.

UPDATES on 11th March: It is NOT advisable to feed even finely ground bones because there may still be sharp fragments. Always debone before feeding.

Cow and Bunny ate it while it was warm. The two alphas slurped it all up. Tabs sniffed at it and walked away, looking quite disappointed. Indy, too. Bobby refused to eat any of it.

Sobs…. 2 out of 8 isn’t very good, right? That’s just a 25% success rate….you can’t even call it a “success”.

Never mind, I’d freeze the rest and try my luck tomorrow, but I thought I’d fail anyway, ‘coz these guys refuse to eat leftovers.

Pole was sleeping when the gang was having dinner, so she missed hers.

By the time she got up and daintily went into “position” to wait to be served dinner (that’s the second floor of her condo – she’d sit daintily and politely wait to be served. No noise, no mewing, just waiting…talk about being well-behaved, our kids should learn a thing or two from Lady Pole), I thought I’d just take the blended food out from the freezer and try my luck…

 I put two chunks, one home-cooked and a chunk of Natural Balance.
Pole chose the homecooked and asked for more!

I almost squealed in delight!

Yippee…..Pole is a pretty fussy eater, too.

All in, she took about 4 helpings of the home-cooked and left the Natural Balance behind.

 Even the bones were blended till a fine mash. It looks like canned food, right? But this has absolutely no preservatives at all. No seasoning, too, just the goodness of food.

I used this blender. Didn’t know it was so powerful! But I think the pressure cooking also softened all the bones.

 Indy ate it too, but I mixed home-cooked and NB for him.

 Fussy ol’ Tabs ate the mixture as well.

 And so did Tiger!

Oh, yay! Tiger is also a VERY fussy eater.

Bobby ate some later, but it had to be mixed with his Go! wetfood and his Canine Caviar kibble.

Looks like they didn’t like it when it was warm. They prefer it cold?

Can’t help reciting a poem from my childhood then…

Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot
Nine days old.

Some like it hot,
Some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot
Nine days old.

Nine days old? Er…no way. Not even ONE day old for this gang of fussy cats! But I’m so glad they ate it. Maybe I have a bunch of COOL cats, so they like cold food?

And we also had supper for the seniors when they woke up from their nap….

 Bunny loved the cold chunks as well (took it out from the freezer, it wasn’t hard, just firm).

I think I have a bunch of real cool cats here!

 Cow loved it, too.

Now, it’s all NEAT, not mixing with NB.

 Pole wanted some, too. Also neat.

 Cleo…fussy little Cleo also took it neat!

Hooray, now, this is what I call a success worth celebrating!

I broke up the remaining portions into three small Tupperware containers, and will freeze them again. I figured it would thaw faster if they are in smaller containers and I also cut them up into chunky spoonfuls.

Let’s see how it goes tomorrow. Home-cooking would be so much cheaper than feeding them canned food, and healthier too, provided we get the nutritional balance right.

A tip I learnt from an animal caregiver on how to prepare home-cooked meals that would be balanced for cats (carnivores) would be to “Think Chicken”. A carnivore would devour the whole chicken except its feathers, and in a certain order, like so:

It goes for the stomach first, to eat the predigested veges of the herbivore (chicken), so we must have some pre-cooked veges, but 5% would be enough.

Then it goes for the meat.

It also eats the organs (liver, heart, kidneys, etc.).

Lastly it chews on the bones for dessert.

Apparently, if we have ALL of the above, it ought to be balanced enough.

Just a note – isn’t nature superb that even the carnivores know it must eat its veges first, then the meat. And we humans have to learn that from research and books! How far off we are….from our natural instincts and natural intelligence….

Back to the balanced meal, for dogs, it is a different formula because dogs are omnivorous.

I’ll have to get that from Bobby…another day then. I remember it is 75% meat (and all animal parts) and 25% veggie, but let me counter-check with Bobby.

If you’re not confident about getting a right balance and are afraid your home-cooked food might be deficient in certain nutrients, you could opt for a protein rotation regimen, ie. give raw, home-cooked, wetfood and kibble – “semua taruh”.

Another tip I learnt is that cooked veggies will lose its nutrients very quickly. By the third day, what is left is only fibre and sugar. No wonder my brood wants everything fresh.

Disclaimer: The above is only based on whatever I know. Please consult your vet or animal nutritionist for expert advice.