Totally revamping my cats diet, questions about cooked meats.

my girl is a bit over weight and has tummy issues, meaning she has the runs once in a while. Right now I feed her a wonderful dry food that is grain free, but as much as i hate it she also has whiskas canned food (moms guilty for that one) I see a lot about raw diets, but would it be ok and still give her everything she needs if I bought her chicken and fish from the store and boiled it and fed her that exclusively? I would keep the dry food but substitute the canned with the meat. What do you think?

Instead of substituting the meat for the wet, why don't you substitute it for the dry?
The wet may be of a lower quality, but I can bet you it has a lower carb count than the dry food And has the proper moisture for your kitty to keep her kidneys and urinary system healthy. :nod:
As long as you keep the meat to under 15% of the whole diet, then this is perfectly fine to do, but why not save yourself a step a just feed her the raw?

Well, the Whiskas are actually about 17% carbs, which isn't great for a wet food. What grain-free kibble are you feeding? Happy to calculate the carbs for you.

But I agree with Minka - whatever it is, it's best to replace the kibble with the meat rather than the wet food with the meat. Do you want to cook it because she doesn't like it raw, or because you're afraid of pathogens? Either way, boiling is the worst option, killing off more nutrients than other methods of cooking. If you don't cook it, all you really need to supplement it with is calcium, and eggshell supplement is VERY easy and inexpensive (it's mostly calcium carbonate, which is what most pet foods use). http://knowwhatyoufeed.com/shop_online.html (scroll down to the last supplement on the page). You just need to sprinkle on 1/32 teaspoon of eggshell powder per ounce of food. (These measuring spoons make it easy - the "smidge" is 1/32 teaspoon. $5.79, free shipping. )

I don't know how much calcium or taurine you need to add to the cooked meat (not sure cooking affects the phosphorus content? :dk: ). But you would need to supplement taurine if cooking and the total amount fed is more than 15% of her diet.

You definitely need to balance the phosphorus in the meat with calcium. Meat has almost no calcium in it, and cats need a Calciumhosphorus ratio between 1:1 and 1.5:1.

I'm SURE there are home-made food recipes out there with cooked foods. :nod: In fact, I think I saw one on Holisticat.com.

If this portion of her diet would be more than 15%, you would need to include some liver in the meals, and it would be good to feed her a raw egg yolk twice a week, and a sardine (water, no salt) twice a week. You CAN feed her freeze dried liver to accomplish this. Most cats really enjoy it as a "treat."

But that's all you really need to do to make sure she's getting a balanced diet (if not cooking the meat).

Interestingly, here is today's blog post at The Conscious Cat: "More reasons to stop feeding dry food to your cats." http://consciouscat.net/2012/05/29/more-reasons-to-stop-feeding-dry-food-to-your-cats/ "If you could do one simple thing that would improve your cat’s health for the rest of her life, wouldn’t you want to do it? Well, there is. Stop feeding dry food."

Also interestingly, here is today's The Daily Vet blog, this one by vet Patrick Mahaney: http://www.petmd.com/blogs/thedaily...ish_pet_owners_understood_better#.T8UHNMXpWgQ Just scroll down to the section titled, "Your Pet May Survive, but Won’t Thrive on a Diet of Processed Foods"

Hope this wasn't confusing! Feel free to ask more questions. :lol3:

I always love seeing these threads about how people are trying to learn about how to feed their feline friend a more species appropriate diet. Good for you!!! More wet food the better - even better is adding in some fresh raw meats as well. With all of the recalls going on and my fear is that there will be always more to come, I think more and more about just home preparing all of my pets meals. AND with that supplement by Wysong "Call of the Wild" it is very easy to add in the proper nutrients to make the raw meat a complete and balanced meal. I do think that any wet food - no matter what quality - is better than any dry kibble. I know it makes me feel SO good inside knowing my kitties (my babies :rub are eating a much more healthful diet. :heart3: Good luck!!!!!

LDG said:

Also interestingly, here is today's The Daily Vet blog, this one by vet Patrick Mahaney: http://www.petmd.com/blogs/thedaily...ish_pet_owners_understood_better#.T8UHNMXpWgQ Just scroll down to the section titled, "Your Pet May Survive, but Won’t Thrive on a Diet of Processed Foods"
Hope this wasn't confusing! Feel free to ask more questions. :lol3:

Click to expand...

I truly believe this statement !!!! Thrive is what I am going for :nod: :bigthumb:

Found the Holisticat homemade cooked food information. http://www.holisticat.com/cooked.html

LDG said:

Found the Holisticat homemade cooked food information. http://www.holisticat.com/cooked.html

Click to expand...

Another thanks I have Sandy Arora's book too. I am going to spend this evening perusing Holisticat website.....