Is homemade food an option?

I'm not sure what to feed Joshua anymore. After getting diarrhea from Eukanuba and Performatrin Ultra, I thought he was doing fine on the Nutro's Natural dry food... but he started getting gas.
He actually stopped eating for more than a day, ended up at the vet's and got x-rays... that's how they found out the problem was intestinal gas (I saw the x-rays, and there was a lot of it... no wonder he wasn't feeling good). He got medication and got better. Now (a little over a week later), he was sick again at lunch time. He refused to eat at first and went hiding under the bed. I finally got him out of there, gave him some Laxatone and then he ate some of his lunch.

I do not want to have to constantly medicate him and I don't want him to have to be sick constantly.
I looked into getting better quality, easy to digest food (Natural Balance, Wellness) but both of them are insanely expensive around here. It would cost me at least $60-70 a month to feed both my cats on this. Many other brands are just not available here.

I don't want to have to go back to the prescription food since it is nothing but fillers and chicken by-products.

More importantly, I just want to feed my cats decent quality food without having to take a second morgage on my house (ok, I don't actually have a house but you know what I mean!)

Is feeding homemade food an option? I am more than willing to put the time and effort in researching proper nutrition, finding out which ingredients are easily digestible and so on.
Does anyone here have experience with homemade cat food? Any resources you could recommend?
Or is this just a crazy idea?

No, it's not crazy at all. What do you think people did before commercial cat foods? I've heard of people making up their own recipes for their cats. But I'm sorry, I don't, so I haven't got any specific recommendations. I googled "homemade cat food recipes" and got quite a few hits. Many looked interesting.

try this site...I do urge you to discuss this more in depth with a vet ... oh and what store s do you have ... so might have something that could be used... what $$ range do you need to stay in??? you may need to stay away from chn since I have found next to soy and wheat it can be a gas maker... http://www.holisticat.com/rxdiets.html site

right now just for sake of removing possibles I would try something like egg and rice or lamb and rice or bison if you can get it .... My sensitive girl is on feline caviar and evo mixed.. the old one is one dog cat and homeade wet of various meats..

these are the two recipes i used before, it's not cheap either
http://www.catfood.catnutrition.org/CatFoodRecipe.pdf
http://www.felinefuture.com/products/

Originally Posted by HUNTER

these are the two recipes i used before, it's not cheap either
http://www.catfood.catnutrition.org/CatFoodRecipe.pdf
http://www.felinefuture.com/products/

Click to expand...

those are intresting Hunter..

Thanks for the tips. I think I'm actually more comfortable with cooked meat. Raw meat scares me because of the risk of bacterial problems.

I'm looking at many different recipes... I kind of like this one:
http://www.api4animals.org/508.htm
does it seem good?

what protein source would be less likely to cause diarrhea, gas or other digestive problems?
chicken?
turkey?
lamb?
eggs?
beef?
fish? (tuna or sardines)

I fed Joshua some canned Iams food made with lamb once and he wouldn't eat it at all. I don't think he likes lamb very much... (can't blame him, that stuff smells awful!). I could still try it though.

I think I'd need to find the proper balance between providing variety and keeping it simple to prevent digestive problems.

also what kind of vegetables? I think onions, tomatoes, eggplants and a few others are bad for cats. But among the ones that are ok, any of them easily digestible?

(I am doing my own research as well, I might find answers to some of these questions before anyone answers, but second opinions are always good! )

I would just suggest you get Dr. Strombeck's book on home-cooked diets, and then pick one with your vet, that they feel would be most appropriate. When I broached the subject with my vet (for one of my cats) and showed her a published on the net diet by Dr. Strombeck, turns out he had been a professor of hers

Anyhoo..I think buying the book would be helpful.

also one problem with homemade food is that sometimes they don't take it right away and still need to be mixed with premium wet food until completely switched over, best thing to do is to make a small batch and try it out.

Seems like most of the recipes ask for some rice.
Is a little bit or rice necessary? Or is it completely useless?

It's not completely useless, and I'd rather see rice than corn anyday

Before you go this route, just to stay educated, please read this article


http://www.thecatsite.com/Cats/Cat_H...almonella.html

Originally Posted by hissy

Before you go this route, just to stay educated, please read this article


http://www.thecatsite.com/Cats/Cat_H...almonella.html

Click to expand...

Just to clarify, though this is still an issue to consider, we - at least I - am referring to cooked, homecooked diets, not raw.

Originally Posted by hissy

Before you go this route, just to stay educated, please read this article


http://www.thecatsite.com/Cats/Cat_H...almonella.html

Click to expand...

thanks for the article.

I was already strongly leaning towards cooked food and that further confirmed my impression.
I knew that raw chicken can give people salmonela but I wasn't sure if it was the case for cats too. I'll make sure to cook all the meat throughly. Better safe than sorry!

I recommend the book "Dr. Pitcairn's Guide to Natural Health For Dogs And Cats". It's full of recipes (which I don't use myself because of the low meat content) and recommendations. Well worth the money it costs and the time it takes to read it.