storage of home made food?

[franciscan]

Good morning everyone!

 When making your Cats home made food, how do you store it? Fridge in a glass bowl or can you freeze it?

 Also, should kittens be given home cooked food?

~donna

 

[LTS3]

You can freeze home cooked and raw food 

Portion the food out into daily serving sizes. Some people use Ziploc-type bags, others use food storage containers (glass or plastic). Keep about two or three days worth of food in the fridge to have ready to serve and take out a frozen meal as needed, keeping in mind that it will take about a day to fully defrost in the fridge.

Kittens can eat home cooked food. They will just need to eat more of it more frequently to meet their needs.

What kind of home cooked diet are you using? One of the recipies suggested here on TCS?

 

[abbyntim]

I make three pounds of rabbit at a time. Tim eats about one ounce of that a day, mixed with other rabbit. When I make this food, I put one pound each in leftover 16-ounce cottage cheese containers (well labeled with a sharpie!) and freeze. The remaining pound, I put into eight 4-ounce jam jars (two ounces each) and freeze, as well. I take one at a time out of the freezer and thaw in the refrigerator for about 24 hours. One of these jars supplies food for two meals. My routine is to prep the meal the day before so it's always ready in the refrigerator. When I go through those jars, I thaw one of the 16-ounce containers just enough to dig out, portion into jars, and re-freeze.

I break down large containers of Rad Cat the same way: portion serving sizes into jam jars and re-freeze. The day before, I take a jar out of the freezer to thaw in the refrigerator the next day's meal.

I like the jam jars because they are glass, which I think is better for raw than plastic, they stack well, and you can buy plastic lids for them. I use a sharpie to mark the lids with "R" or "T".

 

[franciscan]

Good morning!

 I have not yet actually made any home made cat food. I have been simply giving Anna small portions of meat right now. I was thinking of asking some people I know that have a small child to save me the baby jars to store the cat food in. Do any of you put veggies in your food? I understand that cats need some sort of "green" in their food. Thank you for your help.

~donna

 

[LTS3]

. Do any of you put veggies in your food? I understand that cats need some sort of "green" in their food. Thank you for your help.

Cats don't need veggies (or fruit) in their diet. They are obligate carnivores. Why pet food companies put veggies and fruit in their products is another issue (typically as fillers or to appeal to a Human's view of what healthy food is)

Few raw or home cooked feeders here on TCS put veggies in their diet.

Some cats do enjoy eating veggies for some reason: carrots, peas, etc. As a treat, a very small piece of veggie won't hurt. The ASPCA has a list of general people food to avoid feeding: https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/people-foods-avoid-feeding-your-pets Raw meat is on the list but raw meat IS safe to feed as long as you use a safe source of meat and handle meat properly.

A safe alternative to veggies is cat grass and cat nip. Both are easy to grow, indoors or outdoors.

Keep the meat to less than 10% of the diet for now. You don't want to unbalance the diet because that may cause nutritional deficiencies.