[mumofstig]

Does anyone feed their cat a home prepared diet?
My fussy cat is turning her nose up at most commercial cat food atm - but quite happily eats meat and chicken I've cooked for myself 

I've done a bit of Googling, but I'm still not clear what else I need to add, cos I can't grind bones and neither does Lucycat  and she doesn't like raw meat, either. 

[allotmentann]

My cat has all home prepared food. Commercial food makes him sick. You need to make sure that they get plenty of taurine especially, liver is one of the best sources of that, but you also need to be careful not to feed too much liver as they can get a build up of vitamin a. My cat happily eats raw liver, which preserves the most taurine. You can buy taurine as a supplement and add it if you are worried, if they will not eat raw meat you do need to be sure they are getting enough.  Google sued effects if not enough taurine, they are nasty. I have been feeding my cat this way for a couple of  years now. I have no intention of grinding bones, he will eat raw chicken on the bone quite happily, but I usually cook it and then pick it off the bone. Because I do this to supplement the calcium in his diet I buy sardines in spring water as all the bones are in that sort of fish. So each day he eats mainly cooked chicken, a little raw liver or other offal or red meat and a portion of sardine. He has been a completely different cat since I changed his diet, he no longer gets sick, his coat is beautiful, he has stopped getting itchy ears and the added bonus from my point if view is that what comes out the other end is completely none smelly and is no worse than cleaning up after a rabbit. And just to top everything if, it is cheaper than buying commercial pet food.   

[allotmentann]

The other advantage with feeding home prepared is that you very easily work out what causes problems, for example sardines suit my cat, but mackerel and tuna especially make his ears itch like mad. 

[Casey76]

Most cats need "retraining" to eat raw meat, especially if they are not natural hunters.

Chicken hearts are a good source of taurine without the vitamin A issue - not sure how easy they are to come across in the UK though 

If you don't want to go completely home prepared, you can get cereal free commercial food from zooplus.co.uk, though you may find it's cheaper to make your own in the end.

[Goosegirl]

Most cats need "retraining" to eat raw meat, especially if they are not natural hunters.

Chicken hearts are a good source of taurine without the vitamin A issue - not sure how easy they are to come across in the UK though 

If you don't want to go completely home prepared, you can get cereal free commercial food from zooplus.co.uk, though you may find it's cheaper to make your own in the end.

Chicken hearts - interesting! Our cats have chicken IAMS and are all fine with it. Source of chicken hearts - ask your local butcher to save you some.

[Auntiemogs]

I looked into it, but it was far too complicated for me.    Mine ate Iams for years, but are now addicted to Purina Pro Plan (salmon flavour).  I don't know what they put in it, but it must be very rare to charge so much!

[Trillium]

It's called advertising Auntiemogs 

[Casey76]

I looked into it, but it was far too complicated for me.    Mine ate Iams for years, but are now addicted to Purina Pro Plan (salmon flavour).  I don't know what they put in it, but it must be very rare to charge so much!

Mine get whatever is on special offer. With three to feed I seem to get through an awful lot of food, though less now that I have an auto dispenser on a timer, which provides a little food (about 1oz) 4x per day.  Of course they also have a sachet of wet food (each) twice a day and they let me know LOUDLY if I'm behind schedule lol!

I did try to switch them to a raw diet a few years ago, but I kept finding chicken wings mouldering away underneath the sofa, so that plan went out of the window.

They do regularly supplement their provided food with their own: mice, voles (which are HUGE) and fish being the favourites.  Certainly not my favourites, especially when they are eaten on the (fabric) sofa or my bed!

[joyfull]

sometimes the high cost of a dry food is to cover the costs of research and testing (my dogs have a grain free, rice free, egg and chicken free dry food because of intolerances and the high meat percentage in their food is all human grade food which has rigorous testing so is quite high in money compared to some makes but it is really high quality).

[Goosegirl]

I looked into it, but it was far too complicated for me.    Mine ate Iams for years, but are now addicted to Purina Pro Plan (salmon flavour).  I don't know what they put in it, but it must be very rare to charge so much!

Mine get whatever is on special offer. With three to feed I seem to get through an awful lot of food, though less now that I have an auto dispenser on a timer, which provides a little food (about 1oz) 4x per day.  Of course they also have a sachet of wet food (each) twice a day and they let me know LOUDLY if I'm behind schedule lol!

I did try to switch them to a raw diet a few years ago, but I kept finding chicken wings mouldering away underneath the sofa, so that plan went out of the window.

They do regularly supplement their provided food with their own: mice, voles (which are HUGE) and fish being the favourites.  Certainly not my favourites, especially when they are eaten on the (fabric) sofa or my bed!

I have four to feed, and one pushes the IAMS out of the dishes so it lodges behind them - like the idea of an auto-feeder - what is it called? We don't use wet food now as they didn't eat much so wasted a lot. Being amongst farmland, ours also supplement their diet with mice, voles, birds ( ) the remains of which are left in various places. Bird feathers are a particular item of fun to be left on the carpet just after I have hoovered it! 

[Casey76]

I have this feeder - except it has a different name on it.

I have it set to deliver food at 6am, 12pm,  6pm and 12am, and it's on constantly.  My dry food bills have decreased by at least 50%, and my cats don't look so porky (not that they've ever been fat - they get too much exercise climbing my trees and chasing each other round the garden).

I top it up about once every 2 weeks (it holds about 3-4kg of feed depending on how big the kibbles are), but it is only suitable for completely dry food.  I think something like Science Plan, which is slightly soft might go off.

My cats soon adopted to the, slightly noisy, vibrations it goes through just before dispensing the food, and now go running to the feeder when they hear it.

[mumofstig]

Thanks all.

[grendel]

we have 6 cats, they have Asdas tiger brand (1x24 pack a week) pretty much 3-4 tins a day, tinned is the cheapest option as for us it works out to £10 a week. dry biscuits they get occasionally as treats (we have had a couple of the boys get urinary track blockages in the past using just dry food).
Grendel

[Muppetgirly]

I have this feeder - except it has a different name on it.

That looks awesome! I have one that will only eat biscuits and one that will only eat the bog standard felix sachets!
Neither seem to like raw meat that much, but they do get some left over cooked meats and fish at dinner time as a treat.