Hi All,

I have been feeding one of my cats a home made diet for some months as he is allergic to beef, and is very fussy as to what packeted/tinned foods he will eat.

I read the sticky post about feeding a raw diet, which is full of good advice about the need for a properly balanced diet, which applies whether the food is raw or cooked. Hobbs, in an earlier post, also gave me some advice about prepared foods from Germany I might try my cat on.

The update is I ordered various tinned or packeted wet foods from Germany for him to try -- Ropocat, Petnatur, Om nom nom, Schmusy, Vom Feinsten, to name a few, and he would not touch any of them. So I am back to giving him Feline Fayre Chicken & Ham, which he likes, as well as feeding him homecooked turkey or chicken.

I had no luck in tracking down chicken hearts, nor can I find anywhere selling giblets in quantity. But I am pleased to say my cat is eating lamb's kidney, so I add a small amount of it to his turkey and chicken. I haven't managed to get him to eat lamb's heart yet, and only occasionally feed chicken livers because of the high Vit A content. I hope I am giving him enough variety of offal, so he gets what his body needs.

The ratio for a home cooked diet (or raw diet) should be 80% meat, 10% offal and 10% bone. The bone part I haven't managed to resolve. I can't used bonemeal supplement as it is a beef product and he is allergic to beef.

I dried eggshells, ground them into a powder and added some to his food, but he refused it.

I bought a supplement "Felini Complete" which contains calcium and vitamins. You mix it with a little water. I started with the tiniest amount in his food until he got used to it, but he wasn't having any of it. (Yet more waste of money, on top of all the many tins of food he's refused! )

Frankly I think the easiest thing would be a calcium supplement I can just pop down his throat once a day, as he is so obliging about taking pills that way. (e.g. worming tablets). Maybe do the same thing with Taurine. He should not need any other supplement I am thinking, with the good diet he is on.

My vet suggests a product called Pet-cal for the calcium -- has anyone tried it for their cat? Or can anyone suggest a better alternative? Also, which taurine supplement do people recommend? And would it be OK to feed taurine tablets directly to the cat rather than add it to his food?

Thanks guys.

I forgot to add just now -- my vet suggested an alternative to a calcium supplement would be to feed my cat tinned pilchards or sardines once a day. Would this have enough calcium in ? (assuming I could get him to eat sardines or pilchards anyway).

chillminx....where in uk are you?
I am in East London and our diverse ethnic mix here means I have no problem finding chicken hearts, giblets etc.....all in the Halal butchers. Will your cat eat raw minced meat? It might be worth looking at the Pure range of natural Instincts dog food and then adding supplements/offal to make it balanced.

__________________

Nellie Paddy Mitzy Milo Peggy Murphy

Millie and Monty, the White Devils!

Hi PP -- I am in the Home Counties. I have tried 2 Halal butchers in my area and they do not sell chicken hearts. Nor giblets in quantity, just one packet of giblets with each whole chicken. I suppose I could try Halal butchers further away....

I regret my cat will not eat raw food; but I would not feed him raw poulty because of the genuine risk of salmonella. And he cannot have raw beef as he is allergic to beef. I tried him with raw rabbit and raw venison, but although he had a good sniff at them he walked away from them and showed no interest at all next time I offered them to him.

Feel wrapped around his little paws much?


When you say that you have tried all of these different foods, what do you mean? Do you mean you opened a tin, put it down and he didn't take to it? Or did you try to start with the FF (which I personally don't think is a complete food) and slowly mixed in one brand of food you would like him to eat?

Personally, I hatch my bets that you didn't mix it in and put in too many new foods in a desperate attempt to get him to eat one. Instead, do it slowly, stick with one brand and don't give up.


True, liver contains vit A but cats also need vit A - it is getting the balance right that matters. When you feed the livers, which I presume you cook, how much do you feed? And how often? About 5% of a raw diet should be made up of liver; not sure what happens when liver is cooked, so look into that.

Not sure how long you have been feeding your homecooked diet but you have to look into a calcium source as a matter of urgency. This part of the diet is non-negotiable. I am very surprised that your cat didn't like the food with the eggshell on as it is pretty tasteless. How much did you use and how finely did you grind it. As an alternative have a look at calcium carbonate but make sure that the powder you get is pure - i.e. doesn't contain any other stuff.

With a little (cooking) water, both of these should dissolve into nothing in the food.

Out of interest, have you tried TC Premix? Personally, I think that could be a solution to your problem - typically appears to be well liked by cats (though of course there are no guarantees)

Cannot think of a calcium pill - eggshells or calcium carbonate should do the trick. Pure taurine powder is also tasteless but needs to be dissolve well (otherwise it can irritate the throat). Like calcium this is not negotiable and if you aren't currently adding taurine, then I urge you to do so from tomorrow (or as soon as you can get hold of some powder).

I know from past conversations that you don't want to feed raw food. However, I presume that you have looked into cats and bacteria and how much better they can cope with bacteria in their food compared to humans. There are some preprepared cat minces out there that are by all accounts beef-free, which would currently provide better nutrition than you are currently feeding.


So, to sum up

- try again with your commercial food but choosing one and mixing it slowly in with the FF
- add calcium and taurine to the food as a matter of priority. Eggshells, calcium carbonate and taurine should be tasteless
- recalculate the amount of kidney and liver you are feeding to take into account ratios as well as the effects of cooking




And NO, don't feed tinned pilchard or sardines for calcium - they aren't calcium bombs (if you look in food databases, then these fish contain significantly more phosphorus than calcium) and therefore are NOT appropriate bone/eggshell/calcium carbonate surrogates.

Also, cats shouldn't eat human fish every day (only about once a week or once every two weeks, precisely because it isn't a balanced meal in terms of calcium, as well as vitamins etc).

HTH

Hi and welcome

I feed home made using a premix from this supplier in Germany

Tatzenladen

If you google, the website will come up, just select Europe for product information. The contact is Nicole who is most helpful. If you are in discussions with your vet as well about finding suitable diet to cater for your cat, maybe share the info with him. Hopefully this might be a good option as the premixes are all balanced and cater for different dietary needs in cats

By the way i meant to ask what happened to all the tins of food from
Germany, seems recent as om om is quite new. The reason I ask is there is someone in a different thread who is keen to try some of the brands you mentioned for her cat. I was wondering maybe if you still have the food, you both could hook up and sort something out if you are in UK, I think she is as well.

Here is the thread

German tinned food

Yes, that thought had occurred to me too- particularly since Chillmix seems to have tried a lot of the good foods. However, I still think that it might be too hasty a decision not to try the cat again on one of those foods to start off with; but to do it slowly.

Resourceful nature strikes again, lol- maybe kill 2 birds with one stone, if food still available, CM can re intro as you suggest slow and if a few spare, the other could try them out on their cat. Oh well see what turns up in the can..

I would be interested in buying some of your food too !