Make Your Own Pet Foods

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Cats can digest cornmeal, but not very well. And the cornmeal used in commercial pet foods isn't Grandma's cornbread meal. It's the crap that's leftover, after all the stuff that's edible to humans has been processed.

The same is true of the meat "byproducts" used in commercial pet foods. According to The Truth About Commercial Pet Food, there's even road kill in it!

I don't trust this website, necessarily; its readership is into "holistic" pseudoscience. They start the article with some disclaimer like, "don't read this if you have a weak stomach..." and go on to describe pet food composition as containing chicken heads and feet.

Well, I raised chickens. When one died of something that wasn't disease, I'd throw the whole damn chicken (intestines removed) in a big pot of water, feathers and all, chop it into chunks with my butcher knife, and toss it in the yard. And guess what? Cats and dogs don't mind chicken heads and feet, one bit!

The feet are full of natural geletin; the brains are pure protein and fat.

I try not to feed my pets much commercial food. They eat homemade kibbles and stews I make, at home. For one thing, I can control the ingredients. For another thing, the average cat kibble costs two dollars a pound, or more. I don't eat foods that cost that much. Why should I feed my pets garbage that's expensive, when I can prepare balanced meals that cost less than fifty cents a pound?

What I'm calling "kibble" is just a cookie dough, made with meats, eggs, powdered milk, corn meal, flour, powdered cheese (I found a hundred pound sack of mozerella powder, in the trash outside a shelter, seven years ago.), stale bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, vegetables. Everything's blended very small, mixed up, rolled flat in a cookie sheet, baked. When it's cool and dry, I break it into smaller pieces, put it plastic bags inside of paint buckets and pop corn cans. I put lids on the containers, stack them outside in shelter, and feed the animals!

Stews contain the same, basic ingredients. I make about a gallon at a time and feed as needed. The rest refrigerates up to a week.

Dogs and cats both have trouble digesting SOY, and that should be avoided. I made the mistake of buying a sack of horse, cattle and pig soy meal: fifty pounds for five dollars. My animals got very farty. I fed th rest of the soy meal to the chickens; I didn't stick around to smell for farts. BUt they ate it all up and the eggs were even better than usual.

You can buy a sack of cracked corn or mash for chicks and use that in pet foods, but it takes awhile to boil soft.

I'll post some pet food recipes.

http://www.bobderr.com/catfood/real.html