Glad to be of assistance, Chris,
And…Tortietude!
For Star Trek and Cat fans:
My cats are all hiding out this evening due to the riot of fireworks displays in the neighborhood this evenings. The screamers disturbed them the most. I think tomorrow I am going to administer each one a dose of gabapentin and hope they are less scared. How are everyone’s cats coping with the noise?
Ok, I’ve held off long enough! These are Gilbert and Sullivan (we couldn’t resist), rescues from single litter of 5. When kittens we had to magic marker the tip of tail to tell them apart. Two entirely different personalities. Gilbert has a white blaze on his chest (barely visible in the chair, [blue blanket is there just for him], barely meows (more of a squeak), and very private. Sullivan meows constantly (particularly if he thinks food is in the offing), has the loudest and rackety “purr” I’ve ever heard from a cat, and is constantly under foot…he’s a ham! Similar to my diabetes, I researched cat foods and found cats have extremely low thirst quotients (rarely “drink”), with dry food grazing often subject to chronic kidney disease, get most water from their food sources, and are requisite carnivores. We make their food from chicken thighs w/≈20% of bone and skin, livers, hearts, a little salt, vitamins E and B, and lots of added water; only about 7-9¢/oz; cheaper than any cans and results in very little waste or odor. They’re definitely spoiled!
They. are very handsome cats!
Do you add taurine to the mixture?
Dark chicken meat is fairly high in taurine.
That’s good to know, thanks!
I learned about this because one of our dogs needs grain free food. It was a lack of taurine that some grain free food caused dogs to die. We boil up a bunch of chicken thighs to top his food for the taurine. Liver is quite high but too much can cause other issues. I don’t remember what.
@CatLady Yes! Thanks for the pick-up on that! Do you make your own also? (Most folks don’t know things like that.) We add taurine to each batch (size of batch dependent); if we can’t find the hearts locally (very rare) we add more taurine; if we can’t find livers, we can use added Vitamin A and D. We use a recipe based primarily on Dr. Pierson (vet, Making Cat Food), with additional info from Dr. Gates (vet, Feline Nutrition's Easy Homemade Cat Food Recipe), and Jablonski (non-vet enthusiast, Recipes - Cat Nutrition).
@CarlosLuis I don’t recall the dark meat (thighs) having the taurine, I’ll have to look into that…mostly the taurine comes from the hearts in addition to the powder/elemental form. While the ratios are important, apparently the most important is the meat (phosphorous) to bone (calcium) ratio. When we started out, we used my wife’s Kitchen-Aide attachments, but it couldn’t handle the bones, so we used ground egg shell (cheap coffee grinder powderized it). We bought a Tasin 108 grinder that handled the thigh bones pretty easily, though we put them first through a large hole plate, then a small hole plate; grinding goes fast, as with most things, its the prep work that takes the time; but a couple of hours once a month isn’t a lot).
I don’t make my crew’s food but may rethink this given how much the price of moist food is going up! I do add water to the moist food though.
@CatLady My wife is similar, she wanted to ensure some “variety” in the meals (I don’t think the cats care, but it makes her happy; they down anything in about 2 minutes flat, including time to lick the dishes). So, we add a bit of relative “quality” Dave’s cat food flavors to each meal. Interestingly, the seeming favorite is chicken! It’s become an issue with availability; I refuse to pay the premium for small cans (we use the 12.5oz dog food size cans), but the large size is becoming hard to find locally and online. We use Chewy’s, but they’ve cut back on “variety” in the large cans too. One interesting thing: when we’ve “run out” of Daves and feed the straight home-made/raw we make, they’re poop is even less smelly and bulky because there are no fillers (guargum, potatoes, peas, beets, etc.) that an obligate carnivore only consumes in very small quantities (guts of a bird/rodent).
Pumpkin doing a big yawn:
She’s become my cuddle buddy. Right now she’s laying by me (it’s almost 3am but I work nights and don’t sleep well on my nights off either ) and snoring so it’s just how she is lol. She’s a sweet lazy girl.
Somehow Leo was out all night…and has been pretty much crashed out ever since!! I think he was more scared than anything else.
Oh no Leo, don’t go wandering far. You need to snuggle up with your human.
This is from Biddy Cat, Leo, I was born in a barn. It’s not nice out there, That’s why I flirted with that nice man who brought food and water for my mom and siblings.
He was kind of slow but he brought me in the house. I got 2 friends and humans who love me. I never try to go out. There’s raccoons and coyotes out there.
I thought I would sit in my chair after my workout, but no, Sheelah and Biddy have a better idea.
Only a heartless person would wake them.
I love how you coordinated the cats coloring with your furniture. Cute pic.