# Growing "Cat food"



## gabbyraja (Feb 27, 2012)

We are raw feeders, and not many people are, so I may not find the info I'm looking for... Obviously, I'd love my cat to be a forager on it's own and get a lot of it's food in the wild, including keeping pests out of my house/"barn". However, I'm also thinking that I should probably raise some animals that would feed our new kitty as well as ourselves. Save me having to buy the expensive stuff to share with the cat, and somehow beef just doesn't seem like a natural small cat diet... 

So, we plan to raise sheep, chickens, turkey, ducks and quail. The quail would feed a cat, but the amount of labor involved in incubating makes me not really want to raise quail for the cat. Quail eggs would feed it well, though, if it will eat them as my cats have always done in the past. I've been thinking about "feeder mice" and possibly pigeon? Ideally I'd release the animal and allow the cat to catch and then kill it, but we could also butcher the larger or harder to control animals and then offer to the cat. This seems more humane to my totally girly human brain...

Any other ideas? Does this sound insane?


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## gabbyraja (Feb 27, 2012)

Oh, wait, maybe gold fish? I debate with myself over whether fish is a natural part of a cat's diet... Never found any info on that factoid or not... But, goldfish are cheap and easy to raise, and the bones an organs would have to be good for a carnivore.


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## Squeaky McMurdo (Apr 19, 2012)

My husband and I feed our ferrets feeder mice in the bath tub. That way they still get their hunting fix but no mice escape to add to the wild mouse population or run around our house. They also get frozen chicks from time to time, but adult animals contain more nutrition. Cats and ferrets both NEED taurine which is found in birds though. I get my info from The Holistic Ferret There's got to be a holistic cat forum somewhere


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## Shygal (May 26, 2003)

Wouldnt it be cheaper to buy frozen chicken legs in 10 pound bags, than feed and raise an animal to feed to the cat? :stars:


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## farmmom (Jan 4, 2009)

From what I was taught in Vet Tech schooling, you don't want to feed a lot of fish to cats. It can actually pull taurine from the cat and lead to blindness.


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## BarbadosSheep (Jun 27, 2011)

Shygal said:


> Wouldnt it be cheaper to buy frozen chicken legs in 10 pound bags, than feed and raise an animal to feed to the cat? :stars:


Cheaper maybe, but not healthier. Processed chicken is pumped full of sodium so a diet with too much in it is unhealthy. Also commercially raised chicken is full of steroids and hormones....certainly unhealthy. I don't much like the idea of raising animals and allowing the cat to kill just because cats usually don't kill cleanly. They like to injure their prey and extend the game a while. I do not have a problem at all with raising your own cat food but I feel like animals deserve a clean quick death and not the kind a cat will dish out.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

I am not a cat person, but my grandparents had dozens of them. The cats ate "scraps" from the slop bucket everyday. They also got milk from the cows/goats. And they were expected to eat the mice, rats, snakes for anything else. You don't have to raise a certain crop to feed the cats. They feed themselves if you just supplement with extra milk and table scraps, butchering scraps, etc.


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## gabbyraja (Feb 27, 2012)

Not only that. The antibiotics and arsenic given routinely to commercial animals to make them grow bigger faster kill the beneficial bacteria in the gut and make the animal sicker. That's why they grow so fast. It's proven the antibiotics transfer to the animal that eats that animal. It makes the human/higher-food-chain-animal fatter and sicker, too... Then they soak chicken in ammonia before putting it on super market shelves. It makes me sick. Literally. And, as long as I'm growing things for myself, I might as well grow a little more for the other animals...


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## gabbyraja (Feb 27, 2012)

farmmom said:


> From what I was taught in Vet Tech schooling, you don't want to feed a lot of fish to cats. It can actually pull taurine from the cat and lead to blindness.


That makes sense to me. I've always questioned the validity of fish in a cat's diet when you NEVER see cats of any kind fishing in the wild. Tigers go in water, but I've never heard of them eating fish there...


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## Cliff (Jun 30, 2007)

If feeding naturally cats need the entire animal - mouse, rat bird etc. The internal organs are where the vitamins/minerals are. Meat is just protein. So chicken leg quarters aren't going to do it. Plus those things are so unnaturally fatty.

Thinking you could supplementally figure out how to live trap rodents and birds? If you have a good cat they'll get these things for themselves but with lots of cats they don't hunt very well unless they were raised to do so by a good mama cat. If you have a garden or chickens there are always predators hanging around that you could trap then process into small batches to freeze for individual feedings.


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## dlskidmore (Apr 18, 2012)

Our cat is particularly fond of meats from animals she could never catch in nature. Red meat does have a lot of good amino acids in it.

If you feed rabbit you may need a fat or mineral supplement to go with it.
Rabbit starvation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## akane (Jul 19, 2011)

We raise gerbils for the cats. Cleaner and more intelligent than mice. It's really no effort with 1 month between cage cleanings and they'll eat pretty much anything so 3/4ths of their diet is leftovers with some of the cheapest cat food for animal protein. Plus they reach feeding size quicker since they are a larger prey. I found a gas chamber wasn't to my satisfaction unless I went all out like the labs are required to do with regulated and measured co2 levels. Unfortunately that costs about $100. So we went with electric rat traps. Slide a gerbil in, cover the end so they don't bolt out, flip the switch, turn it flat, and *zap*, no more gerbil. They die in less than 3 seconds. That's good enough for me. 

Note this does not work on hamsters. We also tried raising those for cats and found the logistics were a bit more complicated and they are insulated from electricity. It stuns them and then they wake up if you don't quickly remove the head. I ended up zapping some repeatedly and decided it was not a humane way to kill hamsters so we no longer raise hamsters.

Fish should only be a treat as it causes health problems in cats.


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## RedDirt Cowgirl (Sep 21, 2010)

Seems like folks are always coming hot for bringing rabbits to the people meat market 'cause they're cost-effective, but there's no (and probably will never be because of cultural issues :blossom demand. Rabbits can be part of the farm eco-system too, their poop is garden gold. That said, a rabbit farmer that sells said to the nursery trade gave me an aside - "save your money and just buy the alfalfa pellets in the first place" for soil amendment.


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

While commercially raised chickens are not ideal, it is human grade food. It is better to feed raw commercial meat than commercial kibble, in my opinion. As for the cat hunting for his dinner, maybe, maybe not. Our cat kills mice and birds, not to play, kills, but does not eat them. If you have a cat that was raised all or in part on kills, it is more likely that he will eat what he hunts. But, some cats do not hunt. Some cats hunt but play with their food rather than kill it. Do you even know if your cat will hunt/play/kill/eat? If he has the whole killing sequence I don't think you will need to grow his food for him, but may need to supplement, and will need to give him meds for the tapeworms if he is eating mice.


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## gabbyraja (Feb 27, 2012)

No, I don't know. He/she's 1 week old right now.  I've had kitties every day of my life since I was 9, until about 1 yr ago. A friend had a pregnant cat dropped at her farm, and we're taking one of the kittens. I asked her to keep the kitten until 8 weeks. Most people give them away at 6 weeks when they are on "dry food" and still uber cute, but I've found, like with puppies, if you leave them with mom and siblings until 8 weeks they learn more how to act with other cats, like hunting, proper "sand box" habits, etc.


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## chamoisee (May 15, 2005)

I have been thinking about getting on the list to salvage roadkill deer, moose, etc via the Fish and Game dept. I'd eat the moose myself if it were freshly killed, and it seems better to freeze and feed day old roadkill to the dogs than to let it rot and stink and draw predators to the roadside. Another thing I've thought of are the many free farm animals people give away, especially goats and sheep. Sheep sold for almost nothing at the auction last time I went. What I am getting at here is that it may be more economical for you to pick up and kill animals that someone else raised than it is for you to raise them yourself. Even a horse....if it is going to die anyway, why not?


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## chamoisee (May 15, 2005)

gabbyraja said:


> Oh, wait, maybe gold fish? I debate with myself over whether fish is a natural part of a cat's diet... Never found any info on that factoid or not... But, goldfish are cheap and easy to raise, and the bones an organs would have to be good for a carnivore.


Or Asian carp...non native fish that are taking over the waterways....they leap in the air when boats go by, can't be that hard to net a few.


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## akane (Jul 19, 2011)

The problem is having a place and the means to kill a large animal and then store the meat. You also then have to figure ratios of meat, bone, and organ with a certain percentage being liver. If you use small prey it's a complete meal and you know they don't need any supplements. You can also butcher in your kitchen sink. I did a lot of quail and rodents in the sink or over a cutting board inside the house. Extra useful when butchering year round through weather extremes. It can be done with rabbits and the raw feeding crowd for cats love a good source of rabbit but it's a bit more difficult and a lot more work to raise. Small prey also takes up little freezer space and can be butchered using many easy methods without need for a proper gun or expensive bolt gun. Nearly all horses are put down using chemicals making them unsuitable for use as a food animal. You'd have to do your own.


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## gabbyraja (Feb 27, 2012)

Yeah, I've done rabbits. They were the BIGGEST PAIN IN THE grits of anything I've ever raised, EVER. I HATE them. I still have many arm and hand scars to prove it. They're easy enough keepers, in that they reproduce quickly, and it's very easy to get them for free on CL and whatnot. But on pellets they are rather expensive, over all, and they are a "large animal" for a cat, that involves more processing than I'd like to do, and storage, and doling out of parts... We fed them to the dogs when we had rabbits, and dogs, and that made sense. But something that would be an entire meal is more what I'm looking for, I think. 

The kids do have some mini rex rabbits that they occasionally breed and sell the bunnies for $30 a piece to 4H people. (now THAT is a money-maker) But those are their pets and it wouldn't do well to feed a bunny that could bring $30 to a cat, anyway. But gerbils reproduce pretty quickly, too, and a cat could gorge on it in one session, leaving little waste and not needing to eat again for a day or more, as is done in nature... I kinda like that idea. 

Has anyone thought of pigeons or some other small bird that reproduces well/quickly? As long as the cost comes out about the same as buying meat it's not a huge loss for a pet (which is a losing game anyway).


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## Shygal (May 26, 2003)

I would not release it for the cat to kill it, any animal you raise for food, of any kind, should have a humane quick death, not a terror filled one.


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## akane (Jul 19, 2011)

If you have an incubator button quail are cat size and real easy to care for. Fish tanks contain mess the best and put a light over them so the quail have a reason not to boink their heads since they can shoot a good 8-10' in the air when spooked. Wire cages can work but then you want them outside or you'll have poop and feathers everywhere. They lay an egg a day without fail the first year and then take a short break before doing it again for another year so once you get a trio or 2 going you can just keep churning out quail from an incubator. All species of quail rarely go broody without a lot of effort. When they get the size you want lop their heads off with a pair of gamebird shears and point down in to the sink till the blood stops and that's it. They do skin easy if you need to since some animals won't eat prey with the fur/feathers on and some just make a mess. We used to sell the interesting colors and turn the common colors no one would buy in to cat and dog food until we decided birds were just too messy and we attracted a fishercat which ended our outdoor keeping of anything under 20lbs.


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## FeralFemale (Apr 10, 2006)

You don't want to feed a cat a grown rabbit, even a 'mini' rabbit, I understand. Baby rabbits are the way to go. My outside cats I had growing up loved baby rabbits. They'd raid nests and eat them up. A couple of rabbits would supply baby rabbits. I don't know if I'd get the big domesticated, breed specific kind, though, like you have raised in the past. The babies might be too big. Maybe live trap some wild ones?

And...I do agree with others here that supplying a live kill to your cats is kinda cruel. Yes, they are food, but, come on, have you seen what some cats do to their prey? Snap the neck quick and toss it to the cat. Otherwise, the mouse, gerbil, chick, rabbit, whatever, is going to have a long, slow, terrifying death.


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## pancho (Oct 23, 2006)

How about raising cats for dog food?


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## dlskidmore (Apr 18, 2012)

pancho said:


> How about raising cats for dog food?


Livers have too much vitamin A...


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

The cat isn't necessarily going to give the food a long slow kill. A good mouser pounces, bites, and kills. Cats that are hunting for supper tend not to play with their food. Well fed cats that are looking for entertainment torture their dinner.

I would leave the kitten with it's mama longer than 8 weeks. I have found, and others on the board will testify also, that the cat will be gentler if left longer. Leave him for 10 weeks. When they start eating, bring a dead mouse, washed and flea free, and make a couple of cuts into it where you put in kibble (or whatever they are being weaned on). This way, the kittens learn that mice are food. You could do this with a chicken wing joint, too. For variety and so you can put the kitten right on raw when you bring him home.

Also, I would probably do a little test with the kittens. See which ones will attack a string toy.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

chamoisee said:


> Or Asian carp...non native fish that are taking over the waterways....they leap in the air when boats go by, can't be that hard to net a few.


They are dying at record numbers in the low water and heat because of lack of oxygen. They are clogging the waterways and stinking up a lot of areas right now.


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

> Ideally I'd release the animal and allow the cat to catch and then kill it,


I would think this practice is illegal in most parts. What is play for the cat is death to the mouse. 

You can get organ meats and scraps from a local butcher very very cheap and feed a good planned raw diet to just about any carnivore. 

These sort of threads are sometimes temperamental and cause some heated exchanges. Please keep it civil and avoid using sarcasm in your replies.


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## akane (Jul 19, 2011)

We would throw wild mice from the live traps to the dogs and cats to kill all the time. Just as humane as any trap that kills. It's also very commonly done with early generation crosses to wild cats like the bengal. They kill them quickly. My one dog probably kills chickens more humanely than we do. It depends on the animal and is definitely not illegal. It would have to be illegal to feed live to any animal, things like reptiles included, if that were the case. Then we'd have to step in to the realm of feeding live insects as well. Somewhere we have to accept the prey predator relationship. Where that line is drawn is an individual basis depending on the animals and methods.


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## gabbyraja (Feb 27, 2012)

akane said:


> We would throw wild mice from the live traps to the dogs and cats to kill all the time. Just as humane as any trap that kills. It's also very commonly done with early generation crosses to wild cats like the bengal. They kill them quickly. My one dog probably kills chickens more humanely than we do. It depends on the animal and is definitely not illegal. It would have to be illegal to feed live to any animal, things like reptiles included, if that were the case. Then we'd have to step in to the realm of feeding live insects as well. Somewhere we have to accept the prey predator relationship. Where that line is drawn is an individual basis depending on the animals and methods.


Right, snake would be a slower death, I'd think. And how do people train animals of prey. Hawks, for instance? I also would think (though don't know for sure as I've never done it) that a raw-fed animal, expected to catch and kill its own food and fed once a day or less, would kill quickly and eat, not play with it like a cat overfed dry food all day. As a child my cats were outdoor cats, and we did not feed them much dry food. I never, ever saw my cats playing with animals. My cat was walking through tall weeds with me one day and suddenly shot out in front of me. In 2 steps I'd caught up with her and she had a dead snake. It had stopped moving already, that's how quickly and efficiently she'd killed it. I HATE snakes more than anything on earth. I LOVED that cat!


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## gabbyraja (Feb 27, 2012)

Ross said:


> You can get organ meats and scraps from a local butcher very very cheap and feed a good planned raw diet to just about any carnivore.


Problem is, most of those animals are raised conventionally and filled with garbage that I don't agree with. If I wouldn't eat it (meaning if it was given things I wouldn't put in my body), then I don't feel it's right to give it to my animals. This is how they will live long and healthy lives (I am working on a masters in human nutrition, NOT The kind funded by the USDA My Food Plate, so I know of which I speak).


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

I think you'll find most meats comeing from a local small scale abitoir is free of antibiotics, hormones (never heard of arsenic) and preslaughter selenium.


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

I get my own meat, including hearts, livers and tongues, from a local rancher. He grows for his own table, a few cows at a time. He avoids steers because they are given hormones from the get go, but cows are allowed to grow naturally for breeding purposes. He gets cows that didn't take when first bred for a good price and feeds them what ever he thinks will make lean, healthy and tasty meat. I get the organ meat free, he doesn't want it wasted and I buy my other meat from him. The organ meat we don't eat, the animals get. It's not perfect, but seems a pretty good healthy compromise to me. 

You might, as Ross, suggests, talk to local butchers (if you can find one) to see who to buy meat from for yourself and your pets. Keep in mind that it is healthier to eat meat that is more natural, but not necessary to go really overboard either with every detail. Low stress is good for you!


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## gabbyraja (Feb 27, 2012)

I've asked both local butchers. Unfortunately, they had NO idea how any of the farmers raised their animals. I've had much better luck on CL finding grass-fed farmers. But, those farmers don't give ANYTHING away, and beef liver or sweet breads, or anything else, despite the fact they would have just thrown it away had I not asked for it, at $4/lb is still $4/lb, you know? Besides, much of the nutrition in an animal comes from the bones, and cats need tiny bones in order to crunch them themselves and eat them. I COULD give some of the bone broth I make to my animals (assuming a cat would eat it. Even raw-fed cats are quite fickle), but with 8 mouths to feed already, pretty much everything I make goes tot he humans...


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## GrannyCarol (Mar 23, 2005)

I guess I'm lucky, its very rural here and not a lot of people want the livers, etc. I do get them fresh from the cow, no cleaner than they hit the ground when they slaughter the cow. Then they get put in 5 gallon buckets and he calls me to come get them. It's a lot of work to prepare them to freeze for us and for the critters, but worth it. They aren't grass fed, but they aren't stuffed in a feedlot either. They are in a pen with grass and a mixture of peas/corn/alfalfa pellets - whatever the rancher thinks will give good meat. He says cows won't stuff themselves like the steers do either, he wants a lean and healthy cow. 

As for growing small animals for your cats, that's not something I have any experience with at all. Sorry!


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## simplepeace (Oct 29, 2005)

I beg to differ on rawfed cats being fickle. Mine have NEVER turned their nose up at one.single.thing I have offered them, ever!
And I have offered them eggs with veggies and oatmeal (when I had a forgot to defrost day) thinking they would walk off. Lol they did not bat an eye.
My cats (2) have been rawfed since they came to live with me at about 6 weeks of age, they are now now 5 and 3. 
The first kitten I got because I needed a "mouser". I picked him up from a goat farm, I chose him from a working line . The 2nd one I found in the middle of the road, dumped. He (cat 1) mouses and eats most of each rodent (includes squirrels, shipmunks, oh and snakes (they or one of them eat part of baby garter snakes sometimes). and he has on occasion left half a baby rabbit on the front step.... She (the one I found) will also catch birds and doesn't eat the whole thing.
They don't got out much in winter, but in summer they supplement their diets during the day. This includes..... selling their souls for crap kibble that the neighbor leaves out for his "feral" cats. Treats I use for the cats and dogs are pieces of dog / cat kibble. 

I have been raw feeding my dogs for 10 years now, and I used to worry about this or that, and of course prey model makes the most sense nutritionally, but franken-prey is fine imo. And once I realized that whatever I fed was much better than what I had been feeding (kibble + additions), I quit worrying, and over-thinking it. I do admit I learned a lot while over-thinking it, but I just can't worry about it now. 
We all know plenty of dogs and cats that grew to ripe old ages on absolute ick, and dogs fed organic, grass-fed, etc.... and still died of something we couldn't prevent.
I felt I was doing my best when I bought half a cow, or half a pig, or local farm raised chickens to stock the freezer. And I fed that to the cats too, amongst other things. During the winter they are stuck without mice more or less, they are fine.
The time, trouble, effort and cost of raw is worth it, but raising something for them to catch seems like over-kill pardon the pun....
Let them do their job during the day and feed them what you will or can at night. That is how I get mine to come in at night.
Put the word out, go to your county fair, look up 4H, puts notes up at sporting goods, or feed stores, keep looking.... Word gets around and because of it I have virtual strangers occasionally ask me if I want their extra or freezer-burned meat (organs from field dressed deer, leftovers....) if I am interested... I had to keep asking, and *keep looking*. 
Btw, I have to keep my door closed during the day or my 2nd cat will bring things in that are sometimes still alive.
I think I probably went all over the place here, sorry...
Really it is as easy as you make it, and the more you relax and look outside the box, the easier it comes.


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## dlskidmore (Apr 18, 2012)

simplepeace said:


> I have been raw feeding my dogs for 10 years now, and I used to worry about this or that, and of course prey model makes the most sense nutritionally, but franken-prey is fine imo. And once I realized that whatever I fed was much better than what I had been feeding (kibble + additions), I quit worrying, and over-thinking it.


Some people have trouble adjusting to the idea of raw, and start thinking more about how they feed their pets than they think about feeding themselves. Most people don't eat a 100% perfect diet for themselves, but new raw feeders are often obsessed with the idea of the perfect pet diet rather than just making some changes in the right direction from where they are.


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## Cave_man (Jan 12, 2014)

I'm planning on pidgins. They practically feed themselves when you free range them.


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