Homemade Cat Food Recipe for Healthy Adult Cats

We have gotten a lot of emails about what is a good homemade diet to feed cats. The following is a diet that meets AAFCO guidelines.

Before feeding this diet, discuss it with your veterinarian and get their approval to ensure it is right for your cat.

Source
Pocket Companion to Small Animal Clinical Nutrition, 4th Edition
Editors: Michael S. Hand, DVM, PhD, Diplomate American College of Veterinary Nutrition and Bruce J. Novotny, DVM, Helios Communications, LLC
Copyright 2002 by Mark Morris Institute

For more Information on this book
Mark Morris Institute
P.O. Box 2097
Topeka, Kansas 66601-2097
Phone: 785-286-8101
Fax: 785-286-8173

Balanced generic homemade formula for healthy adult cats that meets AAFCO allowances:
Daily food formulation for a 4.5-kg cat

Ingredients Grams Percent
Carbohydrate, coocked* 60 50
Meat cooked 40 34
Fat* 10 8
Bone Meal+ 1.2
Salts (NaCl/KCl++) 1.0
Taurine 0.5

Nutrient Content (%DMB)

Protein 31
Fat 28
Crude Fiber 2.0
Calcium 0.69
Phosphorus 0.58
Magnesium 0.1
Sodium 0.4
Potassium 0.75
Kcal (as fed) 250

* Examples include rice, cornmeal, oatmeal, potato, pasta and various infant cereals.
Examples include all typical meats, poultry, fish and liver.*Chicken fat, beef fat, vegetable oil or fish oil.
+Dicalcium phosphate can replace bone meal.
++Readily available as lite salt in grocery stores.
Human adult vitamin-mineral tablet (9g/tablet, give 0.5 tablet/day)

Directions: Bake or microwave meat component and cook starch component separately. Grind or finely chop meat if necessary. Pulverize the bone meal or dicalcium phosphate. Mix with all other components except the vitamin-mineral supplement. Mix well and serve immediately or cover and refrigerate. Feed the vitamin-mineral supplement with the meal; give as a pill or pulverize and thoroughly mix with food before feeding.

Looking for other cat food recipes? Also see cat food recipes for obese cats, cats with kidney disease, and cats with heart disease.