For anyone to do something consistently and successfully it has to come easy and be rewarding. For that reason I have made it a priority these past 3 decades to simplify feeding cats with homemade food. Feeding up to 12 of my own cats every day with homemade food was certainly a motivator for streamlining things.

Tips and Tricks of the Trade

Feed meats raw. This eliminates the laborious extra step of cooking meats and cleaning extra dished. Over the last 30 years I have fed a total of 51 cats a completely raw diet, using a total of 22,000 pound or 11 tons of raw meat. With all this meat, in all this time, with that many cats I have not experienced a cat falling ill from food-born illness caused by bacteria or parasites.

Feed meats ground. The idea of chopping up fresh cuts of meat und curating beautiful daily portions containing chunks of muscle meats, organ meats, a piece of fish, an egg yolk, and a partial chicken leg is not sustainable for many people. The task of sourcing all these items alone is a challenge. Cutting up a kilo or 2 pounds of meat into small chunks is fun once. It gets annoying if it’s a every 10 day routine, especially if you have trouble with keeping your knife sharp. Again, there is more clean up to deal with.

Ways to deal with liver. Addition of liver is a huge obstacle for many. Here are a few tips to make this more manageable. One is to buy fresh liver ahead of time for an entire 6 months, which is a total of only 1.8 kg or 4 pounds, grind all of it and freeze it as 18 x 100 g (1/2 cup) portions in silicone muffin cups. That way, the icky part of cat food making only happens twice a year, but also makes the ongoing cat food making much easier.

Another way to solve the liver dilemma is to purchase liver as readily available single ingredient freeze dried dog treats. This wasn’t always an option, but thanks to the popularity of raw feeding and feeding freeze-dried, it is now a super easy alternative. The drawback is the cost, however. The freeze dried liver cubes can either be pulverized and the powder added during cat food prep to the ground meat, or a liver cube can be put like a cherry on a cake on top of each cat food meal just before feeding. There are also mini liver cubes available as dog training treats that can be added during cat food prep to the meat without the need to first pulverize them.

Prepare the recommended quantity. Making a small batch of cat food every 10 days that takes 5 minutes and creates minimal dishes is something almost everyone can do. Making more food at once to have a whole month of frozen cat food at hand may create more tedium than convenience, because it is turning into a sizeable task. On the other hand, trying to make the food fresh every day by attempting to break the instructions into tiny measurements for an individual portion is going to get inconvenient very quickly. If the goal is to avoid having to freeze the food for storage, there is a sudden challenge to have fresh meat on hand every day to feed the cat. The only time multiplying and dividing the instructions may be helpful is when finding the most convenient way to feed a multi-cat-household. Divide it, so the food never has to be frozen for storage, or multiply it to avoid having to make food every few days.

Silicone muffin cups for freezing the cat food. Those silicone muffin cups have made freezing cat food so easy, and I feel everyone should use them. They come in different sizes, in sheets or individual cups, and even as different shapes to add some fun. It makes dividing the cat food into portions a breeze. Best part is that the food can be peeled out of the cup while still frozen without mess and without destroying the cup. The days of putting cat food into small bags, or small freezer containers, or metal muffin cups lined with paper were such a nightmare, messy, and wasteful. Even ice cube trays were never that convenient. They created odd portion sizes and exposed the food to being freezer burned. The avoid freezer burn on the food in the silicone muffin cups, leave the frozen food in the cups instead of peeling it all out at once to transfer it into a plastic bag .A plastic bag can, however, be placed on top of the to-be-frozen food to eliminate freezer burn on top.

Thaw cat food on demand. Peel the frozen cat food out of the muffin cup and place into a microwaveable cat food dish. Select “speed defrost” and set for 30 seconds. The appliance is typically set to stop half way to let to check and stir the food. Depending on the appliance, it may require a additional 15 seconds. Using the microwave makes away forgetting to pull cat food out of the freezer the night before. Left on the counter over night to thaw means the food thaws within two hours and is then left at room temperature for too long. Put in the fridge to thaw, the cat food is often not thawed by the next day, which is stressful when there is a hungry cat waiting. Tossing the food into a bag and then into a hot water bath to thaw is way too messy.

Buy meat in bulk. If you have the privilege of space that can accommodate a small chest freezer, buy meat for your cat in bulk.  One cat will eat on average 32.4 kg or 71 pounds of meat per year. These kind of quantities can be obtained from a meat packer or farm direct at a lower cost than retail price. The idea makes managing homemade cat food cheaper and more convenient. There is a once a year (or once every 6 month) cash outlay to get the cat’s meat, after which the meat it is in the home, ready to go and paid for. No more weekly shopping trips to get the cat’s meat. Large quantities of meat are best frozen as 450g or 1 pound portions wrapped in paper butcher wrap. That also eliminated the flood of Styrofoam meat trays, absorbed pads, and plastic wrap from the store, which is so hard to clean and dispose of.

Buy premix for a whole year. For one cat, two pouches a TCfeline premix lasts one year. It means you can forget about buying premix for the whole year and safe on shipping, too. Reorder another two pouches after using up one of your initial two pouch purchase. From then on, reorder two when you open your last pouch. Any delays in availability or shipping will then not be distressing, because you have 6 month of premix left by the time you reorder. Store the premix in the freezer, where it will maintain pristine quality for until and well beyond the best before date.

Get an apartment sized chest freezer. They are inexpensive and fit nearly anywhere. One of those can accommodate a year supply of meat, and the little basket inserts can be a place for the pre-portioned liver, the year supply of premix, and the lasted batch of ready to eat cat food. All in one place, organized, ready to go, and off your to-do list. There is even room for frozen mice, chicken necks, dried sardines, and any meal toppers your cat enjoys. Even the stash of catnip can  maintain freshness in there.

With these suggestions implemented, trips to the pet store is a thing of the past, and so is the grubbing around with endless meat trays from the grocery store that may go off by the time you finally get around to making cat food, especially with ambitions to grind the meat at home or cut it into small cubes. There will be a 3-4 large expenses to organize the cat meat for the year, buy premix for a year, and but ready-to-use liver by, but that is it. There will be a noticeable reduction in garbage and clean-up.