After dealing with endless digestive problems with respect to my purebred babies, and finding the smell of the tinned food atrocious enough to make me think it MIGHT be the cause, I decided to make my own Putti Food in the form of Chicken with Rice. I had read that Cats, like human beings, find Rice to be binding to some extent. It therefore made sense to mix Rice with fresh-boiled Chicken to make food for them.
It began as a special diet for Cupid but then I discovered he had not been the only one to suffer ill effects from the Friskies tinned food diet. I thereefore expanded the culinary experiment to cook great vats of chicken thighs boiled in water to produce a good stock in which I mixed rice.
If any one knows of any reason why cats should not be fed this diet, please do let me know. I have read, however, that both chicken and rice are good for cats who have digestive problems of this nature.
The real problem here is the 'lord of the manor', aka the owner of this house. He always will find a reason to complain but I was genuinely surprised when he shouted that he 'hated' the smell of the boiling pot filled with chicken. After all, I had cooked much the same for Freya when she was young and he never complained about the odour then. It is not disgusting bits and pieces or innards. It is nothing more than whole thighs boiled in water with a carrot or two and a bit of salt. The only difference between that and the fresh chicken stock I made for Freya is that I usually chopped an onion and some celery and tossed that into the water as well. I did not think that would be particularly appealing to the Putti so I simply added a little carrot.
At first, all the Putti apart from Cupid (who will eat ANYTHING, it appears), were a little wary of the rice. They ate the chicken enthusiastically but were inclined to leave the rice on the plate for awhile, until it became clear that no substitute was forthcoming. I actually do mix their chicken and rice with a couple of tins of the Friskies Indoor type of tinned food. It smells and looks far more healthy than the regular Friskies... The combination I create is about half and half. Three tins of Friskies to two heaping plates of chicken with rice.
Since the Man protested, however, I have to do it all in a clandestine fashion when he is at work. I have to begin the moment he walks out the door as the chicken should be boiled for a few hours to make certain that all the goodness in the bones is transferred to the water. In other words, I reduce the stock and cook the meat until it literally falls from the bones. I then add the rice. After it cools, I pack it all away in little containers in the fridge for use throughout the week.
I do worry that they may not be eating enough protein but when I have researched the contents of tinned cat food, it is evident that those mixtures do not contain THAT much meat, but are a horrid combination of 'by-products', grains of vairous sorts and, most appallingly, ash. It is the ash content that is creating health issues in our cats. Ashes are not food. Horribly, they are added as filler. Who knows how this is done and what sort of meat actually goes into the food. Diseased animals sent to the knackers, other dead creatures not deemed suitable for human consumption. When cats and dogs die of kidney failure, it may be their diet that is to blame. I remember about a decade ago when cat food that should have been respectable and decent caused a fair number of deaths. We pay quite a lot for the privilege of having our animals poisoned! I think I will carry on with my clandestine cooking experiment unless something better presents itself.
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