Today is World Cat Day or International Cat Day. A day created to bring awareness to the special needs of cats, and some of them, I’m not mentioning Chris’s name. can be very needy.
Happy World Cat Day
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Tag Archives: Cats
Making Homemade Raw Cat Food: Batch Two
When I made my first batch of raw cat food, I was afraid the cats wouldn’t like it, which is why I bought only a small amount of the premix from TCfeline. I needn’t have worried because they loved it. Granted, I started with only two ounces mixed with a 5.5 ounce can of cat food, but it was a better start than I expected.
I made a second batch last Sunday and decided to photograph the process because I forgot to do that last time. This time I decided to give them variety and used beef instead of chicken. The decision was also helped by the fact that I had a $5 off coupon for two pounds of beef at Whole Foods using their app.
I thought I would cut it into chunks instead of having it ground so I went home to do the work myself. Often, the way I envision things going are very different from the way things really go. This is one example.
Even though I am no chef, I am still embarrassed to say that I didn’t have a knife sharp enough to cut two pounds of beef. With much effort, I was able to cut this hunk of meat into slices but then gave up.
Instead, I pulled out my Ninja blender and stuck the pieces in there. I don’t think it was designed for grinding meat but it did a good job cutting it up and it worked quite fast too.
A meat grinder may have been more suited to the task but I noticed one advantage to this method. The Ninja didn’t do a very good job of cutting up the gristle which made it easy to pull those pieces out of the mixture.
I then put the beef into a large mixing bowl.
I added two egg yolks, but not the egg whites since they are bad for cats.
The instructions then call for a cup of water (I use spring water) and a quarter cup of the TCfeline premix, which I then added to the bowl.
All that was left was to mix it up.
Put it into containers.
And stick them in the freezer.
I still had some of the chicken mixture left and wanted to use that while I let the beef mix freeze for at least 24 hours (three days is ideal) as an added precaution against parasites.
I didn’t fill the containers as high this time. Part of the reason was to allow room for expansion when frozen. Another reason was because I wanted to increase the raw food to caned food ratio by using the entire container per meal instead of half the container. Before taking that step, I needed to make sure they liked the beef mixture, so I continued to give them only half.
The first feeding of the beef went well, at first, but when everyone was done eating there was still food left in the bowls. That told me they weren’t crazy about the beef but as the week progressed, the amount of food left over decreased. The last couple of days there have been no food left over so, it seems, they are happy with the beef now.
I have to make another batch today so I will probably go back to chicken, or maybe turkey, if they have it. I also have to buy more of the TCfeline premix. This time I will buy a bigger container. I will also have it ground at Whole Foods which will cut the prep time in half and make my work much easier. Who doesn’t like easier?
A Tail of Two Kitties
Floki can’t resist a moving tail and he seems to have found a target in Chris. Perhaps he knows Chris doesn’t like it.
Can’t You See I’m Starving?
I want to wean the cat’s off dry food because I think it is less healthy than wet food. Eventually I want them all to be eating raw food but Chris has to make things difficult. He eats very little of the wet food, forcing me to keep some dry food out so he doesn’t go hungry.
I thought if I let the bowls go empty a couple of hours before I open a can of wet food, Chris would be hungry and eat more wet food. That didn’t happen. I gradually started letting the bowls stay empty longer and longer, sometimes as long as eight hours, but Chris still won’t eat more than about a quarter of the wet food I put down for him.
The funny thing is, when I first tried feeding them the raw food diet in 2010, Chris was the only one who would eat it. Does anyone else have a dry food addict?
Musical Food Bowls
Frankie and Puck used to quit eating their food early to steal Chris’s food. Now, Floki is giving them a taste of their own medicine. Check out the video to see what an ordeal feeding time is around here. Frankie was sick when this was recorded so it is even worse now that he is better.
Photo Friday: Sun-Kissed
I couldn’t decide which one of these photos of Floki and Chris I like better. I like the first one because Floki has his tongue sticking out and it clearly looks like something is about to happen.
I also like the second one because of the apparent smile on Floki’s face.
What do you think?
Four Sick Cats
Our house has been turned upside down lately with all the illnesses going around. I don’t know how it started. Frankie has been sneezing for several months. We even took him to the vet for it back in April, but he never really got better. I thought it might be an allergy, but it persisted through an entire season.
Floki had a slight eye infection when we got him and a day or two later I noticed him sneezing like Frankie. About a week or so after that, Frankie also had an eye infection, but his was worse than Floki’s ever was, at least since he has been with us. If that wasn’t bad enough, Frankie started sneezing more and had snot coming out of his nose.
We brought Frankie to the vet on Friday, and they gave him antibiotics and eye medicine. The next morning, he still looked bad, but now he was sneezing up blood. I am not a fan of antibiotics, but since that is what he got we wanted to give it a few days to see if it would start working.
Also during the weekend, Puck developed an eye infection so we started putting Frankie’s eye medication on both Puck and Flokie as well as Frankie. Chris was the only one who seemed unaffected… until yesterday.
Yesterday morning I heard Chris sneeze a couple of times. That was disappointing because Chris is our rock. He rarely gets sick, probably because he has never had antibiotics or steroids. Those things will really mess with your natural immune system.
By last night, Frankie still looked pretty bad.
My new job is working for a company that makes natural herbal health products. One of the things they sell is colloidal silver. I thought maybe I could pick up a bottle of that and it would be a good natural treatment for not only the eyes but it can also be taken internally to help treat the sneezing.
Unfortunately, things got worse overnight. Frankie spent the entire night sleeping on the rug by the side door. When we got up the next morning, the door was spattered with Frankie’s blood.
So Rose decided to call the vet when they opened at 7:30 and was able to get an 8:20 appointment. I had a chiropractor appointment, so I was not able to go.
Later, Rose told me that “they just filled him with lots of drugs” or something to that effect. She said they gave him steroids, antibiotics, antihistamine and probably anything else that was profitable for them. She did say Frankie gave them a very hard time when they tried to get a pill in him. Can you blame him?
So far this past week Frankie has cost us $500 and they want to see both him and Floki on Friday for vaccinations. Rose’s sister says that Floki got some of his shots but not all. I don’t know what he is missing but I would very much prefer that both of them NOT get anymore shots.
When I got home from work, Rose said she was worried about Chris because he was very lethargic all day. He stayed in one spot on the cat tree, never coming down to eat, drink or use the litter box. He did come down when I got home and I tried feeding him wet food but he wasn’t interested. I decided it might do him some good to eat grass, so I let him outside for a while.
He went straight for the grass like I knew he would.
I think that revived him a bit because he suddenly became adventurous and went around to the other side of the house.
By this time, he seemed much more perky and ventured into the neighbor’s carport. That is when I picked him up and brought him home.
By the way, I did buy the colloidal silver, but things are complicated with all the medications we have. So, we will put Floki’s eye medicine on Floki, Frankie’s medication on Frankie, and Caeser will get what is Caeser’s. Wait… I mean, Puck will get the silver, and we shall see what happens.
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Photo Friday: The Enemy of my Enemy…
This picture was taken the day we adopted our kitten, Floki. I think they were discussing how to take him down when they fell asleep.
Meet Floki, Part 2
At this point I think I could write a book about adopting our latest kitten. Instead, I just posted the related links at the bottom of this post so if you have missed what is going on, and if you have a bunch of free time, you can catch up.
Our last episode ended up with our heroes trying to rescue a kitten from the dreaded carrier. By “rescue” I mean they hissed and whacked at him, especially Frankie, but the kitten endured and seemed to be having a good time exploring the house. Whenever Frankie would approach him in a threatening manner, the kitten would hide under the sofa or wherever he would fit and Frankie would not. Once the danger passed, he was out running around again.
Once things settled down a little, I opened a can of cat food and split it in fourths. Chris never eats much of his wet food and this time Frankie didn’t eat much either. The kitten, however, ate like a pig. I had to keep adding food to his plate.
Later that evening we sat down and watched a little television. The kitten was pretty busy since we brought him home and we wanted him to take a nap so Rose held him on her lap for a while.
That calmed him down but sleeping was not on the agenda.
He then found his way to my lap where he dosed off at 9:30. At 9:31 he was awake and ready for the day. That lasted until 10:00 when he fell asleep again… for five full minutes.
We went to bed sometime after 11:00. At this point the kitten had been awake for at least 12 hours straight, minus six minutes. We didn’t want to close our bedroom door and “throw him to the wolves.” so to speak, so he slept on the bed with us. Rose was worried about squishing him in the night but he survived.
The following evening we had to think of a name for him. Rose and I were both reading through seperate lists of cat names but nothing sounded right. Finally I said “Rollo” from the show Vikings. I had a new appreciation for the character when I discovered that he was an ancestor of mine (I also learned he probably never even met Ragnar). Rollo seemed like a great name for a cat but another character from the show, Floki, seemed even better. So Floki it is.
Today the cats are still jealous of Floki but nobody is fighting with him except for the occasional hiss and whack. Rose worked from home the last two days but today they will be without supervision all day. Let’s hope the peace lasts.
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A New Fourth Kitty?
My sister-in-law is at it again. She has been busy saving the lives of more kittens and still has one gold kitten that will need a home soon. Rose has been hinting that she wants to adopt him but emotional decisions do not always end well. Let’s consider the pros and cons, starting with the cons:
- We are already over our two cat limit.
- Raising cats the healthy way is expensive.
- We already have three boys. Perhaps a girl is needed.
- Our dream of traveling after retirement could be more difficult.
- We would be dangerously close to entering the Crazy Cat Lady/Man Zone.
Now for the pros:
- Chris is a very touchy-feely cat. He might like having someone else to nap with.
- Cats can tolerate a new kitten better than a new adult cat.
- A new kitten might motivate me to start making my own cat food.
- We would be helping a kitten in need.
- Retirement is still more than 10 years away, 20 if they keep raising the retirement age.
- Kittens are super cute.
I do not yet have a picture of the kitten but I snagged this picture off of Pixabay. It is what I imagine he looks like.
Photo by Rudy and Peter Skitterians, Skitterphoto on Pixabay.
So what do you think? Any suggestions?
On another note, I actually won the Tuesday Teaser on One Spoiled Cat and get to display this badge.
I had a long streak of missing the Teaser but catching the Tell-All the next day.
Bad Cat Chris 