I made some homemade canned cat food today. Yummers!
As we ate the CSA chickens for the last few months I had been saving the hearts, livers and gizzards in the freezer. I was trying to build up the nerve to deep fry them and have them on Superbowl Sunday. I chickened out, pun intended.
Today we cooked our CSA turkey and it had VERY BIG guts! I decided it was time to do something with my large collection of internal organs.
My cat eats dry cat food 90% of the time, and that number would be even higher if he didn’t catch the occasional mouse in the yard. He’s already getting all the nutrition he needs, I just wanted to make him a tasty snack.
I defrosted all the livers, gizzards and hearts and boiled them until they were mostly done. I put all the “meat” through an antique cast iron meat grinder and then ran the last of it through with a couple pieces of wheat bread. I added about 35% rice to the mixture and then pressure canned it in cute little 4 ounce canning jars.
Kitty approves.
Home made cat food! Hooray!
Jimmy Cracked Corn 
Posted by leslie on December 11, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Well…he is begging for more…isn’t he?
Posted by Mike on December 12, 2010 at 10:10 am
I love that you have actually canned your homemade cat food…very good. We make our own dog food but have yet to do up the cats food, perhaps I should.
Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on December 13, 2010 at 11:04 am
My wife wouldn’t let me keep it in the fridge and the freezer is FULL! 🙂
Posted by Pay With Ammo » Save Money on Cat Food on December 12, 2010 at 6:18 pm
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Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on December 13, 2010 at 11:04 am
Thanks for the link!
Posted by Nate Otto on January 7, 2011 at 2:35 am
You pressure canned it, so it’s shelf-stable, right?
We just got a cat who is allergic to _something_, but we haven’t figured out what. Considering putting her on this kind of diet for a little while to see if we can see any improvement.
Anyway, that’s cool.
Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on January 7, 2011 at 10:42 am
Yes indeed, they were pressure canned and have been stored at room temperature in the laundry room where the cat eats since the day after this blog post was made. He loves the food but I would slightly reduce the amount of rice next time, probably to 25%. I give him one of these 4 ounce jars about once a week, maybe slightly more often.
Posted by Ozarkhomesteader on January 25, 2011 at 12:47 pm
I snuck mine into the freezer but did seriously think about pressure canning it. What pressure and time did you use?
Posted by Jimmy Cracked-Corn on January 27, 2011 at 5:19 pm
I used the same time and pressure as for canning chicken meat, but I adjusted the time down a few minutes due to the very small size of my jars (quarter-pints).
Posted by Ozarkhomesteader on January 28, 2011 at 10:16 am
Thanks!