Hi,
I hope I’m posting in the right sub-forum, I just finished this week’s news episodes and Ryan mentioned multiple times that one of his cats has/had serious trouble pooping.
Cats cannot handle vegetable food as well as dogs (just because something like carrots isn’t directly poisonous doesn’t mean cats should eat it).
Sadly, store-bought cat food (dry and wet) contains many stuff to boost its “caloric value” per serving, but isn’t really sourced from animals.
This means that their digestive system isn’t able to break down especially dry food completely and properly poop it out.
This leads to “sediments” on the colon’s surface that inhibit nutrient absorption when the food is passing through.
This slows down the colon’s motility which can lead to painful constipation. Additionally even when then feeding “good” cat food, its nutrients cannot be processed optimally.
As an elitist EU-Normie I don’t know about the US but even our “premium” pet food is mostly garbage quality-wise, with only a low percentage actually being animal protein.
For cost savings I recommend getting whole chckens, maybe remove the beak and claws, channel one’s built-up inner aggression into a cleaver and mince the chicken - bones, heart, kidneys and liver can all remain since they contain essential nutrients for cats.
Alternatively you can dump the chicken/parts into a meat grinder and make little pads (one per serving per cat) that can be stored individually in a freezer.
Then slowly unfreeze them over night in a regular fridge, put them in a little metal bowl and pour a little boiling water over the chicken meat pad. Since the pads came out of the fridge the boiling water will cool down very quickly and you get a pleasant “chicken soupy” scent that cats also enjoy since cats choose their food primarily not by taste but by scent.
I don’t mind doing this work for pets since I know that they’ll propably live healthier which itself saves cost by cutting vet bills.
The homemade cat food (even when using organic chicken, at least in Germany/Munich where the prices are a little above national average) is even cost competitive (price per gram) with store-bought canned wet food.
So you don’t need to be a “cat hipster” to give them raw food
Regards,
aBavarian Normie-Pleb