Equipment:
You'll need a grinder that is capable of handling bones that must be hand-washed after use. Partially freezing the meat cuts down on jams, as
Grinder that handles bone
Sharp Knife
Poultry shears
Set of mixing bowls
Ear plugs
Latex or nitrile gloves
Kitchen scale
Cutting board
Freezer space
Freezable containers
Freezable labels
Things to note:
The Salmon Oil replaces the
Omega acids that would usually
be found in the eyes and brains of
animals. Avoid cod liver oil as it
can be high in vitamin A which is
toxic in large amounts.
Recipe Ingredient Calculator
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Getting set up
does chopping the bones into smaller pieces. Be organized, it will save a lot of time. Set up the grinder, cover your work surface to make
cleanup easier, and use either latex of nitrile gloves to reduce the possibility of contaminating other surfaces. If you can't source chicken heart,
then substitute with 4000 mg Taurine. If you do omit raw heart, remember to make up the missing
396 grams of heart with additional chicken thigh meat.
Ingredients
Chicken Thighs + Bone 2 kg Taurine 1960 mg
Raw Chicken Liver 194 g Salmon or Small Fish Oil 3920 mg
Raw Chicken Heart 389 g Vitamin E 196 IU
Raw Egg Yolk 4 Vitamin B Complex 196 mg
Water 232.2 ml Lite Iodized Salt 8.2 g
Putting it all together
Remove skin from half of the thighs and remove 20-25% of bone from the total amount of meat and do not
remove any of the fat. Next, weigh out what you will need. Rinse the meat with water to help remove any
surface bacteria.
In a small mixing bowl, open up the supplement capsules and discard the empty gelatin caps. Leave the fish
oil capsules, these you add later when grinding. Add the egg yolks and water to the bowl, and whisk until
mixed. This is your "slurry" mixture.
Weigh out the liver and heart; remember to add in an equivalent weight of additional chicken meat if you
aren't using heart. Chunk up meat from the thighs. Cut the meat from the side of the thigh with the most
meat, and then cut it into roughly 12.7mm. Start with smaller chunks if your cats are still getting used to
eating meat pieces.
Put in your ear plugs now and set your medium bowl under the grinder outlet. Start feeding the thighs
through the grinder. You may need to trim meat off the bone to fit it through the tube. Add the liver, heart
and fish oil capsules at intervals to the grinder. You can add the entire fish oil capsule, the gelatin capsule is
edible.
When it's all ground, transfer it to a large bowl if it isn't already in one, add the slurry mixture, the chunked
meat and mix thoroughly. Don't overfill the bowl; you need room to mix it all thoroughly without it
overflowing
Portion out the mixture into glass or plastic containers or freezer Ziploc type bags, label them, and freeze.
You can refrigerate any portion that you are going to use the same day or the next.
Serving variation: Place the mix into ice cube trays and freeze. Pop them out after a few hours and you've
made your own nuggets. These can be really handy as they thaw more quickly than a larger container.
They also come out to a mostly uniform size of about 1¼ ounces, so portioning is easier.
Ideally, cats want their food at "mouse body" temperature. The best way to accomplish this is to put thawed
or partially thawed food in a Ziploc-type baggie. Squeeze as much air out as you can and then place the
baggie in a bowl of warm water for five minutes or so. This warms it up without cooking it. It's best not to
microwave it, since this does cook it. To serve, cut off the corner of the baggie with scissors and pour or
squeeze it onto their plate. Serving the food cold can cause stomach upset, and your cat may throw it up.