DIY Cat Food from Turkey Bones

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Every once in a while I see questions from new preppers regarding preparing food for their pets.  Most of the concern is for dogs.  Dogs eat a lot of food.  At least, ours do.  We’ve got three Great Pyrenees and a lab mix, and according to the vet visit yesterday, they are all overweight.  I guess in addition to the numerous bags of dog food in the garage and the rice we have stored for them to supplement it, we can count in a good supply of MAEs (Meals Already Eaten) as well.

While dogs can subsist pretty well on people food, cats cannot.  Our cats are outdoor cats.  They are expected to hunt mice and other rodents to supplement their diet.  The older cat, Cougar, took early retirement a few years back, without informing us.  The subsequent rodent population explosion at our house necessitated acquiring a couple more cats, one of which is still with us.  Jake is respectable, still hunts, and refuses to come inside the house.  Cougar is shameless, looks like he’s about to have a litter of kittens, and is always begging to come inside.

Not everyone has outdoor cats and other animals working for their keep.  For some cats, their “keep” is companionship and they spend their days inside, hopefully far away from the mice that should all be outside.  Cats cannot be fed from our tables.  When commercial cat food runs out, they will die unless they have the nutrients they need.  The most critical of these nutrients is taurine, which they get from birds and rodents in the wild. 

Short of buying taurine supplements, which will also run out in an extended crisis, the solution is to extract the taurine from bird bones.  (Just guessing that no one here wants to deal with rodent bones.)

And thankfully, it’s a very easy process.  All you have to do is pressure can the bones.  Any game bird will do (well, any bird at all—I just don’t see hunting sparrows for cat food as all that practical), even that turkey on your Thanksgiving table.  Here’s how:

• Cram as many bones as you can into pint and ½ pint canning jars (You can use quart jars and larger bones as well, but that’s a lot of food for a cat, especially if you don’t have refrigeration.  Increase processing time to 90 minutes.)  
• Fill with boiling water to within an inch of the rim        
• Apply lid and canning ring (Because canning lids are at a premium this year, I will be rejuvenating used lids in good condition and using those, rather than new lids.  
• Process at 15 lbs pressure for 75 minutes.  
• When you open the can, dump the bones into a bowl and use a fork to mash them.  They really will mash quite easily, and that’s all there is to it. 
  

Links to related posts:

Homemade Dog Food

Reviving Canning Lids

13 november 2022