Homemade cat food

Turkey & Liver Senior Mash

A very soft, strongly aromatic mash aimed at older cats with dental disease or a fading appetite, where smell does most of the work of persuasion.

Difficulty
Easy
Time
30 mins
Makes
3–4 small meals

🧺 Ingredients

  • 150g turkey thigh meat, skin and bone removed
  • 30g turkey or chicken liver
  • 60ml unsalted bone broth or plain cooking water
  • 1 tsp plain pumpkin purée (not pie filling)
  • Optional: a pinch of your vet-recommended supplement, if one has been prescribed

👩‍🍳 Method

  1. Simmer the turkey thigh in unsalted water for about 20 minutes, until cooked right through with no pink remaining.
  2. Add the liver for the final 5 minutes only — it cooks quickly and turns rubbery if overdone.
  3. Drain, reserving the cooking liquid, and let everything cool to lukewarm.
  4. Blend the meat and liver with the pumpkin and enough reserved liquid to make a smooth, loose mash that a cat with sore teeth can lap rather than chew.
  5. Check the temperature on the inside of your wrist before serving — cats reject food that is too hot or fridge-cold, and lukewarm is by far the most tempting.
  6. Portion into small servings; this mash freezes well in an ice cube tray.
Nutrition: Turkey thigh carries more fat and more taurine than breast meat, which suits an older cat that needs calorie density in a small volume. Liver is one of the richest natural sources of vitamin A, iron, copper and B12, and its strong smell is the point — appetite in cats is driven far more by odour than by taste, and warming an aromatic food is one of the few reliable tricks for a cat that has stopped eating. Pumpkin adds soluble fibre, which helps with the constipation that is extremely common in older cats.

📝 Notes

Liver is genuinely useful in small quantities and genuinely harmful in large ones — it is extremely rich in vitamin A, and feeding it in excess over weeks causes hypervitaminosis A, a painful condition affecting the bones and joints. Keep liver to no more than about 5% of the overall diet and do not increase the quantity in this recipe. This is a topper or supplementary meal rather than a complete diet, with no added taurine or calcium. Senior cats losing weight need a veterinary assessment rather than a richer recipe, since hyperthyroidism, kidney disease and dental pain are all common and all treatable. Refrigerate for up to 2 days or freeze for up to a month.

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⚕️ Before you cook for your cat

  • Homemade food must be balanced. Cats need taurine, and deficiency causes heart and eye disease.
  • Treat recipes are supplements to a complete diet, not a replacement for it.
  • Check any new ingredient against the toxic-foods list, and ask your vet before switching diets.

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