Homemade cat food
Crocodile & Pumpkin Novel-Protein Mince
A gently cooked mince built on crocodile — one of the true novel proteins used in hypoallergenic feline diets — for cats that react to everyday chicken, beef or fish.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time
- 25 min
- Makes
- About 8 small portions
🧺 Ingredients
- 150 g crocodile meat (from a supplier selling it for human or exotic-pet consumption), diced
- 2 tbsp plain cooked pumpkin purée (no spices, no added sugar)
- A splash of water to keep it moist while cooking
- Optional: a vet-recommended taurine supplement if this is fed as more than an occasional treat
👩🍳 Method
- Trim the crocodile meat of any sinew and dice it small.
- Gently poach or steam the diced meat in a little water until cooked right through with no translucent centre.
- Let it cool, then finely chop or briefly pulse to a soft mince cats can manage.
- Stir through the pumpkin purée until evenly combined.
- Serve a spoonful at body temperature as a topper or treat, and refrigerate the rest.
- Introduce it slowly over a few days, watching for any change in stools, as with any new protein.
Nutrition: Crocodile is a genuinely novel, lean protein — one of a handful (alongside kangaroo and venison) used in veterinary hypoallergenic diets precisely because most cats have never been exposed to it, so an allergic immune system has nothing to react against. The pumpkin adds gentle soluble fibre to settle digestion.
📝 Notes
Novel-protein foods only help with food allergies if the protein really is new to that cat — so this is for cats that have never eaten crocodile before. Cook thoroughly; never serve raw. Treats and toppers like this should stay under about 10 percent of daily calories and sit alongside a complete, balanced diet. Store chilled for up to two days or freeze in portions.
⚕️ 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.