Fermented foods are a great source of vitamins, minerals and most of all beneficial bacteria. The balance of bacteria in the gut has a vital role in your pet’s immune function and digestive health.
While there are many great probiotics on the market, fermented foods have a couple of great advantages. Fermented foods often contain more bacteria compared with probiotics and have a greater variety of bacterial strains.
Making your own probiotics for your pets is also more economical compared with many commercial probiotics.
In the video above, I give you a quick tutorial on making fermented berries. These berries are my favorite, as they only take 24 hours to ferment and are a really tasty treat for the whole family!
To make these delicious berries, all you need is:
Ingredients:
1 cup of blueberries
1 tablespoon of honey
3 tablespoons of water
¼ teaspoon of vegetable culture starter
Instructions:
Mix the water, the honey and the culture starter in a bowl. Place the blueberries in mason jar. Pour the honey/water mixture over the blueberries until all the berries are submerged. Leave it out on counter out of direct sunlight for 24 hours. You can store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
Feeding Instructions:
Give as a treat or with meals. The following are guidelines to start your dog or cat on fermented blueberries.
Small dog/cats: Start with one blueberry on food twice daily.
Medium dog: Start with two blueberries on food twice daily.
Large dog: Start with three to four blueberries on food twice daily.
This amount can be increased gradually. Please discontinue and consult with your veterinarian if diarrhea or vomiting occur.
As always, I would love to hear from you! You can email me here or find me on Facebook!
Hope to talk soon!
Can this be made with cranberries?
Hi Jennifer. It definitely could be made with cranberries. It may be a bit tart, but it’s worth trying. Let us know how it goes! JoJo
Where would you suggest getting the starter?
Hi Jen,
This is a great question, and I’m so sorry we haven’t been able to respond to this sooner!
Usually a starter from a local grocer or health food store will work great!
Warmly,
Claire
If we have yogurt starter around the house can we use that or do you recommend only using vegetable?
Hi Scarlett!
Good question! You could absolutely try the yogurt starter! Will you keep us posted on how it goes?
Warmly,
Claire
My daughter’s cat/kitten has Irritable Bowel Syndrome/Disease & has frequent episodes of “explosive” diarrhea. should she be on a probiotic diet? The Vet gave her some type of probiotic powder to sprinkle on the food but she stopped this when the kitten stopped with having the aforementioned episodes. Are there recipes she can prepare & store/ stock up on in her freezer instead of buying the very costly ones that may have preservatives or other ingredients that can be non-conducive for her kitcats? She has rescued 3 females & works a lot of hours. Someone please help!!
Hi Barb,
We love probiotics! You could absolutely try a home made probiotic from this recipe. We do sell both Thorne Bacillus CoagulansVet probiotic and the RxBiotic. Both are not home made, but are excellent quality.
Additionally, have you read Dr. Angie’s blogs about IBD in cats? Here is part 1, and here is part 2.
I hope that this information helps!
Warmly,
Claire
My cats are not your ordinary felines as they turn their noses up at all meats, egg, milk and seafood but will eat spinach, spring mix, and brussel sprout leaves. Any advise on getting them to enlarge their diets since one is in the early stage kidney disease and the other it prone to UTI’s, they are both fixed males ages 9 and 10 respectfully. Thank you and I will be trying he homemade broth recipe tonight on a whim …
Hi Tina,
Thank you for reaching out!
You’re so right – they are not your ordinary kitties! 🙂
Have you read Dr. Angie’s blog discussing her holistic treatment of chronic kidney disease in cats? If you haven’t read it yet, here is the blog. It has a wealth of information, that may help your one cat in earth kidney disease.
For both kitties, ideally the best diet would be wet food (the extra moisture will be helpful for both kidney health and for your kitty who is prone to UTI’s). Will they eat wet food? Have you tried a variety of brands? Some of the brands that we like are: Wellness, I & Love & You, Stella & Chewys, just to name a few!
I hope this helps! Keep us posted!
Warmly
Claire
where is the video/instructions for making the starter?
Hi Peggy,
I apologize for our delay!
We were making moss adjustments to our website, if you revisit the blog here, you will see the video added!
I hope this helps!
Warmly,
Claire
Nice show-and-tell. Thank you for sharing. I’ve been sharing my probiotics with my cats—which we all dig. Alas, good probiotics are expensive. Hence, looking for other alternatives. …Thank you, again, and God Bless.
Hi Carrie,
I’m glad you found this article helpful! Commercial pro-biotics are convenient but they sure can be expensive! Making your own pro-biotic is a great cost effective alternative and can be a fun science project! If you try it out, let us know how it goes. Happy fermenting!
Kindly,
Jacquie