Dog food recipe..

[watchdogps]

Nope, I didn't do walmart sushi, went to a very good place. Its a mental thing. Five years pulling deas fish out of tanks, and that what comes to mind when I feel it. I also can't stomach anything with spirulina, the smell takes me back to cleaning aquariums and I feel like I'm consuming dirty tank water.

 

[dainerra]

For th ose who don't 2ant to feed raw, but do want a high quality kibble, I will point put your shopping mistake.

Do not get "meat" as the first ingredient. You want meat meal, which means that the water content had already been removed. Dog food is baked, so saying "meat" allows them to count in all of that water and move it up on the ingredient list. After cooking, of course, there is going to be much less, sometimes enough to move it to 3rd or 4th on the list. IE a food made with 40 lbs of meat might cook down to 10lbs of meal where a food with 40lbs of meat meal is still going to be 40lbs.

I fed a BARF diet for years. Light on grains, consisting of bone, muscle meat, and organs. I did supplement because I had a lot of trouble finding green tripe. Of course, my dogs got sweet potato and pears as treats, just a slice or two on occassion. All the grain adds is bulk to the diet. A much better source would be green beans or similar. If you buy from the store, always make sure to get "no salt added"
Also, tongue is a muscle meat, not organ. So is heart. Organ is liver or kidney or brain (don't use deer brain if you are in an area with CWD). A good guideline is that most of the diet should be bone such as turkey necks, chicken backs, etc, then muscle meat, and then a small amount of organ. Liver esp is very rich and too much at once will cause the runs.

The reason bone meal is higher in metals than ground bone is water content. By definition, meal has all the water removed, concentrating the material, including any heavy metals. It also means that there is more "bones" in an ounce of meal than an ounce of bone (see above about ingredients in dog food). Ground bones are just that, whole bones broken in little pieces. I never ground bones. Dogs teeth are made for crushing and the chewing means no more dental cleanings! Feed appropiate sized bones - wings for puppies or small dogs, never heavy weight bones like cow legs. Those are fun to gnaw on, but would take a monster dog to actually eat them!

 

[Beest]

So I cannot argue a RAW diet is better. But does this recipe come in better than say a cheap kibble? It sure looks and seams the dogs are healthier on this diet than the kibble we were feeding. I will be adding chicken necks/wings to the mix and kicking back on the bone meal considerably at the very least.

 

[watchdogps]

Quote:
Well, IMO almost anything is better than kibble, but over a long term this diet is quite unbalanced and could cause problems. Also, I. Don't see why you would make the work of cooking and mixing and grinding for yourself when itts not needed. Dropping chicken legs on the floor is way easier, lol!

 

[Beest]

I was running it through the grinder so it would mix thoroughly through the rice/veggies. Before I was taking the time to dice it into small chunks. Grinding is now faster. Am I understanding it right though that just chicken necks... wings backs etc (rmb) do not have enough on their own and need other stuff supplimented?

 

[BlazeJester]

The animal's teeth are there for tearing, you don't need to cut into small chunks except when you're just starting. Gnawing gets the digestive system working and helps them to more efficiently digest the meat.

I am transitioning my cats to raw feeding... Recently found several different (questionable) sources on the interwebs informing about plastics, styrofoams, flea collars, heavy metals, cats, dogs, etc ending up in "___ meal". Nasty but it makes sense, since all those extra parts and dead pets have to end up somewhere and there's nobody to unwrap all the outdated meats from the supermarkets. Just the thought makes me shudder.

Meat meal, yum... Just like in animal agriculture, we feed dead dogs and cats back to our dogs and cats in kibble form.

YAY RAW!

 

[watchdogps]

Quote:
Nope.
80% meat, 10% bone, 5% organs. Period. Adding a few veggies or yogurt or etc won't hurt (unless the dog has a sensitivity) but they aren't needed. The proportions don't have to be exact so don't stress too much and some dogs need more of one thang or another. My dad has a dog that requires a lot of bone to have solid poo, but one of my girls needs very little or she will have hard poos and be unhappy. You adjust as needed.

 

[Oregon Blues]

$45 for a 50 pound bag of dog food might not be an adequate food. The decent quality dog foods around here run $45- $65 for a 28-30 pound bag of dog food.

I home cook, but my dog food is 10 pounds of meat and 1-2 cups (dry measure) of whatever carb I am using. I switch around and use a lot of different grains and legumes. This time of year the carb might be sweet potato or pumpkin. Then I add fruit and veggies. Somewhere between a pound and 2 pounds, roughly. It depends upon what I have available.

I'd leave out the garlic. Garlic isn't actually good for dogs, since it is in the same family as onions. If you are worried about vitamins, you can take a human vitamin pill, crush it to powder, and mix it into the food after it is cold. Got that tip from a veterinarian with a PhD in animal nutrition.

Meat and veggie flavored brown rice is probably healthier than the lower end dog foods. If you want to add some calcium,. you can give some cottage cheese or yogurt. They can't digest cow's milk very well, but the processed dairy seems to be modified enough that dogs get use of it.

I've run the numbers over and over. The home cooked meat costs the same as the upper level super premium dry foods. Also run calorie content and the amount of home cooked to feed is a really small amount. There are no cheap fillers in it to bulk it up to trick the consumer into thinking he is getting more for his money.

I use brown rice often. There is nothing wrong with cooked brown rice for dogs. I suggest you do some research about protein content, though.

 

[sommrluv]

I think part of the problem with your research is that you are comparing it to walmart brand foods.

Walmart only carries total total TOTAL garbage here.


I have dogs and I get wanting to feed them the best that you can. Especially knowing how crappy most kibs are.

I raw fed for a while and it didn't work out for us. I have one dog with a lot of meat allergies, and another dog that just 'failed to thrive' for lack of a better description. The real clincher was that I was not allowed to use my dogs as therapy dogs in the hospital if they are raw fed because of concerns of bacteria (groundless but what can you do?).

Taste of the wild is a good food I would rec. It is grain free. It can be a little pricey, but remember the dogs eat a lot less of it. I believe it's somewhere around $50 for about 30 pounds most places. Dogs loved it, Mastiff gained weight on it however. My terriers ate small amounts and did well, but she would overeat.


We're currently using Castor & Pollux Ultramix weight management. I get it through Amazon via a subscription program, and that saves me 15% and give me free shipping. There's also a current 5% coupon. It's not as grain free as I would prefer, but for the price, ($45 for 30 lbs) it's the best I can do with three dogs and they are doing better on this than when I cooked for them or the Taste of the Wild. If I thought I could raw feed just two dogs and feed another kibs I would, but it's not feasible for me.

I still highly rec. raw feeding over kibs because it works best for the vast majority of dogs.

 

[dainerra]

Only TDI dis-allows raw-fed dogs. All of the other agencies don't discriminate.