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Old 06-19-2018, 01:46 PM
 
Location: McAllen, TX
5,947 posts, read 5,390,179 times
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Given the poor quality and unknown ingredients in most dog food available today, I had the idea of making my dog some food.

I am thinking I could buy some chicken leg quarters, boil and shred it and give that to my dog. I could add some other ingredients like rice or vegetables and salt or whatever to make it more palatable. The chicken is normally about .39 cents a pound so it is economical. I'm sure she would like it way more than either canned or dried food.

Another question is storage. Maybe pre-package and freeze and then defrost as you need it?

Anybody do this type of thing?
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Old 06-19-2018, 03:24 PM
 
Location: In a cat house! ;)
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If you want to skip a step by not cooking out most of the nutrients, feed raw.

Some basic, but VERY important info:

https://hare-today.com/raw_food_for_dogs

I feed raw to my cats and dogs. I rotate proteins. Not just for variety, but to make sure they get a little bit of everything from various proteins. I also rotate sources. I buy meat (non-ground) from my local grocery store, Hare-Today.com, MyPetCarnivore.com, RawFeedingMiami.com, and RadCat.

You don't just want to jump in willy nilly. A balanced meal is 80% protein, 10% bone, 5% any organ, and 5% liver.

I also had Alnutrin from KnowWhatYouFeed.com. <---- More info about raw feeding.
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Old 06-19-2018, 03:33 PM
 
Location: McAllen, TX
5,947 posts, read 5,390,179 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lola4 View Post
If you want to skip a step by not cooking out most of the nutrients, feed raw.

Some basic, but VERY important info:

https://hare-today.com/raw_food_for_dogs

I feed raw to my cats and dogs. I rotate proteins. Not just for variety, but to make sure they get a little bit of everything from various proteins. I also rotate sources. I buy meat (non-ground) from my local grocery store, Hare-Today.com, MyPetCarnivore.com, RawFeedingMiami.com, and RadCat.

You don't just want to jump in willy nilly. A balanced meal is 80% protein, 10% bone, 5% any organ, and 5% liver.

I also had Alnutrin from KnowWhatYouFeed.com. <---- More info about raw feeding.
Forgive my ignorance but isn't a lot of raw chicken contaminated with Salmonella? I am talking about a small 20lb dog here and she doesn't remind in the least of a wolf. Just handling the raw meat seems to be a bit risky since it would not be cooked. I agree about rotating the types because she will tire of the same thing every day but raw? I sure can't afford to be buying it beef. Do you run it through a meat grinder with bone and all?

Edit: OK, I did read the part about the contamination. I will think about the raw but again, we are talking about a one small dog, not a pack of large dogs. Thanks
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Old 06-19-2018, 03:56 PM
 
Location: Just west of the Missouri River
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I recently started cooking for my 22 lb dog. I was buying high quality kibble and feeding that along with a dehydrated (rehydrated) raw food. She got to where she was refusing the kibble.

I boil rice with spinach, carrots and boneless chicken thighs. I add some salt and a spoonful of coconut oil. Or I cook rice with spinach, pumpkin, and ground beef. I might use green beens, sweet potatoes or peas. I generally make enough for two meals/day for five or six days at a time. I store about half of it in the freezer. I have read that your meat/chicken/protein should be at least roughly equivalent to the starch (rice, pumpkin, peas, etc.). I think you can google and find more information.

I stir the cooked food into the high quality kibble --about a half cup of each twice a day. Since the kibble has been vetted as nutritionally complete, I don't worry that she's not getting some micronutrient she needs. I do give a bit of plain kefir for calcium.

I realize that I am spoiling her rotten, but I think everyone (including animals) should enjoy their food. And these days, she certainly does.
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Old 06-19-2018, 03:59 PM
 
Location: In a cat house! ;)
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Size doesn't matter. Make as much, or as little as you want. I tend to make "batches." I then freeze meal size portions.

If I was just starting out, I would probably buy this book. I believe it is her most recent edition.
https://www.amazon.com/Beckers-Real-...+Dogs+and+Cats

Whatever you decide, make SURE you get info from a RELIABLE source.
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Old 06-19-2018, 06:24 PM
 
5,381 posts, read 8,630,690 times
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I feed my dog precooked food from Just Food For Dogs:
https://www.justfoodfordogs.com/?key...SAAEgKVsfD_BwE

The food is human grade, USDA approved, and designed by a team of vets:

"Veterinary Nutrition Team

Ingredient quality is not the only consideration when choosing a quality pet diet. Pet parents should only use a company that has performed feeding trials on its diets and only those that employ veterinarians as core members of the pet food team. Veterinarians should be available for questions and be integrally involved in diet formulation, analysis, and testing, and not just serve as spokespeople. An experienced veterinarian in quality control measures, preferably a board certified veterinary toxicologist, should also be part of the team. The veterinarian team should include a knowledgeable support staff of licensed veterinary technicians and should be responsible for designing and overseeing safety testing, quality control programs, and interpret feeding trials of their products."

If desired, you can also make your own dog food following their recipes, and add nutritional supplements that are sold by the company.
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Old 06-19-2018, 06:52 PM
 
2,319 posts, read 1,957,002 times
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You can make your own HEALTHY dog food, and you can do it cheaper than mid-range commercial. And way cheaper than "grain-free" level of commercial products.

You want the recipe first? Or do I get to tell you why I got to where I am! My choice, I guess, so:

A breeder acquaintance asked me to guess the age of one of her dogs. I looked at her muscle tone, and eyes, and especially her teeth. And I guessed about 2, maybe 3 years old. Wrong. The dog was over 7. Pearly white teeth. The breeder's secret? Raw meaty bones at least a couple times a week.

About the same time, I had a young dog (a pup, really) who was underweight, and not interested in food. I was experimenting with various foods to try and find something he liked. And, that got expensive. My vet suggested home-cooking, and gave me some recipes from a book he had. I tried it. And the dog loved it. AND, it was way cheaper than what I had been buying.

So I combined the two concepts. I cook my dogs basic food, and freeze it in plastic containers. They also get some raw meaty bones (RMB from here on) sometimes, although what they get is NOT 100% raw. I scald the RMB by pouring boiling water over them. The idea is to kill any surface germs, not to cook them. We don't want them cooked - the bones get brittle and that's not good.

Here is what I buy:

Beef neck bones: price varies from $1 to $3 a pound, depending on who has them. Good RMB, with lots of meat and tendon.
Optionally, for smaller dogs, you can buy chicken or turkey necks.
Green tripe: ground, I feed this raw occasionally. About $2.50 to $3 lb, IF you can find a raw dog food supplier who carries this.

Shopping list for home-cooked food:

cheap chicken! ~$.69-.89 lb where I live. I get chicken quarters, which have some hip and backbone in. I bone the backbone out before cooking the remaining leg and thigh portions. I freeze the hip and backbone section, and feed them as RMB.
{Notes on bacteria and feeding raw. Raw chicken does, frequently enough come contaminated by salmonella and/or other bacteria. This is why I scald the sections before giving them to my dogs.}
Beef liver and/or heart. I can get this from a local butcher for ~ 1.50 per pound. Sometimes chicken hearts and gizzards are cheap, and the beef is not available. So sometimes I use chicken hearts and gizzards.
Sweet potatoes
White rice, or oats
frozen green beans

My recipe:
~12-15 lbs chicken quarters. Bone out the backbone section. Legs and thighs go in the pot.
Water to cover.
Bring to a boil and lower heat to simmer (covered). I add several bay leaves to make the end result more pleasing to me, not the dogs. Cook until the legs are almost ready to fall apart (2-4 hours).
Remove chicken legs from the broth.
Slice 2 sweet potatoes into 1/2" sections. Put in broth and leave on simmer (covered). Cook about 1 hour.
Slice ~ 2 lbs of liver or heart into 1-2" chunks. Place in another pot, and take enough of the broth from the chicken to cover. Cook, covered, until done. You can cook it 10 minutes or an hour, it doesn't matter. About 5 minutes before this is done to your satisfaction, dump in 1.5 lbs of frozen chopped green beans. Make sure it comes back to a boil. Set this aside.
Add enough rice or oats to soak up the broth. Pour the liver broth back into the main pot. Generally, for this recipe, that takes me about 1-2 lbs of rice. If it's rolled oats, maybe a little less. Rice is easiest to digest, but some dog people swear by oats instead. I've used both. This part requires a little judgement on your part, since we don't know how much broth you ended up with. But don't worry if the end result is too wet or too thick. Your dog will love it either way. Your dog will love it even if you scorch the rice or oats because you left it on too long!.

As soon as the chicken has cooled enough, I remove the bones. I leave in the cartilage joint caps - and just take out the bones. I discard the bones. We don't want our dogs eating COOKED bones - too brittle. They splinter. Not good. When the rice is cooked, and I have a risotto like consistency (thicker than stew), I stir everything back together while it's hot. Doing that while it is hot keeps any chance of contamination from all the handling down. I cover the pot, and let it cool. When cool, I ladle into plastic containers and freeze.

This recipe makes about 10-12 quarts. Obviously, you would want to cut it down, since you have a small dog! Some people who make their own dog food add a little fruit - perhaps a half pound in the above recipe. You can swap veggies from one time to another - broccoli, cauliflower, etc. No onions, no garlic. You can substitute squash for the sweet potatoes.

I don't sweat the "grain-free" thing. Dogs have evolved for 10,000 years living next to man. Historically, they were often fed a diet of "bread, with some meat when it was to be had". Dogs have evolved the ability to digest grains. If you don't have a problem, no sweat. Some people DO have problems, and find "grain-free" seems to help. Your judgement call.

The recipe above has, if I recall the analysis I did one time, about 45% protein, 25-35% fats, and ~30% carbs.

You could substitute some pork for the chicken sometime - but not ham (salt). Sometimes our grocer has cheap fish ($2-3 a lb), and I'll use some of that.

Shop around for raw food suppliers in your area. You can find some that will be cheaper. Go to the pet store, though, and you'll pay top dollar. $$$$.

I AVOID those raw food suppliers who get their beef from abattoirs! That is where they send the "deader" cows. Those are cows who were sick and the farmer decided to cull them, or they were so old they could no longer stand. Those cows were probably full of antibiotics and other medicines when they were slaughtered. The farmer would typically go to the last extreme before he would give up the cow and take a loss. A farmer I know, who sells his meat, told me he would not feed his kids such beef, EVEN IN AN EMERGENCY starvation situation. That settled that matter for me.
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Old 06-19-2018, 06:54 PM
 
Location: Just west of the Missouri River
837 posts, read 1,698,009 times
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[quote=pacific2;52246881]I feed my dog precooked food from Just Food For Dogs:
[url="https://www.justfoodfordogs.com/?

The food is human grade, USDA approved, and designed by a team of vets:

If desired, you can also make your own dog food following their recipes, and add nutritional supplements that are sold by the company.[/QUOTE]

The "Just Food for Dogs" products seem fairly expensive when you figure quantity needed, but the idea of using their ingredient list to make your own is a good one.

I really wonder about the amount of concern many of us have over what to feed our dogs these days. It's a relatively new thing to worry about nutrition, carcinogens, etc. for our pets. I expect a lot of it is marketing, a lot of it is the ease of internet information exchange, and perhaps just that we love our dogs.

I certainly don't think dogs evolved to eat Purina dog chow, but I do know that many dogs in the 1950's, '60's, '70's happily ate table scraps (or Purina dog chow) and lived reasonably long lives. Still, I like to spoil my girl.
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Old 06-19-2018, 09:29 PM
 
5,381 posts, read 8,630,690 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by treeluvr View Post
The "Just Food for Dogs" products seem fairly expensive when you figure quantity needed, but the idea of using their ingredient list to make your own is a good one.

I really wonder about the amount of concern many of us have over what to feed our dogs these days. It's a relatively new thing to worry about nutrition, carcinogens, etc. for our pets. I expect a lot of it is marketing, a lot of it is the ease of internet information exchange, and perhaps just that we love our dogs.

I certainly don't think dogs evolved to eat Purina dog chow, but I do know that many dogs in the 1950's, '60's, '70's happily ate table scraps (or Purina dog chow) and lived reasonably long lives. Still, I like to spoil my girl.

My dog was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago (now in remission, but still undergoing chemo), and JFFD was among the recommendations made by her very particular internist.

The food is expensive, but my dog definitely rules and let me know that our budget can handle it. I like the fact that the meals are designed by veterinary nutritionists, and there is no garbage in them.

I agree that the option of following their recipes, with JFFD's added nutritional supplements, seems like a great one.

As far as the old days are concerned when dogs ate table scrapes and few saw vets, well, some lived long lives, but I wonder how many suffered.
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Old 06-19-2018, 09:53 PM
 
Location: Silicon Valley
18,812 posts, read 32,248,860 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gguerra View Post
Given the poor quality and unknown ingredients in most dog food available today, I had the idea of making my dog some food.

I am thinking I could buy some chicken leg quarters, boil and shred it and give that to my dog. I could add some other ingredients like rice or vegetables and salt or whatever to make it more palatable. The chicken is normally about .39 cents a pound so it is economical. I'm sure she would like it way more than either canned or dried food.

Another question is storage. Maybe pre-package and freeze and then defrost as you need it?

Anybody do this type of thing?
This is exactly what I do with chicken leg quarters. I don't add salt and my dog doesn't miss it. I also keep kibble around for when I'm lazy and like someone posted above, I also know the kibble has added vitamins and minerals that I might miss in feeding her other foods.

I did some research about raw food and there didn't appear to be any real nutrient loss if you cooked the meat. Sometimes I cook it - if it's more convenient for me and to avoid messes. And I do feed my dog raw marrow bones once a week or so. My butcher at a local Safeway slices beef marrow bones into small round pieces for my dog. She can devour bones, even though she's only a 22 pound rat terrier. So, if they're in slices, she'll just work everything off the outside and work to get the marrow out. Really helps clean her teeth.

I did recently buy a big package of pork at Costco for my dog, and sliced it up into chunks and froze them in quart sized freezer bags. The online vets who promote raw meat say you just need to freeze it for 3 days. That's the only way I feed her raw food - cut up chunks she can just eat at her bowl - because I don't have a yard I can just throw raw chicken legs into. I just have an apartment with a balcony, and I don't want the raw meat on the balcony either - flies.

When she gets her raw marrow bone, I have a blanket I put on the carpet and she's trained to eat her bone on it. Once she cleans all the meat and marrow off of it, then it's no big deal. It's an old small white blanket, so I can just bleach it.

I also give my dog rice, veggies and fruit - right now I have some blueberries we've both been eating, and her poop has been a lovely dark purple LOL. I also add some ground flax seed because it is a natural source of estrogen, and it helps older spayed females keep from getting incontinent. I've also fed her legumes and she likes those, too.

I buy Costco cases of green beans and feed her lots of green beans. They're just cheap and we both like them. About 50 cents a can, I think.

I also get eggs at Costco and boil up a bunch and I give her a boiled egg a couple days a week - they're super cheap. They do have higher fat, so I only feed her eggs a couple times a week.

My dog also really loves tomatoes and so do I, so when I cut up a tomato for me, she gets some. Oh and I cook up a bunch of potatoes in the microwave once or twice a week, and I'll give her a small baked potato and let her chew it up as a treat.

I just figured, if I was spending a bunch of money on dog food that had ingredients listed that I could just cook myself, it just seemed to make more sense to feed her homemade food instead of dehydrated mystery meat. Most of what I feed my dog is food I also eat myself - except for the meat and eggs, as I'm vegan now. But, my dog gets some kibble most days, raw or cooked meat or eggs, veggies and here and there some berries or fruit. With some ground flax seed added here and there.

I don't worry about recipes. I just kind of throw a bowl together for her. Take some frozen meat chunks out of the freezer, open a can of green beans, peel an egg, that kind of thing. I'm retired, so I have the time. And I think when you look at the cost of potatoes, green beans, rice, chicken, and the occasional splurge on lean pork - which was still only about $2/pound - I think it might even be cheaper than buying dry dog food. At least, it's comparable. Especially, since I can buy most of the ingredients in bulk and eat them myself, too.

Last edited by NoMoreSnowForMe; 06-19-2018 at 10:04 PM..
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