My "MAKE YOUR OWN" Dog food thread

Tom

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In your opinion, does the hard KIBBLE contain anything critical and missing in the wet food of the same brand?
I don't know the answer to that question. I've never used canned dog food for dogs, so I don't know much about it. They used to tell us that it had a very high water content. To which I would answer with a snooty: "No DUH!".
 
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jsheffield

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My tiny Chihuahua Suki has issues eating hard food. Her teeth are badly aligned and she can not easily crunch the hard stuff and will choke when she tries to eat anything but wet food.
She has eaten several types of food over her short lifetime.
Nutro. Merrick and Purina mostly.
I'm interested in MAKING my own dog food. But don't want to overlook any important nutrition.
I made a batch of baked, unseasoned chicken. Finely chopped with boiled egg and boiled carrot added.
She liked it a lot.
It's cheap and I feel good about the ingredients. But am I missing something?
Do any of our members know much about mammal/canine nutrition?
Obviously @Tom comes to mind (Again)
But I'm open to all suggestions as I want to do this.
Let the recipes begin.....

Another vote for dry food softened with water....

Jamie
 

JLMDVM

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You can find information on balanced home made diets for dogs and cats at BalanceIt.com. You can pick a base protein and work from there. Good luck!
Jennifer
 

mark1

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I've been feeding Misty Taste of the Wild dry food with a half small can of wet mixed in for flavor ever since she was a pup. Now I'm worried because Taste of the Wild is a grain free food.
I wouldn't worry , last I seen the evidence for this is pretty weak . the science behind it amounts to having like 600 dogs with dcm , 400 of them eat grain free diets , therefor grain free diets must cause dcm ……I actually think today most dog foods are grain free , you'd have trouble finding dogs fed commercial kibble that's not grain free …. personally i'd think it has more to do with problems with the protein source than grain or no grain …….. I believe dogs synthesize taurine from amino acids in the proteins they eat ……. there are a lot of possibilities as to what causes taurine deficiencies in dogs fed commercial dog foods …….. another reason to feed your dogs homemade diets ……. some dogs cannot eat commercial dog foods , you may not believe it until you have one , I didn't …………. I've raised a lot of dogs on grain free dog foods , I've known at least a hundred more raised grain free , I've had one dog with dcm , caused by sas , not diet ……..
 

ZEROPILOT

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Here's today's batch for the next few weeks.
Chicken. Chicken hearts. Turkey. Carrots and green beans.
I freeze it in individual "week" sized sealed bowls and freeze it. I supplement it with a bit of commercial dog food because I'm worried about trace elements. Etc
Due to supply issues. I had and am still having trouble finding her favorite commercial food. So I've been making most of her food since I started this post.
 

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jsheffield

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I supplement my dogs' meals of kibble with kefir (a yogurt analog) and some "raw dog food" that is mostly meat/bones/offal... I started doing this because I began trying out various "raw dog food" options for my omnivorous tortoises to assure that they were getting high-quality and nutritious animal protein.

I still rely mostly on a high-quality and highly-rated kibble to cover all of the basic nutritional bases, but do like giving my dogs, and my omnivorous torts, some of the "raw dog food".

Sorry for the partial derail, but it seemed related enough to merit a comment.

Jamie
 

Tim Carlisle

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Anyone here raise Eskies? I've been looking for some good recipes for my boy. He's a rather picky eater. He refuses to eat anything containing green beans.
 

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Since I'm taking a half day sick leave - thought I would ask a question that My wife and I have been talking about the other day --- Dog Foods -- We have been around for awhile - and back in the day - what was there ? Maybe 10 different dog foods - There is the ole stand by Purina which makes how many different named foods - like Dog Chow - Pro Plan - Beneful - and now , the pet industries have all jumped in - Billions a year ! Everybody says how great there dog foods are - better health - joints - you name it and with this comes the price - I guess where I'm headed with this is that 80 -- 100 dollar dog food that much better than A 20 to 30 dollar bag of Purina ? As I said - we have had Dobie's around for a long time - WAY - before computers and the New foods - Yet - back in the day - we had good success with our girls living a good , long life ( 10 ) . Kasia almost made it to 15 - She was born in 2000 and was on Purina and Beneful - then we upgraded to the New stuff . But is the newer - higher grade dog foods have something to do with more health ? Personally - I think that with ours - were around them non-stop - we know them front to back - They have the best medical we can give them - and the Medical field has changed so much with better meds - new emergency Hospital - internal medicine vets - and it go's on and on So - I guess I'm asking - Purina at 20 bucks , versus 80 buck Orijen ? BTW - there was a show on the other day - the guy that played Robin in Batman has a dog food out now ? Gentle Giant - I believe - somebody told me that they said it makes dogs live to be 20 :wink2::grin2: So my friends - Are we just buying into the cool aid ? Oh , I'm sure that the new stuff is some what better - but where do you draw the line - not that I'm a tight wad when coming to or dogs - yet - I'm pretty sure they are laughing all the way to the bank to. So - What do you think ?
My (our family) longest living dog was Penny. A teacup Poodle. She lived to be 16 and ate nothing but MIGHTY DOG from a can during the 70s and 80s.
She was healthy until the end.
 

Len B

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Anyone here raise Eskies? I've been looking for some good recipes for my boy. He's a rather picky eater. He refuses to eat anything containing green beans.
I don't have Eskies but I do have 5 dogs. I cook their food, mostly different meats. Chicken, turkey, beef, and pork. The chicken is the largest part of the diets it consist of hearts, gizzards, liver and any of the rest of the chicken like thighs and drum sticks. Turkey is mostly ground turkey. The pork is mostly Boston Butts. When the butts are on sale for$.99 a pound I stock up debone and cut it into steak size pieces and freeze in freezer bags. The beef is what I can find that has been reduced. Which I have a freezer full. Ground round, sirloin, and regular ground beef sometimes a mix of pork and beef ground together for meatloaf. The additives I use are rice, carrots and green beans. One thing I learned about brown rice it doesn't cook well using the meat broth from whatever meat you used to get the broth. But if you cook it once in just water it absorbs the broth in a second cooking just fine. Regular white rice cooks fine in greasy water. The carrots and green beans I run through the food processor until they are minced into very small pieces. I've checked the ingredients for some of the fresh dog foods and they all contain spinach, haven't tried it yet. I cook everyday for them yes It can be time consuming but it's worth it. And the cost is equal to a quality dry dog food but so much better for them.
 

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A year and a few months later.
An update:
I still feed ground chicken. Ground turkey. A little chicken or turkey liver. Green beans. Carrots and a product called AZESTFOR.
It's a vitamin and mineral supplement designed for people that make their own dog food. For whatever reason.
My reason is that my strange little dog just won't eat much.
This has worked an her health is excellent.
 

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Len B

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Since I started feeding fresh meats and vegetables a few years ago my older pup Rockets health has improved greatly. He was diagnosed with fluid around the heart about 4 years ago and was hacking like he was trying to get something out of his throat constantly. He sounded like a goose. He's 14 years old and sleeps more but he still rules the roost over the other 4. It took some time for him to improve. But made a believer out of me that fixing their food is the way to go. I live in a small town and have had help with the cost of feeding all 5 of them from a family owned Grocery store here. A couple examples, 72 pounds of frozen ground turkey in 1 pound packs that was close to the use by date for $.50 a pound, different ground beefs at $1.99 a pound, chicken liver $.98 a pound, chicken hearts and gizzards $1.59 a pound etc.... Small town living is great especially when times are sometimes tough.
 

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