Homemade Dog food??

[Run_Out]

Due to the recent pet food recalls I have decided to make homemade food for my beloved schnauzer.

I spoke with my vet and she suggested a good multivitamin to take daily along with the pet food.

Oprah had a good show on this week but I want to ask you guys/gals if any of you prepare your pets food at home.

When I was growing up we always had dogs and we fed them table scraps, we didn't have dog food or we never bought it.

So give me some help and ideas.

later

[Constance]

Here you go...

Easy Homemade Dog Food Recipe (Crockpot) » TipNut.com

[Katie E]

Interesting, Connie. We don't have dogs, but we have plenty of kitties - indoor and outdoor.

I feed out outdoor kitties "swill," as Buck calls it. I have a 2-quart saucepan that I keep in the refrigerator with leftover drained stuff from browning meats, etc. I add the water from drained canned veggies to it, too. I made a batch of beef stock the other day and mashed the removed carrots, celery, onions, etc. to it. It's quite a sight after a couple of weeks, but they LOVE it.

They all clean their plate and eat their veggies like good little boys and girls.

[lulu]

Katie, the kitties shouldn;t really be having onions ;)

We have just had a thread on this and stupidly I'm not finding it for you.

It is my opinion home food is the way to go BUT you have to research it. It is important to balance the vitamins and minerals correctly, not so easy. Raw food menus seem to be the best option to me: made in batches, frozen and taurine added to the defrosted food.

I think feeding an unbalanced food at home is a worse option than a commercial food, but the best option is well ressaerched home food. a good goolge. I'd google for the extensive research done on home prepared raw food diets for pets. If we were not so nomadic I'd have bought a grinder by now. Up until then I'm feeding a mixture of raw meat (mainly chicken pieces on the bone and whole quails because of availability) and commercial pure meat, commercial wet food and a commercial biscuit. IO would certainly like to be off a commercial biscuit entirely as soon as possible.

[Katie E]

Thanks, lulu. They only get onions about 4 times a year and not many at a time at that. Plus there are 8 cats that share the dinner plate. The onions they had this week had been cooked for over 4 hours, too. Don't know if that makes a difference. They were 2 small onions. I'll look for the thread, though, so I can further educate myself.

[lulu]

Sorry, my bad writing Katie , we had a thread on cooking for pets, not on onions and cats! If your interested I can PM you some inks on that though!

[carolelaine]

I agree on the home food, but it is very hard to get the correct balance of nutrients at home. I have been trying to educate myself because during all of this we had a rat terrier who was expecting and now we have puppies. I have been feeding a mixture of ground beef, rice, egg yolks and a vitimin supplement my vet prescribed. I have made variations with chicken, pasta and some green veggies. There are some good online resources for this and I have a good book on it at home. I would really much rather feel like the commercial pet food is safe because all of this home cooking for the dogs is really time consuming, but we all do the best that we can.

[Run_Out]

I have utilized Pet-Grub.com and there are some interesting recomendations for a raw diet. The Dr. said not to feed grain and protien at the same time.

I have started serving browned meat and raw veggies, I guess it will take a few days before I go raw meat.

thanks guys

[Katie E]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lulu Sorry, my bad writing Katie , we had a thread on cooking for pets, not on onions and cats! If your interested I can PM you some inks on that though!

Actually, lulu, your memory serves you well. I found what I believe you were thinking of right here: Cat Thread, post #20.

Looks like my babies don't have anything to worry about one way or the other because they get onions so seldom.

[Green Lady]

Hi Run_Out,

Check out the thread entitled " ISO Best Dog Food Brand". I entered a post on page 2 regarding raw homemade dog food. I wish I could think of the name of the author whose book I used as my guide. I gave the book away so I can't refer to it.

Also, there is a brand of frozen raw food called "Steve's Real Food" (or something like that). It's all there and ready to eat, you don't have to add any vitamins, etc. to it.

Keep in mind that in the wild dogs ate raw meat. We might think of it as barbaric, but that is how it was done for milleniums. Can't fight with mother nature!

We are fortunate where I live. There is a pet food store, privately owned by one person, that sells quality packaged pet foods. They DON'T carry Science Diet, Eucanuba, Iams, the ones so widely hyped but of poor quality.