home prepared diets

I tried it for a few months... well 4months .. and TBH I don't cook for ourselves let alone the dogs!!!
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For me it was too much hassle and I wasn't convinced it was right for my boy.

Good Luck if you go for it though. But do make sure you have every spectrum of the diet covered.
 
Try this as a starter for 10,
http://www.i-love-dogs.com/software/Dog-Food-Recipes-Cookbook.html

I can not speak for any of these as I feed raw so am against cooking for dogs and definately against the addition of any form of starch to dog food which sadly a lot of recipies do contain a lot of.

That having been said I accept some don't believe in raw so I think LIGHTLY cooked home made meals, using quality human grade ingredients is far better than commercial feeds. Is sad that most recipies contain wheat but hey, you can keep it to a minimum.
 
This lady was recommended by someone on here (was it widget?) and she did me a very comprehensive diet plan but to be honest you have to be pretty dedicated and as mine all have different needs I only do parts of it, mostly as treats.
Kizkiznobite@aol.com
 
Yes it was me! Kiz does good diet sheets - I find it easy - but then I only have one dog
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I do a combination of homecooked and raw.

I find it easy - but you have to do what suits you and your dogs. So long as they get high quality food (either comercial or home cooked or raw) then you are doing your best for them.
 
Well I am definitely considering it. I have some questions:

1)Can boiled or new potatoes be fed in small amounts instead of rice or pasta occasionally?
2)My dog is a 4 year old lhasa apso at a normal weight. I dont weigh her current food so how much should I give her?
3) In what proportions should the rice/pasta, meat and veg be in?
4)What type of bones are dogs allowed(my dog is fairly sensitive to meat and bones) and how often?
5) Can cereals such as porridge, weetabix or cornfalkes be given for breakfast occasionally to add variety?
6) any recipe ideas for alternatives to commercial treats?
7) Do vegetables need to be given everyday?
8)How recommendable are the frozen dog meats such as prize choice?

Sorry for all the questions but if you can answer any of them it would be a big help.
Thanks very much.
 
I do use cooked potatoes but very occasionally as leftovers in my veggie meal once a week. All I was told (humans included, was to avoid the greens ones).

Meal sizes vary and the only equivalent I can draw is on my veggie soft meal, which for mine consists of leftover raw greens, a raw carrot, leftover cooked food scraps, blended with raw eggs and some cold pressed oil, kelp powder a handful of pumpkin seeds, poured over a medium sized tray of minced beef (raw), between two medium active dogs. I feed by eye and if one looks to be gaining weight I downsize portions for a while.

In Raw feeding meat and bones should form 85% of the diet, I probably feed 20%. Meat and 70% bones plus 10% veg. Mine do not get any form of cereals, except the odd dog treat. I would think that oats and to a lesser extent corn/maize would be a lesser evil as they are not so highly adapted as modern varieties of wheat.

Mine eat all bones raw, but beef bones and some venison are very hard. Chicken are no problem, if a dog is old I’ll beat the chicken bones with a B&Q axe to make it easier for them. Pork bones occasionally as they make them smell!!!

A good treat I use is Bob Martins beef jerky, bit smelly but no cereals in sight and cheaper than making you own or buying human grade jerky. I do cut it into smaller pieces, it goes much further that way!

The only frozen I use is the tripe from Pets at Home, I feed that frozen and raw, saves the smell and they love it. All the other meat I feed is human grade. I keep an eye on the reduced section at the super market, all my bones and chicken come from the butcher and this months feed bill was £3 for the two for a month! I do feed Pilchards or Mackerel in tomato sauce probably about once a week for the omega 3, sometimes I will mix raw fish with it.

As a dedicated raw feeder I don’t recommend any commercial dog diets that are cooked as to me they are overcooked and even the expensive ones have anomolies in their ingredients and the substitution of rice for a bulking agent is just as alien to feed dogs as wheat or any other cereal. To me lightly home cooked meals would be far better.
 
Thanks very much for your help, Im surprised that your whole feeding bill for 1 month is just £3. Isnt meat really expensive?

I have been reading different things on the internet and it has made it quite confusing for me, some say to feed rice/pasta, others say just meat and vegetables. Which is correct?
 

Feed bill is low because I buy mainly chicken carcasses and lamb bones, which the Butcher has to pay to get rid of, so all he charges is a small handling fee, I also get chicken wings from him at about 10p each, but there was so much this time I didn't have room for them. So my staples, the larger part of their diet is about £3!

I bought some mince the other day for them from a supermarket reduced to 60p a tray so I got loads and shoved it in the freezer, Tuesdays are good at my local and they laugh when I buy it all up! That's the most important thing when going it alone, a big freezer so you can bulk buy cheap.

The trick on raw is to keep the bone part of the diet high, it has most of what a dog needs and avoids weight gain. Boned out chicken carcasses are about 80% bone 20% meat as are wings so they are ideal, along with lamb rib bones. I also buy the odd tin of fish in tomato sauce and lamb hearts or tripe all of which are cheap cuts, mine don't like liver or kidneys, but others do so you can use this quite a bit.

Personally I don't hold with feeding any form of starch i.e., rice, wheat and other cereals regularly. If there are any leftovers from tea they will get it but it's not a regular part of the diet. A lot of feed companies are adding pasta and rice to their food with whole/ chunks of veg, but I think a lot of it is people think its good for pets as it is good for people. Dogs get very little from veg unless the cells are really broken down (liquidised or lightly steamed).

I am alarmed at the number of dogs getting diabetes I am sure that this is from grain in the feed, this is shocking when you think that dogs in the wild do not have a requirement for glucose as a source of fuel, yet in captivity in recent years we have added high levels of carbohydrates in their diets requiring far more insulin than the metabolism of their natural diet of fats or proteins. I think this has led to non-insulin-dependent diabetes becoming more prevalent in the dog as it has done in some human populations of Hunter Gatherers changing to Agricultural diets in the past. I also believe there may be a connection between intestinal cancers and large amounts of grain in the diet for similar reasons i.e. a dramatic change in diet over a short period of time evolution wise. Not to mention the dubious quality of some ingredients and the lack of control of artificial additives!

This is one of the main reasons I went raw, and I'd never go back.
 
Thanks for all your help, I feel confident I will be able to do it now. At first it all seemed quite confusing but I'm going to give it a good try. I'm sure my dog will benefit from it as she can get itchy skin and inflamed and sore ears sometimes.

Thanks again!
 
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