[davlin47]

Hello

Diets that have been formulated for dogs are a precise mixture of many ingredients designed to give an optimum balance of nutrients. Homemade diets are difficult to formulate accurately and usually have excesses and deficiencies that can affect the dog's health. They are difficult to make and store and usually cost more than commercial diets.

If you want to formulate a homemade diet, recipes are available through your veterinarian that will give you the best chance to create a balanced ration.

Keep sharing and reading

Thanks

[millsandbones]

I used homemade diet for my dog. and my dog prefer homemade than commercial dog food.

[loveofdogs]

Could you please share your homemade recipe with me? I have a 3 year old Pit; cannot afford a raw diet. I want to get her off the store brand dry dog food. My vet pushes Science Diet and I don't want to give her that. I want o make her food. I recently lost my job and cannot afford expensive stuff. Is there a cheap/healthy recipe I could use? How about cooked chicken, rice or noodles? Also, how much should I give her. She weighs 60 pounds. Any help you could give would be so appreciated. Thanks so much.

[Corky/Max]

Originally Posted by loveofdogs

Could you please share your homemade recipe with me? I have a 3 year old Pit; cannot afford a raw diet. I want to get her off the store brand dry dog food. My vet pushes Science Diet and I don't want to give her that. I want o make her food. I recently lost my job and cannot afford expensive stuff. Is there a cheap/healthy recipe I could use? How about cooked chicken, rice or noodles? Also, how much should I give her. She weighs 60 pounds. Any help you could give would be so appreciated. Thanks so much.

This subject has been talked about in this forum quite a bit! I suggest you do some research in here and on the net. Put words like home-cooking or homemade diet in the search box at top of pages in this forum--Find word search in the blue strip across the page--click and try both the threads and the posts. Put words of same order in your browser and search the net. It takes time and some studying to get it right so that you are providing the right ratio of nutrients to keep your dog healthy. I also suggest you do some research on supplementing with fish oil and some vitamins too.

I use to do home-cooking but I mostly feed raw now with some home-cooking thrown in--I won't feed raw fish or pork! And I usually feed oatmeal with raw egg, with some scraps of meat or squash or pumpkin--maybe some cottage cheese--whatever I have on hand---Be leery of salt content of things--like the cottage cheese and the mackerel (I feed that in morning about once or twice a week.) I hope you will go to the thread I started in here titled: Foods that are Hazardous to your Dog--Go to the blue strip across page again and put hazardous foods in the search section. Chicken is good but you need fats-Not too much though! You need veggies--crush or mash somewhat to break down the cellulose walls so the dog can get the nutrients from them, otherwise they will go straight thru him and make sure you cook any grain extra long for the same reason. I fed too much rice when I did home-cooking--It was cheap and filling but not much nutrition there!! Try to stay away from grains if you can! (oatmeal is the best for me) Dogs don't as a rule do the best on grains as a lot of dogs are allergic to them and besides grains don't digest as well either. I garden mainly for my dogs so I have access to a lot of fresh veggies.
One dog in particular loves asparagus and green beans and pea pods. Please stay away from canned veggies--too much salt and they just are not very nutritious either as the high heat in canning them destroyed most (at least 40-50-and maybe more!) of the vitamins/nutrients! Give some peanut butter for a healthy snack that has some good kind of fat. I don't see where there is much difference in the cost whether home-made or raw!? I would suggest checking out this site whether or not you are feeding home-cooked or raw---Good info there on nutrition, etc, costs, etc.-- http://www.njboxers.com/faqs.htm#plans

[Mr. Vega]

Just a note about the BARF and other raw meat diets. I've received great feedback from a few local owners about these diets that have tried them. They've noted what they felt like was increased energy and attitude in their pets. Unfortunately, I've also help treat dogs with severe bacteria infections from the raw meat and even worse, scrubbed in on emergency surgeries because the owners fed raw bones and they perforated the small intestine or just caused massive impaction. Intestinal contents leaking out into the abdominal cavity = very, very bad.