Summer

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Homemade Doggy Food




When most people find out I make my own dog food they think I am nuts and that my dogs are spoiled, the first is not completely true, but the latter is! I started this journey of making dog food about 6 months ago and it has been a journey. Duncan was diagnosed with a fairly rare problem with his esophagus that causes him to regurgitate all storebought food. The truth is he ate a hobenaro plant when he was a puppy and it permanently scared his esophagus...I know hes not the sharpest tool in the shed! So we started experimenting with different recipes and this is the one we have finally after 6 months perfected.



3 cups rice - you can use all white all brown or mix. brown rice is better for them, but mine will not eat all brown rice so I mix it half and half with white rice


27 eggs


4-12 oz cans of chicken packed in water


2-16 oz bags of frozen peas and carrots


optional


10 cups of puppy food (more on this later)








In one large pan put all 27 eggs and cover with water boil for 12 minutes. while the eggs are boiling put 3 cups of rice, 6 cups of water, 2 TBS of butter and some salt in another large pan and bring to a boil. Once boiling cover and turn down to low for 18 minutes. DO NOT OPEN THE TOP!!! While the rice and eggs are cooking I take the chicken and shred it, be sure to save the water it is packed in, you don't necessarily have to shred it but Duncan has a hard time with chunks so I do. When the eggs finish boiling transfer them to an ice bath immediately. The begin peeling, this is the most time consuming part of this recipe. When the rice finishes, turn the burner off and put both bags of veggies and the water from the chicken in and stir well. Once you are finished peeling eggs you can just slice or chop them up and throw them in the pan with the rice and veggies. At this point I have to take 1/2 the mixture and put it in the pan I boiled the eggs in. Then add 1/2 of the chicken to each of the pans and mix well. At this point your dog food is done.




Recently Duncan has been losing weight so we have started adding some puppy food to the mixture to get some weight on him, so I consider this the bulk up recipe! You would just add the 10 cups of puppy food and then 5 cups of water to the recipe. The water helps to soften the dog food. That might not be necessary for your dog unless they have problems with dry food. Another reason you might add the dog food is if you are transitioning your dog from regular food to homemade, you could slowly add less and less dog food in until they had straight homemade food. It upsets their tummy less.








So here is the cost breakdown, keep in mind I buy most of the ingredients from Costco so your cost might be a little different








Regular recipe


Rice - $1.00


Eggs - $3.00


Chicken - $6.67


Veggies - $2.00


-----------------


TOTAL $12.67 and makes approx 24 cups of food. This feeds my 2 boxers for 3.5 days








Bulk Up Recipe


Rice - $1.00


Eggs - $3.00


Chicken - $6.67


Veggies - $2.00


Puppy Food - $4.50


---------------------


TOTAL $17.17 and makes approx 31 cups of food. This feeds my 2 boxers for 4.5 days








Most of the experimenting stage came from determining how much food they should eat a day. There is lots of information out there, but my vet told me without having the food tested for nutritional content there was not for sure answer, you just have to experiment. The guidelines say approx 1 cup a day for every 20lb your dog weighs. This is just a guideline it also depends on activity level and the stage of life they are in.








Some things I have learned along the way:


Onions, Garlic, Grapes, Raisins, Chocolate and Caffeine are all fatal to dogs


Dogs do not like cold food, you have to nuke this for a few seconds


It is easiest to put this mixture into Ziploc sandwich baggies in serving size portions


You look really silly walking out of Costco with 12-18ct cartons of eggs every month!


Sometimes your hubby gets a little upset when they he is having a sandwich for dinner because you are making dog food!








Let me know if you have any questions; there is lots of recipes out there, this is just what works for us. We also add a multivitamin to their food just to make sure they are getting all the nutrients they need. SO at a cost of a little more than $110.00 a month; this is probably not a cost effective way to feed your dogs if you have large dogs, but this beats the heck out of cleaning up dog throw up all the time! :)
















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