Homemade Dog Food Recipes

[just living]

I have seen many people post that they make their own dog food. Could some of you share your recipes and how much you feed? I have 2 German Sheperds. I am looking for one that is fairly complete that I could make a big batch of and feed the dogs it everyday, I dont want to have to switch back and forth to several recipes. Also the cheaper to make the better.

TIA

[BTR]

I make a simple recipe for my dogs, a Jack Russell and Golden Retriever.


1lb ground turkey (dark meat included)
2 cups uncooked rice
2 or 3 eggs, shell included
1 or 2 packages of ramen noodles (optional) -- makes it last longer
1 can of mixed vegetables

I put all of the above, except the veggies, and place it in a large pot. Add 4 cups water, cover and cook about 20 minutes on med high heat. Once finished, I break up the eggs and mix them around, shell and all. Add the mixed veggies with the liquid and let cool.

You can also add some olive oil, oatmeal, leftover pasta, and any kind of meat. Our dogs love fish mixed in too, but the smell can be strong after a couple days.

This much lasts about 4 days for my dogs. I would suggest doubling the recipe so you are not having to cook it every other day. My dogs LOVE this food! The Jack Russell can be finicky, so for him to approve, it must be good.


We priced this compared to the dry dog food we were buying for them and found that it costs the same, sometimes less if the sales are good.

[SheWoff]

We have 5 dogs...medium breed of mixed aussie shepard and hounds. I was wanting to start ours on home made dog food also. I picked up some extra rice and cheaper veggies. I also got some chicken gizzards they had at kroger on clearance and thought to use those. Does anyone know if they are okay for dogs to eat?

She

[Freeholder]

Mine are still getting some commercial dog food (I don't have time to cook special recipes for them), but we are working towards totally raw food for both dogs, mostly rabbit, but some chicken once in a while, too. The dogs are the main reason I got the rabbits, although we do eat rabbit once in a while ourselves. It's easy -- I just kill a couple of rabbits and toss them to the dogs (keeping Bonnie well away from Scout, or she'll end up with both of them). The rabbits don't take up much space, and are fast to take care of. And, most importantly, I can feed them off what grows here, and can make enough hay to get them through the winter.

Kathleen

[alpha]

Our recipe is very similar to BTR's...
2 cups rice
3 cups water
1 pound pork heart (or beef heart or liver or fowl etc.) diced.
1 package (1#) either green/wax beans, summer squash or broccoli
2 oz canola oil

Essentially, they (our 80# Aussie and 60# German) get rice, organ meats from our fall animal harvest and any frozen vegetables that we put up too much of or are tired of eating. Occasionally for a treat, they'll get the mixture with a freshly boiled rooster (no bones) or a hen that has seen too many years.

They seem to thrive on it and we have plenty of homestead leftovers to support the practice.

[Sunflower]

I have 4 dogs (german shepard, golden retriever, 2 cairn terriers) that I have been feeding homemade dog food to for aprox. 4 years. I use rolled oats (oatmeal) cooked as my "base". I wanted them to have a base that I could grow if needed when TSHTF.

I add whatever meat/eggs/veggies leftover from our meals. I cook a lot of whole chickens and I boil up the bones and make soup/stew for us and the less desireable meat I seperate for the dogs food. I also give them the skin and some fat. The only thing I avoid is a lot of onions. Onions does something to their blood. I think it causes anemia, if I remember correctly.

I use the gizzards boiled and added to the oat base. I don't feed any bones or anything raw except maybe some green veggies. I also like to boil up navy beans and puree them to add protein to their diet. I also add 2 tsp apple cider vinegar to the food to keep the gut flora in good condition.

We buy a whole cow yearly and boil the heart and liver for the dogs. NO waste. I feed my dogs once in the morning and once at night. My little dogs get aprox. 1 cup each meal, my big dogs get 3-4 cups per meal. Very happy and healthy animals. Easy to do and easy on the budget. I buy my oatmeal in 25lb bags. Rice works just as well, but I can't grow rice in my area.

[momof23goats]

We have 5 dogs...medium breed of mixed aussie shepard and hounds. I was wanting to start ours on home made dog food also. I picked up some extra rice and cheaper veggies. I also got some chicken gizzards they had at kroger on clearance and thought to use those. Does anyone know if they are okay for dogs to eat?

She
She, they will be fine.
I give mine
rice
veggies,
tomatoes
eggs,
extra milk, when i have it.
and what ever meat is for the day, often being deer meat, or chicken, or what ever I have. Ebem fish.
my dogs do great on it, and I switched them back to store bought for the summer, but they just look at me, they like the home made much better.

[Southwind]

We use Jesse's Scotch broth mix for a base. One cup (mixture of rice, red beans, lentils, barley, split peas and chick peas) per dog, per day. That goes into the crockpot on high with a gallon of water (five cups of mix,) for three hours.
Into that we mix cooked chicken meat, eggs twice a week, and we throw green leaf veges and carrots into the food processor. It all gets mixed together and we will also cook up chicken lovers and gizzards to ladle over it all. Also, twice a week they get a vitamin thrown in.

They love it, and we love that we don't have to worry about the food being poisoned. it is also HALF the cost of the cheap commercial dog food we used to feed.

[grower]

It just so happens I was looking at dog food recipes online day before yesterday. I'm not real pleased with the results I've been getting with Kal Kan Pedigree, which is what I've used most of the time for the past several years. So I'm investigating homemade dog food recipes. I appreciate the contributions y'all have made to this thread, and I'll let you know if I come up with something.

[ChemicalGal]

As far as regular food/not canned or bagged. My dogs get Chicken legs & thighs (get on sale for .39#to .49#) They get them raw bones & all, or if I cook them I pressure them for 90 minutes and the bones crumble. The bones won't hurt them either way & they get the bone marrow & calcium from them.

Or like today, I fried bacon for blt's for us. put 3 cups of rice & 6 cups of water with beef bullion ....they also get canned (they ate the rice first) and dry/bagged is out at all times for them. That was 2 meals for them. They are big dogs (4) and are big eaters.

All innards are a delicacy(sp) to a dog. When the pigs are butchered, I get the innards, bones, head etc for the puppies. I cook up the innards and add rice...they love it. Also the
head is cooked and all the meat I can get off gets mixed and goes to them...the chickens clean up the rest of it.

Since a lot of people that have butchering done don't want those items you could probably make friends with the butcher and get them for almost nothing.

That's all I have
CG

[LONER]

WOW!!! I thought this would be a hassle and a bother, but with the price of dog food having gone up 2 dollars in about 6 weeks, I tried it, and it' really a breeze!
AND my dogs are not starving every time I feed them!!
On the dry food I was feeding, they were absolutely ravenous when I fed them twice a day and were not looking all that great. Plus, their poop was really weird looking...real mushy, yellowish and grainy. I think it was the fact that there was mostly corn and soybeans in the dry dog food and they don't get that much nutrition out of it.
I am just experimenting so far, and I have been fixing a pot full of rice, cooked in the roaster, mixed with 2 pounds of ground turkey (cheap when you buy it at Aldi's in the 1 pound rolls), a dozen eggs, cooked in with the rice, and 2 cans of evaporated milk. They are 1/2 Great Pyre and 1/2 Greman Shepardand about 7 months old, so they really need the milk and extra calcium.
They are very glad to get their food, but they don't try to knock me down to get it now! They were jumping all over me and being in my mid-50's, having two BIG dogs jumping on me was not helping my bad back and aching joints!!
It is SOOOO bizarre! They now act like very calm, well behaved dogs. The difference is AMAZING!
Could this just be my imagination, or is it that they were actually close to starving, even with me giving them milk 2Xs a week, cheese about once a week, and beef kidneys about every other week! They are like different dogs!!:-D
I plan to get a more balanced set up going here this next week, but just this much has made me a BELIEVER!!
I feed it to my cats too.

[GermanAxeman]

I have replaced canned dogfood with homemade, but still buy the dry, usually Diamond brand or Alpo. We have 4 dogs (1 xl, 1 lg, 1 med. 1 small)
The Homemade:
cook 3 cups rice - I put 1-2 Tbsn of chicken fat or oil or butter in with it,
after the rice is cooked,
1-1 1/2 lbs. of meat chopped, (use what you have, I most often use ham, as we cook large bone-in hams and share it with our best friends after all of the humans have had their fill.)
2 cans of mixed veg. (i use Aldi brand)
that's it. dogs love it.
I mix it with a bowl of dry food every evening for their supper.
Store in the fridge and/or freezer

[Turnpike Jim]

This recipe has kept old dog alive and in good shape. (not so good now, but shes about 17 yrs old).

4 1/2 lb cooked cheap meat
3 cup cooked rice
2 cup cooked split peas
1-2 cooked sweet potato
2 cup cooked macaronni
1 bag frozen veggies (add to peas)
4 cups rolled oats, raw
Flat Bread pieces (2 cups each of white flour, wheat flour and corn meal. add some yeast warm water, some sugar, salt and oil. Let rise a hour or so and roll out like pizza dough. Let rise a bit longer and bake at 450 for a half hour or so)
1 quart gravy (made with 3 packs dry gravy mix)

Grind up the meat and mix all the dry ingredients. Add the wet stuff and mix well. I used to just add the flour dry, but they like it better processed as bread. Sometimes I use regular potatos. Frreze until needed. This makes about 16-18 lbs.

Jim

[just living]

Here are some I found...I havent tried them yet though

Doggy Fish Dinner
1 can of salmon (bones removed)
1 egg beaten
3 Tbsp cornmeal
1 potato
1 carrot
1 stick celery
1 Tbsp peanut butter
Combine salmon, egg, and cornmeal and mix well, form into patties, and coat them with a little more cornmeal. Fry in a tiny amount of canola oil until brown on both sides. Chop patties into small bites and stir together with chopped and boiled vegetables. A spoonful of cottage cheese may be stirred in for moisture if desired. Finish off dinner with peanut butter as dessert.

Doggy Hamburger Helper
1 cup hamburger meat, stir-fried in 1 tbsp canola oil
2 boiled eggs, chopped
½ cup cooked plain oatmeal
1 jar baby food green beans
1 jar baby food carrots
2 Tbsp cottage cheese
Combine all ingredients and serve at room temperature. A good doggy multivitamin/mineral supplement may be added for good measure. Be sure to store unused portions in a covered container in the refrigerator and discard any remains after 3 days.
　
Doggy Casserole
1 cup boiled poultry, chopped
½ cup cooked brown rice
½ cup boiled mixed vegetables
3 to 4 Tbsp unsalted chicken broth
(Note: Salmon may occasionally be substituted for boiled poultry, with chicken broth omitted.)
Stir together and serve at room temperature. A good doggy multivitamin/mineral supplement may be added for good measure. Be sure to store unused portions in a covered container in the refrigerator and discard remains after 3 days.

[manikindwarf]

Wow nice receipes. I've been making my own wet dog food for a
number of yrs now. I do buy dry dog food, but very expensive kind.
This is what i do....one or two ground turkey rolls, Cook for 20 min.
in 1/3 pot water. Cool down. Add few cups of GOOD dry dog food,
can of green veggies, cooked elbow pasta. Mix good. Another one i
do is to put a few cups of dry dog food in pot, add hot water, mix up,
then add big can of fish, also small pot of rice. Mix up good. They
love it. My dogs get toast and dog biscuits for breakfast and their
main meal in early evening. They are spayed so need to be on a
limited diet so they don't get a lot for breakfast. I've been thinking of
weaning them off the dry dog food, but not sure if i will. I want to make
sure they get their full nutrition.

[Sprocket]

Great recipes folks!!! I use a combination of everything you all do with the exception of dry dog food. Haven't used that in over two years and have had happy and healthy dogs ever since. They tend to be more svelt with more leana muscle mass. I used to feed a dry that used chicken until the guy at the feed store told me that our "wonderful" FDA had ok'd treating the chicken that was in dog/cat and even people food with a substance that was used to cure tire rubber. I wish I could remember the name of the chemical but I can't. He'd done a lot of research on it and I did as well after he gave a heads up. Dog cancer has been on the rise for several years now and it can be tied to all sorts of things including dry dog chow.

We also feed raw bunnies to the dogs that we've frozen. They're referred to as bunnie cicles around here and our dogs love them. It's good for their teeth and keeps them busy for a while 8)

Our dogs also get a supplement on occasion to make sure I have all of the vitamins covered.

To the cooked chow I also add some frozen or dehydrated blueberries and apple slices as that helps cover the antioxidents.

[Patches]

My dog has had huge problems with hot spots, itching and itchy red ears. She would just about scratch her hide off. After switching brands of supposedly quality dog foods (not cheap) and several trips to the vet (also not cheap) I decided it was time to try homemade dog food.

The book, "The Dog Whisperer" has a chart for the correct proportions of protein, grain, vegetables and oil, according to the dogs weight, per serving.

My dog weighs about 50 lbs.so this is what I go by

4 cups of grain, 1 1/3 cups of protein, 1/2 cup vegetables, 2tsp oil.

I also sprinkle a vitamin supplement, Show Stopper, on each serving, and I've got one happy dog. All her skin problems have cleared up, her coat looks great.

[manikindwarf]

I've read that the dry dog food that is giving the dogs cancer is the
cheap stuff with all the Animal By Products in them. They use rendered
down dead pets or so i've read. Maybe not in all states, but Delta Rescue swears they do this in California and he is fighting these
companies that are doing it. Also, even if they use beef they throw in
all the Tumors and such for pet food. These tumors and floor scraps
are the "by products". Plus the chemicals and cancer cells, tumors
that are in the rendered pets. A book i have but can't find is called...
"Food Pets Die For". It was sickening and i misplaced the book cuz
it was so sad to read. I do think that the dry and wet pet food that
does not use By Products is much better and safer. I pay $24 plus
tax for a 15 lb bag of dry dog food. I extend it with the human turkey
roll, rice, pasta, veggies. The problem is that i cannot afford to stock
up on the expensive dog food and i feel guilty about that. I stock up
on the cheaper brands and figure it's better than them starving.

[Patches]

Yes, the book I am reading says they use "4D" meat in dog food, "which stands for dead, dying, diseased, and disabled". My dog is doing so much better since I am cooking for her. Her coat looks good, and she just looks healthier and more alert. It is well worth the extra effort. I am giving her venison hamburger mixed with barley or oats and grated carrots and zucchini, plus a vitamin supplement.