Made some fresh food for Kona today: 1/3 lb. ground beef, 2 c. brown rice, carrot, yam, flax seed oil, kelp powder, alfalfa leaf. Cooked it in a pot and then let it cool, gave her a cup of it with 1/4 cup of good kibble. She devoured it.
Anyone who has more similar recipes, please pass along. Bulk rice and carrots etc are cheap, but I’d like to keep the protein costs down. What about chicken backs? Those are cheap because people don’t like to eat them, right? I wonder where I can buy those. And can the dogs just crush the bones with their teeth? Christine, Liz?
Anyway, she loved it and I think we’ll make it her dinner going forward. The batch I made today made a lot, maybe five or six days worth, and probably cost about $2.00. Yep, that is cheaper than feeding her canned + kibble. And it’s real, whole food.
as far as i know, it’s bad to give chicken bones to dogs because they are hollow and can break into sharp shards that can damage organs, etc. or at least, i remember a vet telling me that. maybe it’s not all chicken bones–just legs, or something. but still. probably something to look into more. i was not very helpful! sorry.
I also remember hearing this.
Then I wonder why my dog breeder friends feed their dogs chicken backs.
I think that advice applies to cats. And also applies to the thicker leg bones.
Don’t cook chicken you give to her–that makes the bones more brittle. Weight-bearing bones can be hazardous even raw.
Chicken backs are fed raw, with bones, and the bones are partially ground up in the eating process (and wrapped in the meat) and are usually digested quite well.
If you’re going to cook the food, then you should stay away from anything with bones.
There’s a ton of info on the web, google BARF (bones and raw food), raw food meaty bones dogs, etc.
Thanks! Yeah I did find a BARF recipe I will try out. Do you get yours from Costco or something?
We found a butcher who will take orders and get a couple cases of chicken backs once a month. I bring them home and bag them in ziplocks and freeze them; you probably don’t need as much but it’s good to find a place that has them regularly or something. Otherwise you’re hunting all over town and chicken backs are kind of a weird item that’s not available all the time.
If you can find someone, maybe haggle with them for a deal if you have the freezer space for a special order?
You might want to check with your vet to see if some general vitamins are need to supplement the people food. I remember the “new natural cat” had a list of vitamins to add to homemade cat food. Mom
Dog food
I made fresh dog food for three months, but it gets expensive. Especially when you are trying to feed 200 lbs of dog with a small fridge.
/apathy