Home made pet food

[Altern]

We are considering making our own dog food.
If anyone has comments about THIS particular method & product we'd love to hear them.
Thank you.

[chele]

dturm wrote:

chele wrote:
I wish that article provided the recipes! I've been feeding our dogs home made food. Skeeter has pancreatitis so she is on a fat-free diet. The girls look good, seem healthy, but it would be nice to know if I'm doing this right!

I'm not sure I'd worry about nutritional complete in a dog with a medical problem, like pancreatitis. Short term, no problem at all, mid term probably not an issue - long term (I'm talking years) you need to weigh potential issues from diet vs the real problem of pancreatitis.

Just my $.02

Thanks Doc. I think the same way! As long as she eats and avoids pancreatitis, it's all good! So far it's been about a year with no further issue :B

[Pawz4me]

Code2High wrote:
As far as the nutritional aspect, dogs don't have a built-in requirement to have an exact amount of vitamins and minerals at every meal, any more than people do. What makes "complete and balanced" so critical is that so often we feed them the same thing every single day for years at a time. So, that diet has to cover all the bases, or problems will result. Some people who feed holistically rotate ingredients in the diet in order to balance it out over time. Honestly, that's healthier, but not everyone is going to do that. Or even can do that, especially with animals with specific dietary restrictions or needs.

Totally agree.

If you look at the back of any dog (or cat) food, you're going to see a list of ingredients. It will start out as either meats or grains or whatever the "macro nutrient" ingredients are that provide the protein, carbs, and fat. Then there's a long list of supplements. Basically, the way the food becomes "complete" is that they add the equivalent of multi-vitamin and mineral supplements to it. The only problem with that is that when you stop and think about it, they consistently, as a group, over-estimate the amount of food a dog of a given size needs to stay at a healthy weight. So, most dogs are getting half of the food they suggest and thus getting half the amount of vitamins and minerals that the company says they should get for their size. Oops.

Totally agree again. Only once have I had a dog who could eat anywhere near what his dog food manufacturer recommended he eat per day. And that was my Brittany for a few years when he was young and super, super active. Other than dogs like that, I suspect most of us with healthy weight pets are feeding about one-half of what is recommended on the bag/can/package. Talk about nutrient deficiencies!

[Code2High]

Dogs have gotten sick... and died... from salmonella in recent years with these recalls. With kibble and with the jerky type treats. And yet, dogs eating "BARF" (bones and raw food or biologically appropriate raw food, as you prefer) diets don't seem to do that. Harder to digest? Changes the gut environment? Dunno. Never had anything resembling salmonella in all the years of having raw food eating animals in the house, nor met anyone who has.

Best Friends, which is an organization run by vegetarians (all meals meatless when they provide them to humans) nevertheless gives their animals that need immune system help raw meat for their diet. Or did a few years ago, at least. Apparently they find it helpful.

Freezing is hard on both e-coli and salmonella, harder on salmonella but I read one study where after two weeks both are 99 percent gone. Not sure if most home freezers get to the same temps they used, so that's something to look at. There's a study somewhere but I have to be up early to drive my fosters to their ride north, so I'm finishing up my supper and going to bed rather than looking it up. Long day! And tomorrow will be another.

Ground beef would concern me more if it's in the "chubs" where a billion pounds a day of meat are going across a machine. That's a set-up for contamination as we've seen over and over. Meat ground in-store is a little better bet. Then again, both ground beef and kibble test dirty with some regularity, so I'm not sure it's fair to say that the raw meat is less safe than the kibble. Of course, if you aren't comfortable with raw meat you can cook the meat, you won't be a BARF person, but you will have zero concerns about microbes regardless of the meat source, providing you use appropriate cooking/handling practices in the kitchen.

As far as the nutritional aspect, dogs don't have a built-in requirement to have an exact amount of vitamins and minerals at every meal, any more than people do. What makes "complete and balanced" so critical is that so often we feed them the same thing every single day for years at a time. So, that diet has to cover all the bases, or problems will result. Some people who feed holistically rotate ingredients in the diet in order to balance it out over time. Honestly, that's healthier, but not everyone is going to do that. Or even can do that, especially with animals with specific dietary restrictions or needs.

If you look at the back of any dog (or cat) food, you're going to see a list of ingredients. It will start out as either meats or grains or whatever the "macro nutrient" ingredients are that provide the protein, carbs, and fat. Then there's a long list of supplements. Basically, the way the food becomes "complete" is that they add the equivalent of multi-vitamin and mineral supplements to it. The only problem with that is that when you stop and think about it, they consistently, as a group, over-estimate the amount of food a dog of a given size needs to stay at a healthy weight. So, most dogs are getting half of the food they suggest and thus getting half the amount of vitamins and minerals that the company says they should get for their size. Oops.

There are, however, about a bazillion multivitamins on the market specifically designed for dogs. Or cats. So that regardless of what you're feeding, you can be sure that your dog or cat is getting those bases covered, with a dosage based on the weight of that animal. Just like you'd take a daily vitamin supplement to insure yourself against shortfalls in your diet.

But there's another issue with the amount of calcium and the ratio of calcium to phosphorus. That's supposed to be 1:1` or 2:1 depending on who you ask. They seem to have done some math on that for this recipe... I didn't research it or do that math to check if they did it correctly.

The supplements they include in this food recipe seem to be based on the dyno-vite covering the micro-nutrient bases, the eggshells covering the macro-mineral bases, and the EFA supplement covering the specific EFA needs. Then you only need protein, fat, and carbs. Which it has. Whether or not the dyno-vite is that complete, I don't know. If it is, then it might be just boffo, I guess. Supplements or not, I prefer to have a little more... well, I like some veggies in the mix, and plain white rice all the time would not be my idea of awesome nutrition. Especially with the arsenic thing... you want to get California rice to avoid that issue.

I think having a recipe that's veterinary nutritionist approved is a great idea, but unless you have a dog with particular needs, it shouldn't have to be customized. Someone ought to write a book and odds are, someone already has, with a group of such recipes in it.

[dturm]

chele wrote:
I wish that article provided the recipes! I've been feeding our dogs home made food. Skeeter has pancreatitis so she is on a fat-free diet. The girls look good, seem healthy, but it would be nice to know if I'm doing this right!

I'm not sure I'd worry about nutritional complete in a dog with a medical problem, like pancreatitis. Short term, no problem at all, mid term probably not an issue - long term (I'm talking years) you need to weigh potential issues from diet vs the real problem of pancreatitis.

Just my $.02

[chele]

I wish that article provided the recipes! I've been feeding our dogs home made food. Skeeter has pancreatitis so she is on a fat-free diet. The girls look good, seem healthy, but it would be nice to know if I'm doing this right!

[dturm]

Timely article I got today UC Davis study on homemade diets

[CA_POPPY]

This stuff scares me as our Darcy (min pin) after personally making the Calif field mouse extinct, is working on decimating the alligator lizard population. She doesn't just kill them, she eats them. :E She's put on weight and I can't convince her that we LIKE lizards, they keep down the bugs in our yard. She's got a fierce prey drive and we've never had a dog like that before. Other than keeping her in the house as much as possible, I have no idea how to discourage her. My brother's cat died from eating blue belly lizards, but we don't have those here. If Darcy ever spots a baby rattlesnake, it will be a tragedy.

[BCSnob]

It is possible the microbiota in dogs is better able to resist colonization of pathogenic microorganisms than the microbiota in humans.

In other words, the resident "bugs" in a dog's gut may be more resistant to bad "bugs" (like salmonella) colonizing in a dog's gut as compared to the resident "bugs" in a human's gut. The resident bacteria in your gut resists bad bacteria from setting up shop.

Interaction of Salmonella spp. with the Intestinal Microbiota

[dturm]

BCSnob wrote:

Deb and Ed M wrote:
BC Snob - how do they manage to eat this stuff and not get deathly sick????? Are their systems just better-designed to deal with the pathogens they surely ingest??

From what I can tell from the scientific literature, the answer is yes for healthy dogs. The answer is likely no for dogs that have compromised health.

The issue we're seeing in the press for raw pet foods (all pets foods) has to do with public (human) health concerns associated with the pathogens that are likely present in the raw meats (and pet foods being recalled). In other words, possible human sickness due to contact with contaminated pet foods.

Very good summary.

Because dogs are a little less likely to break with full blown salmonella than people, you get the false information spread that dogs CAN'T get it. Then you have all the other pathogens...

AVMA Position Statement wrote:
Animal-source proteins of concern include beef, pork, poultry, fish, and other meat from domesticated or wild animals as well as milk* and eggs. Several studies1–6 reported in peer-reviewed scientific journals have demonstrated that raw or undercooked animal-source protein may be contaminated with a variety of pathogenic organisms, including Salmonella spp, Campylobacter spp, Clostridium spp, Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, and enterotoxigenic Staphylococcus aureus. Cats and dogs may develop foodborne illness after being fed animal-source protein contaminated with these organisms if adequate steps are not taken to eliminate pathogens; secondary transmission of these pathogens to humans (eg, pet owners) has also been reported.1,4 Cats and dogs can develop subclinical infections with these organisms but still pose a risk to livestock, other nonhuman animals, and humans, especially children, older persons, and immunocompromised individuals.

Doug, DVM

[BCSnob]

Deb and Ed M wrote:
BC Snob - how do they manage to eat this stuff and not get deathly sick????? Are their systems just better-designed to deal with the pathogens they surely ingest??

From what I can tell from the scientific literature, the answer is yes for healthy dogs. The answer is likely no for dogs that have compromised health.

The issue we're seeing in the press for raw pet foods (all pets foods) has to do with public (human) health concerns associated with the pathogens that are likely present in the raw meats (and pet foods being recalled). In other words, possible human sickness due to contact with contaminated pet foods.

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

BC Snob - how do they manage to eat this stuff and not get deathly sick????? Are their systems just better-designed to deal with the pathogens they surely ingest??

[BCSnob]

How well our Sam is doing has softened our attitudes towards what our dogs eat.

Sam supliments his kibble (free choice feed) with things like
rotting hind quarters of roadkill deer
killed goundhogs aged in the sun and bloated
duck eggs of unknown age

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

WandaLust2 wrote:

Pawz4me wrote:
If I were going to prepare my own dog food, I would educate myself extensively first. Two reputable sources of information IMO are:


Monica Segal (K9 Kitchen, as BCSnob mentioned above) and

Sabine Contreras

Exactly! Just buying a sack of raw meat and a supplement wouldn't be wise. But any of the good recipes out there (by Lic vets/nutritionists) are an improvement over the commercial kibbles. As for being cautious with raw meat... well aren't we all unless we're vegetarians? My husband and myself always wash our hands thoroughly after handling raw meat we cook for dinner.

Raw meat doesn't scare me until it's ground up. If there's any contamination, the grinding process distributes it nicely throughout the meat, where it can multiply. Also, a grocer is allowed to 're-grind a certain amount of older meat back into the new. So making up a nice batch of raw hamburger with other ingredients (and the risk for further contamination during that process) strikes me as risky. Yes, I know a dog will eat a week-long-dead squirrel and survive - but I wouldn't feed that for dinner!

Don't get me wrong, I like a nice burger on the grill. I just want it well-cooked.

[WandaLust2]

Deb and Ed M wrote:

LOL!! I kept looking for the directions where it said "brown the ground beef" or bake it or whatever - when I realized they were talking about feeding raw hamburger - it gave me the heebie-jeebies 😉 The recalls on THAT stuff make the dog food recalls pale in comparison....

You can brown it or cook it in the microwave. I don't buy ground meat for my cats. I buy gizzards, hearts, kidneys and livers. They get 15% raw meat (liver only once a week)and the rest canned. Kibble, the better brands, is used as a treat only.

They do get some of what I make for dinner such as small chunks of tilapia, chicken, pork etc. We're not beef eaters and it's unlikely cats in the wild would be eating beef (or corn or wheat or potatoes)....

The most recommended site for cat owners is www.catinfo.org