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New to Raw Dog Food/Home Prepared Food Need Help

This is the place to share your best homemade dog food and treat recipes with each other! Remember to use caution if your pet has allergies and to make any diet changes gradually so that your dog's stomach can adjust to the new foods you are introducing.

  


Member Since
02/16/2013		 
 
Barked: Sat Feb 16, '13 5:21pm PST 
I am going to be getting my English Bulldog service dog in about a month and the trainer says that she has a yeast allergy that has caused some skin infections and that she would need to be on a grain-free, gluten-free diet. She currently feeds her a raw diet, but some of the meats that she gets I don't think I will be able to get (rabbit, deer, lamb, etc.). http://www.examiner.com/article/holistic-feeding-menu

I have done a lot of reading on this forum, books, other websites about the raw diet, paleopet diet (http://www.paleopet.com/), home prepared diet, and other versions. I want to go with a healthier diet for her than commercial dog food, but don't also want to be spending a fortune. I have a little bit of freezer space to do up meals in advance but can't get too crazy. What would be the best option for her since she needs a grain-free, gluten-free diet? I really need a receipe, a plan, or something to go off of and follow along. I just want what is best for my dog.

I have contacted a co-op in my town (Colorado Springs) to see what they have to offer, but wanted to see what advice everyone had on here. I don't want to have too much going on with her food, but still want it to be balanced long-term.

Thanks
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Maxwell

I'm triple- superior MAD- now!		 
 
Barked: Sat Feb 16, '13 6:56pm PST 
Lucky dog to get all those proteins. You can feed just chicken, turkey, pork and beef and the dog will do just fine if that seems easier for you. I was able to stuff prepacked raw meals for a month on one partial shelf in my refrigerator but Max only needs 20 pounds of food a month, your dog is a bit larger than Max.

If I was forced to feed Max cooked or boneless I would go to Lew Olson's Low Glycemic Diet in a flash.
http://www.b-naturals.com/newsletter/low-glycemic/

To estimate amounts it would be best to do about the same as you would do for raw, 2% of the dog's ideal adult weight in meat/egg/fish/dairy/organ and add in the veggies on top of that. That makes raw a whole lot cheaper to feed than cooked food as veggies usually cost more than chicken and pork. A 50 pound dog starts at 1 pound or 16 ounces of meaty stuff per day.

I would start with a recipe of 3 pounds of meat/egg/dairy/organ/fish that includes about 4-6 ounces of fatty fish, a couple eggs and about 3 ounces of liver with 1 pound of assorted low calorie veggies and mix in 2 teaspoons of powdered eggshell. That would be 5 days of food for 38 pound Max and might be 3 days for a 50 pound dog. Use pork, lamb or beef in preference to chicken and turkey for the higher mineral content of the red meats. This diet would be better balanced using a trusted source of bone meal than egg shell calcium for Max as he doesn't get 2% of his body weight daily.

Please see Sedona's awesome thread on balancing the diet here on this forum to see how well you have balanced the diet. Tweak as you go as dogs can tolerate deficiencies of this and that for quite a while without any problem and this recipe is a good start.
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Member Since
02/16/2013		 
 
Barked: Sat Feb 16, '13 8:48pm PST 
Thanks Maxwell, you just verified what I was kind of thinking of in my head of doing, but I wanted to hear it from someone that has done this for some time. I love the trainer that my dog is at right now, but they have access to butchers and meat processors that I don't have access to so it limits what I can feed. I just didn't want to make a change in the diet and it be nutritionally deficient.
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Member Since
02/16/2013		 
 
Barked: Sun Feb 17, '13 2:27pm PST 
@Maxwell

After doing some research last night I think I have found a diet that I like and will start out with after making some tweaks.

10 lbs. of ground Chicken and Bone (Neck, thighs, breast, drums, whatever you can get cheapest)
3 lbs. of Carrots
1.5 lbs. of Wheat bran
1 c. of Extra virgin olive oil
For puppies just add unflavored Jell-O cooked oatmeal or rice.

Now she is on a grain-free, gluten-free diet due to her yeast allergy so I know I'm going to have to take out the wheat bran, oatmeal, and rice but what do I/can I replace it with?

I've found a wholesaler online that I can get 40 lbs of chicken necks and 5 lbs of chicken livers for just under $40 + shipping. So I'm thinking of changing that 10 lbs. into a mixture of the necks and livers. I also plan on eventually adding in some beef later down the line to this mix. I'm also going to be giving a probiotic (not sure which one yet? any ideas?), salmon oil, coconut oil, and maybe change the veggies to a fruit/veggie mix.

I know that some people don't think this is the best way, but with me just getting my feet wet I believe this is something that I can start with and then make changes along the way. I don't have the time, money, or freezer space to do PMR and this looked like the next best thing. I got it from a Veterinarian and English Bulldog breeder so I'd like to think it was okay health wise since he's been doing it for 5 years per the website.
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