Homemade dog food

[Deleted User]

Hi does any one make their own dog food looking to reduce monthly outgoings a lot, I was thinking about supermarket value mince, .:)maybe liver which is also cheap, any tips or recipes would be gratefully received, thankyou

quintwins

I don't think it would be that much cheaper 1kg of frozen value mince is £2.75 or pigs liver is £1 a kg but 1.25kg of the bruno dog food is 89p i bought this last week for my preg dog (they usually only have dry food but she deserves a wee treat) and it was very good, it said on the tin it is a complete dog food so you could get away with just feeding this.

[Deleted User]

Yes I suppose your right, the other thing I didnt mention was my little dog is a bit hyper so if I made my own there would be no additives.

krlyr

You may well find it's no cheaper, and cooking a homemade diet can actually provide less nutrition to the dog because you cook off the nutrients - also, by changing the makeup of the food by cooking it, you can actually make it less digestible. Have you looked into raw feeding? There are many suppliers of raw food which really cuts costs.
For an example, I switched to raw-feeding for my dogs. To trial it, I bought meats from the supermarket. Buying pretty much only Tesco value range, reduced meats and Iceland meat/fish, it cost me £120 a month to feed my two (albeit, large breed) dogs, vs the £40 a month I was paying for a medium-quality dry food. I swallowed the cost because it was just for a trial before I invested in a chest freezer and bulk-bought. By sourcing meat processed specifically for raw feeding, I cut that cost back down to £40 a month, sometimes less if I could source freebie bits from the butcher near work or a colleague who's sister owns a farm. Have now made friends with another colleague who hunts as a hobby and I get all his excess rabbit/birds that he doesn't cook for himself, for free, which helps minimise costs too (one small rabbit does a day's worth of food per dog, large rabbit is shared between the two).I also feel that, for the same cost, I am providing a much better quality, and much more interesting diet.

Here's a post of mine from another forum listing quite a few of the raw food suppliers

krlyr wrote: »

Whereabouts in the country are you? There's a few big suppliers but some have set delivery routes
E.g. DAF (mostly Midlands upwards but they have stockists nationwide)
http://www.daf-petfood.co.uk/content/1-delivery
Landywoods (nationwide)
http://www.landywoods.co.uk/delivery.html
TPMS (Midlands, West and Wales)
http://www.landywoods.co.uk/delivery.html
TDFC (South-East, excluding London)
http://www.thedogfoodcompany.co.uk/
Raw2Paw (stockists of DAF, South West, South East and Midlands)
http://www.raw2paw.co.uk
There's some companies that courier so deliver nationwide but obviously at a bit more expense
Raw to Go
http://rawtogo.co.uk/
Berriewood courier some of their range, the rest is limited to their own delivery route
http://www.berriewoodwholesale.co.uk/sec/148/Frozen-Meats-for-Dogs/
There's also the more commercial products like Prize Choice (which is also stocked in many petshops if you can collect locally)
http://prizechoice.co.uk/
And the 'readymade complete' raw foods like Natural Instinct
http://www.naturalinstinct.com/
Or Honey's Real Dog Food
http://honeysrealdogfood.com/
Probably missed out a few smaller companies in certain areas, e.g. I know there's a few smaller stockists in Scotland that I can't recall the name of (e.g. one in Dundee, one up in the Highlands that's just started up). Plus some butchers have started making their own pet mince - though this can be a bit unbalanced as it's often just all their waste meat/fat/bones minced up rather than a good variety in balanced quantities.

It requires an element of balancing, there are a few different 'methods' but the one I follow is the prey model diet where you feed 80% meat, 10% bone and 10% offal (liver, kidney, etc). I don't really feed vegetables (other than excess/leftovers or the occasionally fish & veggie Kong) but I do feed lots of green tripe (stomach) which contains very similar vitamins and minerals due to the diet of the cows/other animals it came from. There's some other forms of raw feeding that include more veggies, a higher proportion of bones, various supplements like bio yoghurt etc. but the prey model diet makes sense to me (you're basically mimicking a wolf's diet with commercial meats - dogs have been studied and shown to have the same digestive system as their ancestoral wolves) and has kept my two in good health for the past 3 years.

alyssa_liss

you could feed RAW

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/111437-raw-feeding-everything-you-need-know.html

have a look into it can work out very cheap , and no additives at all

.

Pink.

This Old Style thread may help with treats:

Home Made Dog Treats?

And this thread from the Pets board has some advice:

Homemade dog and cat food recipes

I'll move your thread over there later to see if you can get more advice.

Pink

quintwins

Ah see we have cockers (waits for mse i star that out) who are hyper in nature, we buy a highend dry food direct from the manufactorer which means it costs us £20 for 6 weeks, it is musli and oil bases it acually looks nice ... well for dog food anyway.

We know alot of people who feed the barf diet and there dogs seem to like it.

twiz21

fairyface wrote: »

Hi does any one make their own dog food looking to reduce monthly outgoings a lot, I was thinking about supermarket value mince, .:)maybe liver which is also cheap, any tips or recipes would be gratefully received, thankyou

quintwins wrote: »

I don't think it would be that much cheaper 1kg of frozen value mince is £2.75 or pigs liver is £1 a kg but 1.25kg of the bruno dog food is 89p i bought this last week for my preg dog (they usually only have dry food but she deserves a wee treat) and it was very good, it said on the tin it is a complete dog food so you could get away with just feeding this.

Please be careful with how much liver you give your dogs. I know liver is very good for dogs and it's nice and cheap.
Too much given at once can give them the runs and/or stomach upset.

Liver contains vitamin A in a high concentration, too much of this can be toxic.

We feed our dog half complete organic dry dog food and half home cooked food. The cooked food is a mixture of either pork, beef, chicken or turkey with some vegetables and includes potatoes and or sweet potatoes. A little garlic, herbs and spices are added.

I got the basic recipe from a book called 'low cost living'.

Some dogs seem to be able to tolerate a good amount of liver. Ours does not, so she just gets the odd little piece from our dinner plate left overs.

Archer0710

We swapped our dogs away from branded kibble onto DAF raw food and halved our food bills for a better diet for them.

It's something I feel strongly about feeding animals cheap grain filled rubbish when it's so far away from their natural diet. My two have thrived, we have saved money and they love their food.

If I had time etc, I'd make it myself not necessarily on cost but to know exactly what I am feeding my dogs and in what ratios.

Being working types the removal of processed rubbish and grains has calmed them down too.

Winners all round

[Deleted User]

I'd keep the liver for myself and make a liver and bacon casserole Yummy on this cold and windy day, and buy the dog food already made up with all the ingrediants especially made for animals .

[Deleted User]

Thanks for all your help, I will go to pets at home I think, and yes Jackie its liver and bacon casserole for us for tea tommorow thanks:)