ISO: Hopefully not too off topic, but ISO dog food recipes or someplace to look

In Search Of:
D

desertjean

Well-known member
A new recall has hit the food we use, Natural Balance Vennison & Brown Rice due to melamine being found in the rice protien. Our cooking is now expanding to pet food. For the time being it's simply chicken, green beans and oatmeal.

I'd be super grateful for recipes, books or sites to check out.

 
I make dog food all the time, desertjean- what kind of dog do you have?

We have a Belgian Malinois that has different dietary needs than other breeds as well as having skin allergies and I have done a bunch of research on homemade dog food for several breeds, also made recipes for some people. I would be glad to help you.

I have a large pot of dog food cooling right at this moment. I make it every 5-6 days so it doesn't get "old" and our dog thrives on it.

 
2 Very Spoiled Great Danes

Thank you, Cathy. I had to look up Belgian Malinois, what a beautiful dog!

One of ours, the Harlequin, has severe allergies, hence the single protien vennison & brown rice. We are currently on the down side of a heavy steroid run due to a really bad episode.

I have the basics down, no onions, grapes, etc. After that, the few sites I looked at all were either fanatical or gave very differing opinions on meeting nutritional requirements.

Making my own baby food was MUCH simpler!!!

 
Here is a suggestion

You didn't say what the allergies are to- is it something in the enviornment or is it food allergies? We went through a run of steroids with Zoom the very spoiled Malinois. I started making her food just after putting her through a series of allergy tests that were sort of inconclusive. I ran across a web site of this man, William Cusick, who is a dog nutrition specialist and he let me know that Belgian Malinois do not do well with certain foods and also they don't digest high fiber foods well. I changed Zoom's diet as I was feeding her a beef-based homemade food and now she gets chicken, fish, zucchini, green beans, green peas, carrots, potatoes, flax seed and bulgar wheat. I give her a powdered supplement for her skin too. She is doing beautifully on it all!

I looked up Mr. Cusick's info on Great Danes here: http://home.att.net/~wdcusick/GreatDane.html and you can read what he has to say- maybe you even want to buy his book or contact him for a personal recipe but here is what I suggest for you to try:

5 lbs Lean ground beef (or venison if you can get it!)
1 whole Butternut or 2 acorn squash (unpeeled but washed carefully), cut into chunks OR 3-4 russet potatos, scrubbed and cut into chunks
2 lbs carrots
1 lg bag frozen green beans
1 small cabbage, cut into chunks
3 cups Whole rolled oats
1 cup Rye (am not certain what form you can find to put in the mixture)
1 cup Flax Seed
3 cups beef broth or water

Break up the ground beef and start browning it then dump in all the other ingredients, cover and simmer until potatoes and squash are almost tender (they will cook more as it cools down.)

This is off the top of my head so when you actually try it, use your own sense of how it should be to figure quantities. I personally do not use rice in dog food- it is just fill. If you feel you need something more, try barley.

I hope your beautiful dogs can eat this mixture- I hope allergies don't get in the way. If this doesn't help let me know further information and I will try to help.

 
Help please, when the recipe swap page loads it

stops at 04/06/07. I've tried refresh, and restarting my computer. Nothing helped. I got here by going to the Archives and down to the "latest post" listings. Can anyone help me?
It feels like the rest of the world has disappeared.

 
Thank you so much!

Dee's allergies all "appear" to be seasonal, but this year is the first year they went so far out of control. If the steroid run and new antihistamine mix doesn't work, next will be allergy testing.


I will check out his site and book as well as try your recipe. I really appreciate your time and help when I had started looking all of the info out. The info out there was overwhelming and it appeared some of it was pretty wrong. (One actually advocated grapes for treats and provided recipes for raisin cookies!)

Again, thank you and Dee and Daphne thank you!

 
desertjean, have you tried BARF?

Bones and Raw Food - little Gomez has no issues and now he is eating Eagle Pack Holistic, but aparently raw is the best for allergies, etc...

Try this forum http://www.pets.ca/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=53

apart from having reipes for pets, they also have breakdowns of all the ingredients in a lotof pet food and a breakdown of raw feeding...

It can be a bit "intense" in there sometimes, but there is a loto f good info - good luck

 
I haven't tried BARF

Although I have seen it as highly rated, but I have to say, it's hard to go with a raw food concept. I realize dogs have been eating it raw in the wild, but, well...

No one up here sells Eagle. We actually explored that idea before going with Natural Balance.

Has Gomez finally been sprung from his unfortunate incarceration and joined you in your new home?

 
Hmmm. Lots of stuff I love. Ellie, do you know if there is something specific in this that is

particularly helpful?

 
The two biggest dietary causes of allergies are corn and chicken, desertjean

You probably know that since you have researched- most commercial dog foods use corn as a filler. We had a dog that suffered allergies for years until I figured out that I was making it worse by feeding him a commercial chicken and corn-based food. I switched to lamb and rice-based food and his allergies disappeared. I thought it was something in the grass or air.

The dog we have now thrives on a chicken and fish-based diet.

I forgot to tell you we do supplement the homemade food for our dog with 1 cup Solid Gold dry food- this is a very good quality dry food with no fill at all in it.

 
is anyone cooking food for their cats? any ideas and recipes? commercial food is

just getting so scary. it's like playing Russian roulette with your pet's life.

the contaminated rice gluten is american grown and, from what a friend told me, the company is refusing to name the source of the contanimated rice, so far anyway. it makes you wonder just how long before it gets into the human food supply :-0

 
correction, sent my friend a link to this thread and she just sent me this...

I have a correction for you to post...sorry.
The contaminated Natural Balance food had a rice protein concentrate contaminated with melamine that was imported from China by an American company Wilbur-Ellis. It was sold to five different pet food companies and Wilbur-Ellis has only named Natural Balance and has not yet to my knowledge named all the pet food manufacturers who bought it. Please tell everyone on the swap to pay very close attention to what they are feeding their pets.

Another recall was announced last night by Menu Foods. You may want to post the link.

http://www.itchmo.com/

 
I suspect that it is just plain healthy (more)

We eat a lot of grains e.g. farro, brown rice, spelt, couscous (pasta actually), and bulgur so there's always some container with brown stuff in the refrigerator. The dog food looks the same so we always seem to be opening containers to make sure we're not eating Guff's dog food.

We thought we would try this because Guff was having trouble jumping in the car or getting up the steps and we definitely saw a difference.

 
Coming from "where the tall corn grows"

I was horrified to learn that corn had no value. Negated my whole value as an Iowegian. However, I was glad to learn that less fill (ie, corn) in dog food meant less waste in the yard smileys/smile.gif This was one reason I liked Natural Balance.

I didn't realize chicken was a big issue, tho. I'm stopping on my way home to grab the ground beef and other ingredients.

Again, thank you so much for your help. You've gone above and beyond!!!

 
re: arthritis - we give our dog glucosamine and have seen a big improvement...

in a joint problem she has. i also know a number of arthritic dogs who've been on it and have had a significant improvement in their arthritis symptoms. i open a capsule, sprinkle the contents over the food, dampen with some water and after two years my dog still thinks it's a treat!

 
Randi, I am continuously amazed at how

the pet food industry gets away with so much crap. I still can't believe Menu, even after doing their own live animal trials where one in six died, still kept mum for two months until the Canadian media finally got wind of it.

Cat food is next on my list. I haven't seen much at all on home made cat food and their nutrition is completely different than a dogs. We once had a male cat that had to have some pretty rough surgeries because we were feeding a brand too high in ash. Now we feed Felidae to our crew, which, knock on wood hasn't been affected. Yet.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top