# Is the a balanced homemade dog food recipe?



## jenna6216 (Jun 24, 2014)

***Oops! Meant to title it "Is this a balanced homemade dog food recipe?"

Hi All, I just made this for my pups and wanted to know what people thought. The monthly items are frozen into four bags (one for each week). A bag is then taken out and the weekly items are added and then daily the eggshells are added. All the food is put through my food processor for a good texture. My dogs are 20 lbs and 15 lbs and receive 1/3 cup twice a day. They are Shetland Sheepdogs. The amount of the food will be tweaked if they are gaining/losing weight.

They really love the taste and I feel like it has everything needed for a balanced diet. I will, of course, mix up the meats and grains in the future but really I just want to know if people agree with the proportions and if they can suggest something to add? I am not big on supplements so unless something can't be found in a food, I don't want to add any. 

Add Monthly 
5 cups uncooked brown rice
2 lbs ground chicken
1 lb ground beef
3 large potatoes
3 oz mackerel in brine
1/2 lb beef liver
2 cups cooked escarole
8 eggs

Add Weekly
1 large banana
1 medium apple
1 cup plain yogurt

Add Daily
1/4 tsp of ground eggshells


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## Gally (Jan 11, 2012)

I'm guessing the 1/4 tsp of eggshell is per dog per day?


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

I'm assuming the rice does get cooked at some point, right?  Is the meat cooked or fed raw? You can find the nutritional content of foods on the USDA website, and a dog's nutritional needs on the NRC website, and try to compare them. I didn't crunch any numbers but it seems high on carbs (I think I'd want to see at least 50% meat, after cooking everything) and I'm not sure that's quite enough calcium. Here's a website that discusses what nutrients dogs need, (personally I feel their recipes are a bit limited and they rely on supplements, but the info is valuable): www.dogcathomeprepareddiet.com


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## jenna6216 (Jun 24, 2014)

Hi, It's actually 1/4 tsp per dog per meal to make 1/2 tsp per dog per day.


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## jenna6216 (Jun 24, 2014)

Hi Willowy- Haha, yes the rice gets cooked. It was just easier to measure when uncooked. The meat is all cooked and put through the processor. It is all boiled so it's easy to digest. I basically followed this article on what to include: http://www.whole-dog-journal.com/is...Dog-Food-Nutritional-Information_20568-1.html When it's all said and done it's right around 50% meat as that is what the author suggested as well. I will be doing less rice next time (I was doing 4 cups but my husband had already cooked a cup so we just added it in). As for the calcium, I was super neurotic about that actually. I just doubled checked with the site you gave me and they are right on target. 1/2 tsp of eggshell is a whopping 900 mg of Calcium (or right about). It's so crazy. With my dog's weights they need around 800 to 900 mg so we are good. I know Calcium is a big thing. We plan to buy a coffee grinder because we used the food processor and could only get the shell down to a table salt sized powder but we would like to see it more fine. Do you make your dog's food as well?


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

I don't currently make any homemade pet food but was making a ground cooked cat food for a super picky cat for awhile (she has thankfully deigned to eat canned cat food again. . .for now). A friend on my cat forum made a program she can run a recipe through to see how it measures up so she helped me with it. I may do more homemade food when things settle down but I'm super busy this summer so it's not working out right now.

Yeah, 1/2 tsp of eggshell powder a day sounds about right. 1/4 tsp just didn't seem like enough. A coffee grinder would be a good idea (you can get a cheap one for like $12, it'll last long enough to get your money's worth out of it), just make sure you let it sit for a while before you open it after grinding the eggshell because inhaling eggshell dust is no fun!!


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## jenna6216 (Jun 24, 2014)

Haha, I can't imagine that would be fun! I am glad to hear they are cheap enough. Good luck with your kitty. I have two of my own and am glad they are happy with their food. We only began this process because our dogs got a bug of some sort and we just want more control over what they are taking in. The vet wasn't super concerned about the bug but was very informative with the food. I understand the time aspect though. It took us two and a half hours to make a month's worth. I can handle that for a whole month but if it was 2.5 hours every week, I would search high and low for a better solution! ~


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

Sounds like a great start. Pretty much the way I started out. Not perfect but the dogs sure didn't complain any.

The eggs add up to about a pound? Then that is about 4 pounds of meaty stuff and about 7-8 pounds of starchy stuff. If I am right about the weight of egg [and I did remember to add in the liver and fish] then you are giving each dog about 1.25 ounce of meaty stuff a day. That is likely only about 8-9 grams of protein per dog per day, very low. Rice cooks up to about 1.2 pounds per cup of raw and you have potato in there as well. 

I'd be offering more like 3 ounces of mackerel a week than a month although that is still very low [only 68mg of omega 3 per dog per day] and if your dogs do okay with beef use all beef rather than chicken or at least more beef than chicken. Zinc and iron. Chicken is very low and beef is just right. 

You can mix the egg shell into the batch as a little more this day and a little less later doesn't matter much. Add vitamin E even though you are feeding real fish as a home made diet is going to be low in it. Mix it in 1-2x a week, split a 200-400 unit cap between the two of them. 

Max got 1/2 ounce of beef liver a day, that would be close to a pound a month. Since you are feeding two dogs that weigh about what he did you may want to put more in next time you cook.

Just tweak as you cook again, they will be fine for the time being. Are you sure they prefer pureed food? Maybe they would like more texture? Cook the rice in double the water the directions tell you to so it will be super mushy if you try it, I guess your grinding it probably mushes it up enough for the dogs it is fine cooked normally though.

The old NRC suggested a lot more calcium. Now it is about half that. 15 pound Ginger only needs a little over 500 mg of calcium a day but I am sure she usually gets more than that.

And --- phosphorus might be low and bone meal a better choice. Brown rice is very high in phosphorus so I would need to make up the recipe to be sure. Leave it for now anyway.

I am not personally comfortable eating food that has been thawed for a week. Maybe my refrigerator isn't cold enough but I have had to toss food that was that old in the past. My food, not the dog's. It turned and was metallic tasting and nasty.


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## dagwall (Mar 17, 2011)

Shouldn't there be some other organ other than the liver? Kidney being the easiest to get usually.


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## jenna6216 (Jun 24, 2014)

Kathyy- Thank you for your response! I will plan on more meat next time. I am thinking two lbs of poultry and two lbs of beef and then only 4 cups of rice. It should even it out some. Do you usually do more than that? 
I actually did a 15 oz can of the fish in real life but tweaked this recipe for what I was going to do next month. I had read multiple sites and they said 1 oz of fish per 1 lb of meat. I figured it was closer to 1/4 the can than the whole can in that case. 
I am not the biggest on supplements so I think I will just add in the extra fish and check out other sources of E instead of the artificial stuff.
As far at the liver goes, sources had said no more than 5% should be liver so that is why I did so little. I didn't want to over do it. I could add in a pound next time though. That is easy enough. 
I did cook the rice that way. I basically cooked it until I said "I would never eat this" haha. 
That is interesting about the calcium. I thought I was on the right track. I can't imagine it will hurt them too much to get 800 mg though. 
I can understand not wanting to thaw it that long. I am going to judge it as I see the dogs eating and the odor it gives. I am not quite sure either of us want to taste test it, haha, but we will figure out if it is sitting too long one way or the other.
I really appreciate your response! Also, what do you think of mixing up the grains with barley vs brown rice or oatmeal vs brown rice or a mixture?


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## jenna6216 (Jun 24, 2014)

Dagwall- I do have gizzard in the freezer for next month. We actually raise our own chickens and will be using some parts of them so they will definitely have a good assortment when that gets started. I couldn't find anything else at the store that was a reasonable price so for now they have liver.


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## Little Wise Owl (Nov 12, 2011)

Personally, I would reduce the amount of grains all together. 4 cups rice uncooked seems like way too much.


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## jenna6216 (Jun 24, 2014)

Ok, I could do 2 or 3. I will have to see how much difference it makes in volume next month and make up for it in other ingredients. Thanks for the input.


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## dagwall (Mar 17, 2011)

jenna6216 said:


> Dagwall- I do have gizzard in the freezer for next month. We actually raise our own chickens and will be using some parts of them so they will definitely have a good assortment when that gets started. I couldn't find anything else at the store that was a reasonable price so for now they have liver.


Gizzards, lung, and heart count as muscle meat, only secreting organs like liver, kidney, pancreas, brains, spleen, gonads, etc count as organ meat. In a raw diet you want 5% of their diet to be liver and another 5% of other organs. Kidney is usually the cheapest and easiest to acquire.


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## Gally (Jan 11, 2012)

If you go to your butcher counter ask for the other organs, mine often has them in a freezer in the back.

As a raw feeder I personally don't feed any carbs like rice or potatoes as they are not nutritionally important for dogs but I can see the desire to add some as sort of a binding agent and for fiber since you aren't feeding any bones like you would with a raw diet.


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## Jacksons Mom (Mar 12, 2010)

Just use a supplement, make your life easier. BalanceIT is the best IMO and you can formulate recipes on the site.


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## jenna6216 (Jun 24, 2014)

Thanks for the info. I will get better organ meat next month from the butcher. 

As for supplements, I would rather stick with natural sources but thanks for the advice.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

Right, ideally the diet would be 75% meat which includes the egg and a little liver then 25% veggies. Realistically that seems like way too much meat for some people and a dog will get enough actual protein from a diet with 50% meaty stuff for adequate nutrition. The diet can easily be low in some essential nutrients though although naturally occurring minerals are very likely more useful to the body than added supplements, right?

I actually had a great time cooking a whole chicken until meat was done then boning it and putting the bones into a slow cooker with more water and cooking until I could stab a fork through the thickest bones which took about 12 hours [cooked in the garage in a slow cooker on high as it smells strange] then pureeing the bones and cooking liquid in a food processor. Some bones refused to blend and are discarded. The meat was chopped in the food processor and of course the broth was mixed into that meat.

I estimated the whole chicken to be 30% bone so added 2x the weight of the chicken in other meat and liver and mixed the bone slurry in. Then added 25% pureed veggies to that. So you might take a 5 pound chicken, process it then add in 10 pounds of beef, lamb, egg, fish which includes 1 pound of liver and so on then take 25% of that which is about 4 pounds of veggies and that would be similar to a raw diet. You could cut down on the veggies if you like and you could substitute some starchy grain or vegetable for some of the meat as well but more meat is better. 15 pounds of meat/bone/organ is enough for about 25-30 pounds of dog a month. You would be then feeding about 19 pounds of raw ingredients plus whatever water was used for 2 dogs a month. Say 19 pounds, split 2 ways would be about 5 ounces of food per dog per day, 2.5 per meal. Chicken cost less than $1 on sale, beef is dear at about $3 a pound, pork is cheap at about $1 a pound so feeding 1/3 of each might be about $25 a month with veggie cost on top of that. Dollar a day for two small dogs, well worth it.

I did all that for Max when he was having tummy aches on every variation of raw I could come up with but it turned out he did better with some white rice than veggies. White rice is very low residue, perhaps I could have simply reduced the amount of veggies fed but I didn't try that. Commercial kibbles are 5-9% fiber and white rice with meat is more like 1% fiber and suited him fine. I fed him the same amount of meat and liver he needed on raw then added mushy rice to make up the calories he seemed to need.

I know raw fed dogs do better if they get the other organ but cannot see much difference when I put a diet into a nutrition database. I don't think it is vital for a cooked diet. Not sure why, perhaps the veggies and starchy stuff provide the same benefits of other organ?

Do look into balance it, they have loads of variations of diets. Not sure how much it costs but you can do a prepared diet of your choice of meat and starch or even veggie or do a custom diet. Works really well for worryworts that are concerned about a complete and balanced diet like kibble. I feel I can do a good job on my own at this point. Back when I needed help the diets available were extremely high in carbs which didn't seem a good idea to me at the time and still doesn't.


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## Gally (Jan 11, 2012)

There is definitely cross over in vitamins and nutrients between some veggies and organs. The reason most raw feeders choose the organ is that dogs are supposed to be better equipped to process the organs which might be why you only need 10% organ for a raw diet but it is often recommended to do around 25% veggies for a home cooked diet? 

At the end of the day, whatever the dog does best on and is nutrionally complete is what matters.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

The 25% veggies are a replacement for the bone bulk of a raw diet. I wonder if that amount can be cut down if a dog is fine on less without compromising nutrition.


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## Gally (Jan 11, 2012)

Except raw feeders only feed 10% bone. Wouldn't 10% veggies do the same if it was only about fiber/bulk? I don't know that much about home cooked diets.


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

I don't know either. When I made my cat's food, I didn't add any plant ingredients. Just meat, eggs, liver, and supplements. I did use bone meal instead of eggshell so I don't know if that made a difference. But cats are obligate carnivores. . .I know dogs have a higher tolerance for plant ingredients but I don't know if they actually benefit from having veggies/grains in a homecooked diet or if it's just a way to stretch the meat budget.


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## briteday (Feb 10, 2007)

Willowy said:


> I'm assuming the rice does get cooked at some point, right?  Is the meat cooked or fed raw? You can find the nutritional content of foods on the USDA website, and a dog's nutritional needs on the NRC website, and try to compare them. I didn't crunch any numbers but it seems high on carbs (I think I'd want to see at least 50% meat, after cooking everything) and I'm not sure that's quite enough calcium. Here's a website that discusses what nutrients dogs need, (personally I feel their recipes are a bit limited and they rely on supplements, but the info is valuable): www.dogcathomeprepareddiet.com


Could you please post the website links for USDA and NRC?


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## jenna6216 (Jun 24, 2014)

Thanks so much for all the thoughts! That was a huge help Kathyy. I have come up with some tweaks. I think this will do better next month: 

Add Monthly
3 cups uncooked brown rice
2 lbs ground chicken
2 lb ground beef
1 lb turkey
3 large potatoes
15 oz mackerel in brine
1 lb beef liver (or other organ meat)
2 cups cooked escarole
12 eggs

Add Weekly
1 large banana
1 medium apple
1 cup plain yogurt

Add Daily to Each Meal
1/4 tsp of ground eggshells


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## Prettypooch (Jul 4, 2014)

This is fantastic, I just joined this forum a few days ago because my 13 year old pomeranian has had pancreatitis and i need some help and advice. He is home tonight after spending the last 3 nights in hospital, i am hoping and praying that he will recover but the next step is that he needs to eat. The vet said that pancreatitis can return and that it is VERY important that he stays away from fat - they recommended i give him boiled chicken and cooked rice and start him off slowly. Does anyone have any experience with feeding a dog after they have had this condition?


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