I'm not a great believer in recipes. I prefer to get the idea of how one's done and then improvise.
When we first bought Nuju we agreed he had to be a sustainable dog and fed from the carcasses of rabbits and road kill. We then put our heads down and tails up and got busy on building a house and lapsed into the convenience of purchased dog food.
Recently someone mentioned the prevalence of kidney disease in dogs fed on commercial dog 'biscuits'. They're unpalatable to dogs so they spray them with fat and salt. It was just what was needed to get us to take another look at the issue. This time health of one much loved dog added to the impact on one much loved environment. Can the two meet? Probably not, generally speaking the most sustainable option would be a 'Not Dog', but that's not going to happen.
Cutting to the chase. I did the research and ended up with this... feel free to modify as you will, particularly those wanting to translate it out of Australian.
Nuju Food
4 cups of Organic Australian Brown Rice cooked for 12 minutes
Add 1 kg of kangaroo mince - or equivalent in fresh roadkill :)
3 cups of chopped carrots and carrot tops (from the garden)
125 grams of butter (Trev's request)
Cook it up and dole it out into recycled containers and freeze. One comes out each day and is kept in the fridge till needed. It's best to provide smaller dollops at a time to ensure it's all eaten and doesn't attract flies.
Nuju has an effective method of letting us know when he's hungry. He 'dings' his bowl by batting it to one side and smacking it against the floor. The porcelain makes a resounding ding. It creates a reverse Pavlovian response.
Does anyone have good dog food ideas to share?
4 comments:
Better than our cat who pushes things off the duchess onto the floor until noticed. The comb is usually first followed by the brush and then a massive hurry up before he gets to the fragile things.
viv
For a little more convenience, (not butchering roadkill) Pet mince is really cheap contains all the good tubey and offaly bits. Widely available if you take the time to look and ask. For times when home grown veges are scarce Aldi have a pack of frozen mixed veges cheap, they can be used to stretch out stuff from your garden, I also add a bit of rolled oats if I get it too wet and need to soak up some liquid.
Cook it well as the pet mince has no preservative and goes foul really quickly. After its cooked I put it into containers big enough to do about a week, keep one in the fridge and freeze the rest in similar sized (ice cream) containers.
Its good for you too, apart from not spending a fortune on dog food, you wont have to put up with putrid dog farts.
Hi
I'm a vet with an interest in promoting home made diets for dogs. You've just got to be a little careful feeding homemade diets- you can make them crook if you don't follow a few simple rules.
A lot of dry food is overprocessed rubbish BUT it is balanced. It has the right amount of vitamins and minerals to keep your dog functioning.
If you are feeding 50% commercial diet or more then you don't really have to worry about balancing the home made stuff.
If you are feeding more than 50% home made diet you should add some calcium and a multivitamin. Too much or too little calcium can cause problems so you can't be haphazard with this. The multivitamin can just be an adult centrum tablet - quarter to one tablet once daily depending on the size of your dog.
If you want more info just send me an email - www.balancevet.com.au
Steve.
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