# For Those Who Feed a Homemade Diet



## Hayley22 (Sep 21, 2011)

Do you have a set diet plan? 

How do you know that your poodle is getting all the right food groups? (IE. Protein, carbs, fats, etc.) 

I love the idea of a homemade diet for Delphi, but I'm finding even thinking about planning all the meals very overwhelming. How does it work practically?

Also: Delphi is now about four and a half months old. Can I switch her? I REALLY don't want her to get a runny tummy/vomiting. 

I could try to do it gradually, but I think she'll leave the kibble and eat the homemade. 

I really want her to have a better diet, as she's been on Eukanuba from the breeder. She has gunky eyes, and scratches a lot, so I suspect she may be allergic to something in it. She also chews her little feet...

I need someone to talk me through the process; it's rather daunting!

PS. I like the idea of raw too, and I have found a brand of pre-packaged raw food. But, I would need to know what to add, if anything. Is the pre-packaged raw enough??


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Dogs primarily need protein and fat, with the correct proportion of bone or a calcium supplement if bone is not fed. A small amount of fruit and veg will help to fill in any trace elements. They don't need carbohydrate - their metabolism is very different from ours, and they get their energy from fat rather than carbs - they also find them difficult to digest.

I found this site very useful: DogAware.com: Homemade Diets for Dogs When I started I researched protein and calorie levels of different foods, and created complex recipes - now I am a lot more relaxed! A raw meaty bone meal (approximately one in three) is half a chicken wing, or a small lamb or pork rib; a raw tripe meal - again one in three - is about 40 - 50 grammes of raw green tripe; a cooked meal is 40 - 50 grammes of cooked mixture - see below. Alternative meals are a scrambled egg, or half a tin of sardines with a little dry bread, or healthy table scraps - meat/egg/veg/cheese, not too much salt. Treats are home made liver cake, chicken biscuits, etc, etc with the occasional pet shop junk food chew!

Cooked mixture - I have a Slow Cooker, and bulk buy frozen pet mince. It is human grade, but with 10% finely ground bone. If you are cooking ordinary meat, I'd add ground eggshell - half a teaspoon per pound/1 teaspoon per kilo.

I cook a mixture of around 4 pounds/2 kilos of at least two of chicken/lamb/beef/turkey/rabbit/other, plus about 10% kidney/liver/any other offal (8oz/200g), and 10% (8oz/200g) heart when I can get it. Offal is quite difficult to find in the UK, so I buy it when I see it and freeze it in smallish portions ready to chuck into the mix. They get quite a lot of tripe, and get liver as treats - if they didn't I might increase the amount of offal here. I put about 1 pound/500g vegetables - carrots/beans/spinach/cabbage/cauliflower/celery/etc, depending what I have or using a frozen mix - into the pot, put the meat on top, and cook it on low until done, usually overnight. Cooking it on a low heat in a casserole in the oven would be an alternative. Then portion out the meat, top up with veg and gravy, and freeze. This quantity makes about 30 individual meals for my largish toy dogs - they get fed twice a day. It is well balanced, so if I need to skip the raw for a few days and feed just cooked I can be relaxed about it. If they feel a bit plump I up the proportion of veg for a batch or two. If they feel a bit skinny I increase the portion size a bit.

The only supplement I use is fish oils - a dog specific capsule between them a couple of times a week.

Pre-packaged raw should be balanced, but can be an expensive way of feeding. If she will eat raw offal (Sophy won't!) then the sort of balance in the recipe above fed raw, with the veg cooked or pureed, would be pretty close. I would start her on chicken wings and minced chicken, and introduce the offal slowly - liver and heart especially. Chunks of meat would be better than minced, but are prohibitively expensive here. 

Given where you live, I would freeze meat for a while before feeding it raw to kill off any parasites.


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## Hayley22 (Sep 21, 2011)

Thank you, FJM! This has really helped me to understand how the homemade diet works practically.

I have a few questions: 

1. You say that I should start with chicken and slowly add offal. (I'm not sure if this statement applies only to the raw part of the diet, or the cooked mixture too?) Delphi had a reaction to cooked chicken not so long ago, and got a runny tummy. Should I avoid chicken altogether? Or do you think raw chicken would be different? 

2. Should I transition her slowly, adding the mixture to the kibble over a few weeks? Or do it cold turkey (going easy on the offal at first)?

3. Does the kind of meat need to be so varied (i.e. rabbit, turkey, lamb, beef, chicken) or can I focus on two kinds of meat, and then also have egg and fish?


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Add the offal slowly, whether you go raw or cooked. If you are sure it was chicken that upset her tum, it might be better to avoid it - perhaps start with lamb instead? Raw meaty bones small enough for a toy are quite difficult to find, though, so it may be worth trying her again with chicken later on.

I would go cold turkey - the digestion rates are different for kibble, especially if you are feeding raw. You could alternate meals, but I just stopped feeding kibble altogether.

The more varied the protein sources the better - although many people advise introducing them one at a time so that you know which cause problems, if any. They don't all need to be at every meal - just aim to vary them over time. When people report problems with feeding raw or home cooked it is usually because they have fed one kind of meat (typically chicken breast) with no bone for a long period of time. Two or three kinds of meat, plus fish and eggs, should be fine.


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

I feed a homemade raw diet - meat/bone/organ. I don't feed any veggies (most of the time). I do add a few supplements here and there. Regular supplements that I add are fish oil, Prozyme and Fortiflora probiotic. I feed tons of variety, which I am a strong believer in. Right now I am feeding whole ground prey from My Pet Carnivore - lots of different proteins from local farms. To offset the fact that we cannot recreate exactly what wolves would eat in the wild, additional organs are added to the mix. It equals out to 80% meat, 10% bone, 10% organ. This is the correct ratio. I also feed RMBs a few times weekly and I feed additional heart at each meal and I give additional organs whenever I feed RMBs. I try to feed as much variety is possible. My dogs eat some pretty exotic meats like alpaca, llama, goose, duck, ostrich, beaver and muskrat as well as more normal ones like rabbit, beef, chicken and lamb.


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## zyrcona (Jan 9, 2011)

fjm said:


> Dogs primarily need protein and fat, with the correct proportion of bone or a calcium supplement if bone is not fed. A small amount of fruit and veg will help to fill in any trace elements. They don't need carbohydrate - their metabolism is very different from ours, and they get their energy from fat rather than carbs - they also find them difficult to digest.


While I agree with the principle, I'm not sure about the implication of humans' requirements being different in this respect. There is research that demonstrates humans can live on a diet with low or no carbohydrates: old research paper is old and there are modern philosophies that involve eating a diet based on this idea. There are two basic ways the metabolism can sustainably derive energy: from fats (ketone based) or from carbohydrates (glucose based) which humans and dogs can both utilise. There are various ideas for home-made dog diets around from both ends of the spectrum and various positions in between, so the OP can choose the one that most appeals to him/her.



fjm said:


> Offal is quite difficult to find in the UK, so I buy it when I see it and freeze it in smallish portions ready to chuck into the mix.


I've always been able to find kidneys, livers, and hearts in Tesco cheaply, but not so much the other supermarkets. You might like to try a large market if you want more 'exotic' offal; Leicester market sold tripe, brains, tongues to name a few when I lived near there. Some butchers may let you preorder parts of your specification from the abattoir and get them in for you.


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## zyrcona (Jan 9, 2011)

Hayley22: A friend of mine went to SA, and he visited a restaurant called 'The Carnivore' that only served local meats. He said the zebra was best. Perhaps there's somewhere you could get parts of game animals and offal?


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## lmperez (Sep 7, 2011)

Does anyone have a break down of a recipe to be sure that everything is accounted for? I sometimes feel as though I am guessing at portion sizes and that my pups are missing something. I did notice one starting eating poop, so I am thinking I am lacking something when I prepare their raw food.

Thanks


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## BorderKelpie (Dec 3, 2011)

Here is a llink to a raw feeding discussion group. They are very helpful in getting folks started.
rawfeeding : Raw Feeding for dogs and cats!


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## Hayley22 (Sep 21, 2011)

zyrcona said:


> Hayley22: A friend of mine went to SA, and he visited a restaurant called 'The Carnivore' that only served local meats. He said the zebra was best. Perhaps there's somewhere you could get parts of game animals and offal?


Thanks, Zyrcona. I've heard of that restaurant, but haven't been there. It's quite far from where I live. Also, ironically, the only time I've ever actually eaten game is in fancy restaurants! It's quite difficult and expensive to obtain if you live in the city. My father has a farm (not so much a farm, but a vast tract of land with bushveld and wild animals, as a kind of holiday home.) He purchased a herd of impala to roam around there, but they are for admiring and not for eating!  

PS. After spending holidays staring at zebra's munching tall grass in the bushveld, I would never want to eat one! They are magnificently beautiful!


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

I was once lucky enough to see zebra in the wild - they were pink! Quite definitely and beautifully a very soft pink roan. I agree - I couldn't possibly eat them.


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## BorderKelpie (Dec 3, 2011)

Pink, really? 
and I thought we were being silly coloring our dogs - zebras do it naturally. 

I wanna see a pink zebra!

(wait, is that caused by the same thing that makes one see pink elephants? lol)


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## lmperez (Sep 7, 2011)

*Vacation when feeding raw?*

I take my yorkies with us when able and feed the dehydrated food if need be but what about the others at home? The pet sitter I have has access to the outdoor part of the kennel where she takes care of the dogs. (the dogs have full access to the house) In the past she would feed them the kibble but since I am doing raw I am not so sure she will do all the measuring and such. Plus I really would rather not come into the house. (if an emergancy my mom has the key and she can contact her but too much work for my mom to do) What do others do?


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## BorderKelpie (Dec 3, 2011)

lmperez said:


> I take my yorkies with us when able and feed the dehydrated food if need be but what about the others at home? The pet sitter I have has access to the outdoor part of the kennel where she takes care of the dogs. (the dogs have full access to the house) In the past she would feed them the kibble but since I am doing raw I am not so sure she will do all the measuring and such. Plus I really would rather not come into the house. (if an emergancy my mom has the key and she can contact her but too much work for my mom to do) What do others do?


COuld yur pet sitter feed dehydrated food to the ones at home? Depending on how long you're to be gone and how many are left at home, is there a way of pre-measuring and labling everyones' food and the sitter could just dump it into the respective bowls/kennels?
I guess if all else fails - a really good high quality kibble for a week or two shouldn't hurt too much, should it? TOTW, Blue Buffalo, Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul (my dogs LOVE that one - fattens them up a bit, though)

(this is why I never get to take vacations. *sigh*)
Good luck!


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## sulamk (Nov 5, 2011)

Venison and Ostrich Meat is available in the Supermarket butchers!
Zebra would have too much fat in it for a little dog!


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