The real deal on cooked?

[JoeLacy]

I just spent $2.45 a pound for California Natural. I can buy Brisket and chicken for $.99 a pound and have that ground up. I have a 1 yr old 50 lb dog and she eats about a pound per day.

I'm not sure I can do the total raw diet so I was thinking of a concoction of meats, fruits, veggies, fish. eggs and at least par cook it, then freeze it.

Anyone feeding cooked food and are your dogs having any health issues you can attribute to the "cooked" diet?

I was thinking on the chicken just have bones and all ground up to the consistency of hamburger meat. Bad idea?

 

[ihartgonzo]

It's difficult to compare the cost of kibble to that of homecooked/raw, because kibble is much more calorie dense than whole meat.

Personally, I wouldn't consider cooked & ground bones a safe or consistent source of calcium. You will need to add bone meal or crushed egg shells as a source of calcium, and it has to be balanced with the meat. I recommend checking out this website for examples, as a starting point: Home-Prepared Cooked Diets for Dogs. Yahoo and Livejournal have really informative homecooked groups.

 

[Bailey08]

Don't feed cooked bones, even if they're ground.

I am not very cost effective with my dog's home cooked diet (i.e., I don't have a large freezer just for Bailey's food, nor do I do much more than buy as much as I can keep of his "regular" food when it's on sale at my regular grocery store), so I can't be much help there. I can say that my dog's health has improved since he's bee on homecooked. It's a good amount of work, though -- especially when you're starting. Please do a lot of reading before switching completely (though supplementing kibble with chicken or hamburger is fine in the interim).

 

[LuLuBelle]

ihartgonzo, i want to thank you for the link......just what I needed as I am just starting home cooking for my dog too, and started on chicken and brown rice so far, and her stool is still pretty normal, so good sign Now after her walks, she comes to the kitchen opening and waits for me to give her dinner hehe. How do you know though how much to give them per day? and quantity? weigh?

 

[rolandocarey9682]

I am not using cooked food for my pets. I always prefer food which is not cooked cause my dog caught in serious problem with cooked food and doctor has given me a strict instruction to not give cooked food.

 

[Bailey08]

ihartgonzo, i want to thank you for the link......just what I needed as I am just starting home cooking for my dog too, and started on chicken and brown rice so far, and her stool is still pretty normal, so good sign Now after her walks, she comes to the kitchen opening and waits for me to give her dinner hehe. How do you know though how much to give them per day? and quantity? weigh?

Make sure you do some reading -- if you feed cooked food, you need to supplement with an appropriate amount of calcium.

I like dogaware.com as a resource.

 

[GreenFireflyGirl]

Why go to all the trouble of grinding all that stuff together and then cooking it, when it is much better for them in its natural form? And why add the carbs? Your dog can't digest them anyway. Much better to give them a whole chicken raw, not only will it clean their teeth, it will give them a good workout of their jaw muscles, two things that kibble and home cooked diets can't do. And then having to supplement with extra calcium? Why not just feed straight raw, it's so much easier and better for your dog!