Homemade Pet Food

Natural preservatives in pet food are made from vitamin C
They can still harm your pet after years after
Do you believe in feeding pets homemade food?

 

Whether or not natural or manufactured preservatives are harmful to your pet is up for debate and even if it weren't you couldn't make a blanket statement of them being harmful to pets because it would depend on the pet. Pets also have very different needs when it comes to food.

For example while you can feed certain vegetables and carbs to dogs because contrary to popular belief they are omnivores, you should never feed anything but meat to a cat because cats are consummate carnivores and do not have the enzymes to break down the carbs. It is best to feed cats a high quality cat food when available, but if you don't have cat food available feed them meat.

There are special circumstances where a cat may choose to eat something like grass because it addresses a medical need but they are not omnivores. if you have cats you should look up and know what specific plants a cat might eat and why they need them when they do because there are certain types of house plants they may try to nibble on that are quite poisonous.

Getting back to dogs, if you are in an emergency situation and out of proper dog food, dogs can and will eat most of the things you will eat. A good rule of thumb is that if it is cleared by or interacts with your liver in any major way it probably isn't safe for a dog. It may even be fatal in certain quantities. Don't give your dog chocolate, it can make them very ill or even cause liver failure depending on the quantity and the dog. I don't care how funny you may find it, don't give your dog beer in his water bowl or shots of any type of liquor. You may end up with a dead dog instead of a tipsy one.

 

I have cooked for and feed several of my dogs when they got old over the years. It extends their life and help them keep weight on when their teeth start to go. I buy a bunch of chicken leg quarters and then boil them for almost 24 hours until even the bone are mush. I drain and save the water then can squish the chicken into basically a mush. This mush has all the fat, bones and marrow in it and the bones are just as easy to mash up as the meat. I then put the water with all the juices back in the big pot and add rice and mixed vegetables and cook for a while before returning the chicken to the mix. When it is done you have a super rich thick sticky stuff that you can roll into balls and freeze. I pull out enough for three days at a time and feed it once or twice daily. The dogs love it and even if they haven't been eating well their appetites will return and they will put on weight.

 

We have raised dogs and cats, however, we never bought food for our pets from the store. For us, store bought pet food is not only costly and not in the reach of our budget, but also under suspicion because they might contain genetically modified organism. I prefer to give left over bones and rice to my dog instead of Pedigree.

 

Hi!
It is very interesting topic. I have a cat and a dog. A few years ago I fed them homemade food. I don't have time to cook now, but I feed my dog https://allpetsexpert.com/best-food-for-golden-retriever/ and I feed my cat https://allpetsexpert.com/best-grain-free-cat-food/

 

Definitely a topic of interest for me as well. We have always had dogs. In fact the times we have only had one are rare. It is usually at least two or three, sometimes four. I have included the dogs in our preps. I know that for your dog you should include 1 ounce of water per pound of body weight per day for each dog. Ergo, a 20 lb. dog should have at least 20 ounces of water per day. We have ample dog food for BOB's. Question: If you ran out of dog food could you substitute dry, unsweetened, breakfast cereal for the dogs? Cheerios for example.

What would be a good alternative if you ran out of dog food? What would be the equivalent of the cup or so of dog food you feed them each day in caloric and nutritional value?

 

for dogs rice and chicken is great, rice is cheap in 50lb bags, raise chicken