Sounds like they really enjoyed your home cooking

I like this recipe, I was wondering if it would be okay to feed this to a 7 week old pup?:confused: Madison is so picky, she won't eat dry kibble, I have to mix it with canned puppy food, or boiled chicken, and then she just picks at it, I also have been thinking about cooking for her but I am scared it will make her sick or she will not get enough good stuff in her diet. Thanks for the info about the eggshells, I think that will come in handy:D

I started cooking chicken, veggies and rice dinner for my boys because one of them refused to eat dog food and because of it he would get sick. It got so bad that I was having to force feed him. NOW that I cook, the picky eater is a total pig who I now have to keep an eye on or he will try to eat the other dogs food if the look away for one second.

Max wouldn't eat either. I started cooking for him at 12 weeks. He has fattened right up.

I'm not really sure, but I don't see why not. If she's not eating well, and she'll eat this, then you can always get her back to the kibble later when she's a bit bigger, or even soften some up and squoosh it and mix it with this. He may just be having a hard time chewing. My Luna had/has a very small mouth and has a hard time with kibble. She can eat them now, but I don't think she could survive on them totally. It seems like she gets tired of chewing long before her tummy's full:(

You might want to show a copy of this recipe to your vet and get their opinion, just to be on the safe side.

Good luck, I hope he starts eating better:love:

Please don't let Simon and Hallie see this thread! I can just hear it now "Moooooommmmmmmmmm Luna and Izzy get good food, our green beans and carrots just aren't cutting it anymore. We are packing up and heading south!" :eek:

I thought I'd dig this thread back up. :) I found something really cool at the local feed store. Solid gold makes a supplement called steamed bone meal (it's made from beef bones). It is in powder form and 1 teaspoon adds 1368mg calcium and 684 mg phosphorus.
Steamed Bonemeal at the Solid Gold website

The calcium issue is all that has been holding me back from making my own, so I'm looking forward to trying this. I picked up some whole chickens and some brown rice today, so I can't wait.

Misty

Hi Misty~:D

I did buy some bone meal powser, GMTA:laugh: It's a human grade one from a health food store. I asked my vet and he okayed it and also said that the homemade food sounds great. They eat kibbles all day here and there, and a little at night in their xpen while settling in for the night. So he said that would be good enough for their teeth, along with the bully sticks:thumbup:

They're just thriving right now, if only we can get Izzy potty trained, ugh! She's one of those that will be good most of the time, then as soon as you let her into the living room, she jumps up on the couch and pees:rolleyes:

Since they've been on the homemade food now for a little while, tell me: how is their poop (sorry :o )? I'm hoping that with all the rice, that her poop stays firm enough to not stick...kwim? LOL

Got my brown rice cooking right now... ;)

Funny you should mention the poo:laugh: I was going to say something about that in my last post, but thought that I would be going overboard:p

FANTASTIC (well, as fantastic as poop can be:rolleyes: ) Firm, less stinky, less sticky:thumbup: Of course they get Missing Link also, that's full of fiber as well.

I can't wait to hear how y'all like the food:D

Gracie is having yet another bout of diarrhea. She must have gotten into something at the park because nothing in her diet has changed. As usual, she loves the bland diet of boiled chicken and rice. This got me thinking about home cooking for her. It would probably be less expensive than what I am spending now on Merricks. I would like to use the home cooked with kibble. My question for all of those that do this, have you run the recipes by your vet and did your vet recommend any supplements? I want to make sure that Gracie is getting a nutritionally complete diet. Also, what do you do when you have to board your dogs? Do you bring a supply of the home cooked food with them?

Poor Gracie, I hope that the runny butt stops soon:(

My vet said that it sounded fantastic:thumbup: I do add a drizzle of olive oil, Missing Link, and a pinch of bone meal to each serving. OH, and plain yogurt, about 2 tablespoons per day, divided between the 2 meals, for each girl. They have done very well on this food, and they do still eat their kibbles whenever they want to, they're down all the time. In addition, I also use PetzLife on their teeth and they get bully sticks. Luna used to stink to high Heaven from the canned food, she smells much better now:thumbup:

I bet that she'd LOVE the homemade diet;) My girls clean their plate now:laugh:

How's it going Misty? I hope that your girl is loving her special food:)

Thanks much. Where do you buy the bone meal?

I get the bone meal at my health food store. Just call around, someone will have it. It was about $8 for a bottle that will last a long long time, since I only add a pinch. There's already a few sources of calcium in the food, this is just a little insurance:laugh:

It has been a crazy week. The first homemade food I made didn't go over very well. I didn't use the one you posted, I made another version without the legumes. So I just kept feeding her the Royal Canin with the liver powder on it. Then she started just licking off the liver powder. So I decided to only give it to her without it. Chloe went on a hunger strike this whole past week, and I swear went over two days without eating anything. :eek: I hate it when she does that. I have a feeling those of you looking to make your own food know what I'm talking about. She wouldn't even take the nutrical!! (I actually had to scrape the nutrical off my finger into her mouth behind her teeth to get her to eat it. She used to love it.

Today, she went back to eating her royal canin with the liver powder, but I know it will be short lived. She'll do the no eating thing again. Once in a while, she just decides: ho hum...food...whatever...I can live without it.

So I tried another one today. I made it so that it has all the percentages according to AAFCO standards. I was afraid she wouldn't eat it either, so I tricked her. I pretended like a clump of it fell off the counter, and she ran over and gobbled it up. However, when I actually handed her a bit for a training treat, she kind of turned her nose up at it. So I kept accidentally dropping clumps off the counter until she ate a full portion!

I don't know what to do next. I'm actually thinking of maybe trying that frozen raw stuff next.

Sorry, but I needed to unload all that. The eating battles are so frustrating. She was doing really well for a while, eating a whole 6 TB of kibble a day for a couple of weeks, and then this. <sigh>

She's a little turd:laugh: Amazing how stubborn these furkids can be, you must be incredibly frustrated.

I am :laugh: at the image of you saying OOPS! and dropping the food:p She's just way too smart!:eek:

Yes indeed, she's a little Turd. In fact, I sometimes call her Turd Ferguson (SNL Jeopardy) LOL!

This morning, sure enough, she only licked off the liver powder! So I baked some of the food I made yesterday into kibbles (hey, I'm getting desperate here!) She actually seemed to really like them. Then I heated up some of the food I made and mixed it with her royal canin. She ate a full portion, thankfully. I'm baking more kibbles now, but we'll see how that goes.

I have a question for you on the one you made: How much did you process it together? Did you leave it chunky, or mix it up smooth in the food processor?

This stuff came out pretty clumpy. I think I need to find a better way to mix it together.

Thanks,
Misty

I'd love to know how you baked the food into kibbles, that sounds like a great idea:)!

I left mine pretty choppy. I didn't puree the rice at all, and just chopped up the veggies. The chicken breast I did grind finely, I was afraid that they'd just pick it out:laugh: Your girl may not like the chunks and might like it better ground more finely, who knows? Keep experimenting, you'll find something that she'll eat:thumbup:

Kisses to Turd Ferguson:laugh:

Basically, what I did was press the mixture into a flat patty--about 1/4" thick. What I was planning to do was make dog biscuits out of it. I was thinking like a complete meal in dog biscuit form (dog slim fast bar, LOL!), and I have some various dog bone cookie cutters. After cutting 12 small bones out of a day's portion, there was not enough for another bone, so I cut the rest of the patty into little 1/4" cubes. Then I put it all in the oven at 325 for 20, then lowered it to 200 for 20 more. The kibbles came out crispy, but not hard like commercial dog food kibbles.