Cooking for Dogs

[sreeves]

Maybe a previously discussed topic but am curious who cooks in large quantities for dogs? Whats your recipe?

[chestonmcdowell]

I may be wrong but I don’t think it’s good for them to cook them food just feed them raw chicken maybe add some green peas and other things raw

[Northstar]

When the I lived up Noth I would cook a stew in the winter to throw in with the kibble. I would throw in venison and what ever was on sale for meat. Staples were always liver, spinach eggs including the shells. They need the calories and hydration for them cold hunts.

[sreeves]

I may be wrong but I don’t think it’s good for them to cook them food just feed them raw chicken maybe add some green peas and other things raw

Yes sir I've fed plenty raw just heard of people cooking their own ration so to speak. Thought it may help with the worms cooking the wild pork, but haven't researched into that.

When the I lived up Noth I would cook a stew in the winter to throw in with the kibble. I would throw in venison and what ever was on sale for meat. Staples were always liver, spinach eggs including the shells. They need the calories and hydration for them cold hunts.

Thanks Northstar. Would you cook it down into a mash?

[Northstar]

When the I lived up Noth I would cook a stew in the winter to throw in with the kibble. I would throw in venison and what ever was on sale for meat. Staples were always liver, spinach eggs including the shells. They need the calories and hydration for them cold hunts.

Thanks Northstar. Would you cook it down into a mash?
[/quote]

No sir, I would just use the biggest stew pot I could find cook it all together at once. I would let it cool and throw it in big freezer bags. Then reheat it when it was ready to use.

I would throw raw fish to them as well. My marley bitch eat more rainbow trout in a season than any man probably ate in a lifetime. Sun fish crappie or what ever I would catch.

Olive oil, fish oil are great addition to any feed too. Eggs are great but people forget all the calcium is in the shell.

[Austesus]

I can’t help with the cooking piece... but I’ve got puppies and one of my grown dogs on a raw diet and they’re doing great.

This is what it looks like daily
- 1 chicken quarter
- one cracked egg with the shell crushed and mixed in it
-a few pieces of lard (my grocery store gives it away for free)
- 1 scoop of plain yogurt
- 1 scoop of coconut oil
- a few slices of white bread that are ripped in to small pieces


I will put a touch of water in the mix if I know I have a hard hunt coming up, just to make sure they’re hydrated real good. I will occasionally see grow in some chicken livers, hearts, and gizzards as well. If I skin a hog out I feed all the scrap and the organs as well.


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[sreeves]

Thank you both! Lots of useful info here gonna have to give it a try.

I can’t help with the cooking piece... but I’ve got puppies and one of my grown dogs on a raw diet and they’re doing great.

This is what it looks like daily
- 1 chicken quarter
- one cracked egg with the shell crushed and mixed in it
-a few pieces of lard (my grocery store gives it away for free)
- 1 scoop of plain yogurt
- 1 scoop of coconut oil
- a few slices of white bread that are ripped in to small pieces


I will put a touch of water in the mix if I know I have a hard hunt coming up, just to make sure they’re hydrated real good. I will occasionally see grow in some chicken livers, hearts, and gizzards as well. If I skin a hog out I feed all the scrap and the organs as well.


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The detailed list really makes it alot simpler to figure out lol. I'm gonna have to give this a try as well and see how it works out for me. Many thanks.

[Austesus]

I have done it with all of my grown dogs in the past, but for convenience have them on kibble right now. The one grown dog that is on raw food is the mom to the pups. I’ve been treating these pups like an experiment.

The best of kibble is still processed food and I look at it as the equivalent of a human eating fast food everyday. While yes, you can live off of it, it’s not what a performance athlete would eat and most people understand that it’s not good for a still developing child. The momma dog went on raw food once she got pregnant, and I started weaning the puppies off with high fat hamburger meat when they were 23 days old, dividing up a half pound between the 10 puppies and making little tiny balls out of the meat that i would hand feed them. By 4 weeks old I had them eating chicken drums everyday, and by either 5.5 or 6 weeks old they were eating chicken quarters. They were eating these all together in their pen out of a big pan that I would set down with all the meat. At 6 weeks I pulled them off the mom completely and started giving them the chicken drums and quarters, as well as some chicken gizzards, heart, and liver.

The pups turned 19 weeks old today and have never had kibble in any form whatsoever. They seem to be extremely healthy and are more intelligent than pups I’ve had in the past. The other guys that got pups out of my litter put them on kibble, so as they get older I will be interested to see if there are any noticeable differences between them. They are maturing a little slower than pups I’ve had in the past, but they seem to be more observant, and have a calm clean energy, not spazzes bouncing off the walls. The pups all have a nice deep bite, as they learned how to eat real food from birth and not gulp down kibble, I’m hoping this will translate over to a nice solid bite when they catch. One other side affect is that they constantly work their jaw muscles chewing on bones and crunching them, so i expect that as adults they will have a harder bite from constantly exercising those muscles.They will eat together and have a great pack bond too. I’m hoping this will pay off with better dogs as they grow in to adults, but if it doesn’t then oh well, it’s still fun for me to mess with them. I worked with them a lot when they were pups with petting them while they were eating, and I also broke them of any loud noises by banging bowls around and slapping the ground next to them with flip flops to kill any yellow jackets that tried to get on the meat.

One thing to note is that if I feed any wild meat, I freeze it for at least 72 hours first to kill anything that may be in the meat.


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[Austesus]

I’m trying to post a video I took of the puppies in the woods yesterday, but Tapatalk is only giving me the option of posting photos and not videos


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[Northstar]

You can’t lump all kibble into the same category. The thing kibble brings is tried and tested scientific testing. The purnia company is very interesting. If you like to nerd out on dog nutrition there is a pod cast with one of their scientists talking about some of the issues associated with grain free diets. He was telling us about the issues with it 2 years before it came true.
They run life time experiments on dogs with certain foods.

There is some good kibble out there. The best for a working mans price I have found is Costco and Sam’s clubs lines. They are not as good as raw but great for the money and convenience of kibble.

A old dog man once told me “would you put 87 octane in a new high dollar sports car? These dogs are like sports cars spend the extra coin on the good fuel if you want to win the race.”

[Austesus]

Northstar,

That is a good point as well. The vast majority of performance dogs are probably being fed kibble and they are obviously working. Just because it may not be as good as raw doesn’t mean it’s not good. I switched my grown dogs back for convenience because of the time it took preparing raw for all of them. The puppies are on raw as an experiment because I’m curious on how they will develop physically and mentally and if there will be a noticeable difference between the littermates that were switched to kibble at 8 weeks old by their new owners. Granted most of those pups are being kept up in pens until they’re ready to hunt, and I have been taking mine down to the creek and letting them run around for a few hours. Trying to let them stimulate their brains and noses with exploring. I also just enjoy watching them and studying their characteristics.

As for kibble, I used to feed red bag victor but it went up to $43/40lb bag so I switched to the orange bag of pride for $26/50lb. Both bags are small, dark oily kibble and the dogs do well on it.


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[Northstar]

Check out the Kirkland naturals brands and Sam’s club as well.

[tomtom]

 “Cooking” is what renders all kibble less than ideal as the only source of food for a dog that you are asking to be an athlete. The omega 3s can’t handle the heat the way the 6s can, so no matter what they start with it aint the same after it is processed into kibble.

 I feed raw. I know most can’t feed a balanced raw diet to a handful of dogs, so when you stick that pig, or gut that deer, keep the stomach and blend it with the kibble and that will help immensely. Cut the stomach open on a pig and empty it. Feed them pieces of it. A deer, mix the contents of the stomach and the tripe itself with the kibble. Only reason I say that last part is because a lot of times who knows what bait those hogs are eating, but a rinsed pig stomach is fine in my experience.