homemade dog food

[demi]

just now we feed our st bernard twice a day, each time with:

1 cup complete dog food
1/2 loaf bread
handful of bones and leftovers from the buchers, boild in water.
1 egg
plus any leaftevers from us ( which would be a mixture of everything; fruit/veg/grains/dairy ect. )

i untamatly want to cut out the comercial dog food altogether, but im worried she would end up missing out on somthing nutritionaly.

does anyone else food their dogs homecooked food?
theres a lot of conflicting information online; feed them dairy, dont feed them dairy ect. ( i give my dog leftover milk from the kids thats not been drank, maybe thats bad? )


what ratio of meatveg or whatever, should i follow?
i would of thought it would be mostly meat but iv been reading only 1/3 meat?



any help would be apricieted

[happyhippy]

My twin feeds her dog fresh meat.Its more expensive but her dog is the picture of health.She has a German Shepherd,and feeds it beef mince,chicken necks and wings(all raw)and meaty bones.She sometimes mixes natural yoghurt with a little milk for her dog,which it seems to really enjoy.I would imagine a dog your size would need a fair amount of food though so this could be quite expensive.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Our dog gets about half of her intake from scraps (including bread soaked with a little milk) and seems to do very well on it. We don't generate enough waste to keep her entirely fed, so she gets dog meat (fresh) to make up the other half, but I don't think I'd hestitate to give her 100% scraps if I could.

[niknik]

both my dogs and numerous cats are fed , mainly on meat scraps (free) fron butchers, boiled up.
this is mainly chicken carcasses, and various boney bits , and pigs heads, and hearts liver lungs and tongues.
they also get , when there are some any leftovers, esp rice, and pasta, and on rare occassions, when no scraps are avilable, some cheap dry dog food.
they all seem to be thriving on this diet which has been for several years now

[Bowlander]

Tripe is great. Chicken carcasses can be got really cheap. Rabbits and pheasants are free - I just gut and skin and feed whole.

Read Billinghurst on BARFF, theres a few supplements dogs need if fed on this diet - we give ours brewers yeast and kelp extract.

[contadina]

Ours eat a third protein usually rabbit or chicken (cooked as two of them won't do raw) but also fish, pulses and eggs, a third carbs (cooked) and a third veg (raw and blitzed).

[trinder]

I feed raw meat and bones. Whenever I am cooking a whole chicken I always cut off the wings and feed them raw. I know of other people who buy the wings in bulk as this is a very cheap way to feed your dog (personally I am not happy with the way the birds have been raised so will not have any involvement with that source). I would never feed cooked bones (except those huge ones from the pet shop) and only as a special event, as they can cause constipation. Offal is the cheapest source and probably the most nutritious I would expect a much smaller amount than most other posters as your dog NEEDS a lot less meat than people think and can easily cope with a wholly vegetarian diet. My gsd would probably get 1 lb of meat over the course of a week.
However we live in the country and any pheasant rabbit or pigeon she finds or kills she is allowed to eat,( sometimes a walk will take some time ) she does not skin or clean it either but she will herself carefully not eat or pierce certain bits (gall bladder etc) If I judge it right she will eat a fair bit and then I walk away she will follow me and leave the rest (it will be revisited the next day or the day after that)
She also has raw veg and apples as well as leftovers from the table , but by this I mean I cook extra and feed her a helping. Cooked rice is a great filler too.
Having said about allowing "road kill" naturally she needs regular worming and I use http://www.verm-x.com/ and am very satisfied with this method. Hope this helps.

[demi]

iv allways cooked the bones before i give them to the dog because where we are, in macedonia, there is this worm that can pass to humans which causes cists on your organs. the worm eggs are ingested through eating contaminated meat, they then pass through your intestine and into your blood and travel all round your body until they settle on various organs, forming big cists where they reproduce. then the cists burst and all the baby worms come out and you can bleed to death internally. there are no symptoms until it is too late and you're getting agonising pain from the internal bleading. the human is a dead end host, meaning you die. its like somthing out a horror film!
anyway, everyone here cooks all meat ect before feeding it to anyone, and they never eat rare or bloody meat.

i allway pick the small bones out of the chicken and throw them away, i thought you couldnt give chicken bones to dogs incase they get stuck in their throte?
i do however give her raw fat that i cut off the meat when im cooking, its my understanding that the worms only infect the organs and the blood.....hope im right! :0

we keep her up to date with worm and flea treatment every 4 months anyway, but thats not a 100% protection and theres still a chance she could become infected. we've got 2 small kids as well that we have to protect so i allways try to prevent her eating things when out on walks ect.