What do you think about this?

Alex

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#1
I saw this on another forum, and wanted to know what you guys thought. I made a batch today, just to add to their Canidae, and both boys went crazy.

The original of this recipe was posted on another forum by a Saluki person, named Heidi Choquette. It has since gone through a number of variations on several boards. I thought you all might find this interesting and maybe worthwhile.

This is for folks who want to feed their dogs something besides kibble, fresher, not processed-strained-and-drained until all nutrients are gone, with ingredients you know and trust. For this, you will need:

Tools:
1 crock pot or slow-cooker (I use a 6-qt capacity)
1 5-gallon plastic bucket (or other large container for mixing)
1 large potato masher
1 large slotted spoon or ladle
1 set of large, non-stick muffin pans
freezer bags or disposable plastic food containers for the freezer

Ingredients:
chicken leg quarters
water
pasta, oats, or rice
fresh or frozen vegetables, ground or pureed (not canned)
other meat, like ground turkey, beef, lamb, liver (optional)
mackerel, salmon or other fish (optional)
fresh or frozen fruit, ground or pureed (optional)

Fill the crock pot or slow-cooker with chicken leg quarters and other meats, but do not overfill. Pour water over the quarters until the meat is completely submerged in water. Turn the crock pot or slow-cooker on LOW and forget about it for a full 24 hours. By the end of the 24 hours, you've slow cooked the chicken to the point that the bones are mushy and can be broken up with a fork. CAUTION: This works for chicken bones, but not for turkey bones.

If you cook for one or two hounds, you can add in the pot some pasta noodles, oats, or rice (for carbohydrates), ground or pureed frozen or fresh veggies (mine like carrots, carrots and peas, green beans, mixed veggies), or even fruit if you want. I'll still add in ground beef or ground turkey to mine, chicken livers, and sometimes fish. As said, its up to you and the limits of this "dish" are up to you.

If you are cooking a large batch, or are cooking for a bunch of hounds, then you will cook the meat in the crock pot, and cook the pasta and veggies separately. I suggest that you cook the meat, first, strain out the meat into the bucket for mashing and mixing, reserving the meat broth. Then, cook the pasta and veggies and any other ingredients in the reserved meat broth.

Mash the meat and softened bones to meat and meal with the potato masher. Mix with the other ingredients. Reserve the extra liquid to use over kibble or as a nutritious supplement to other food. Place the mixture in large, non-stick muffin tins and freeze to make individual servings of about 1/2 cup. When frozen, remove from the muffin tins and store in freezer bags. If you don't want to make individual servings, but still want to freeze the food, put it in zip-lock gallon freezer bags, place them flat on a tray and freeze. If you aren't going to freeze the food, then store it in the refrigerator in covered plastic food containers. It will last about a week, refrigerated. If you would normally serve about a half can of wet food, use about a half cup of homemade. If you shop carefully, you can make your hounds a very high quality food for very little money.

If you add too much water, don't worry. You'll need it to cook the pasta or rice you add. If you don't want to add either, or have some leftover, save the broth and use it to pour over their kibble for flavor, or as a "sports drink" for your hounds.

Here are some variations people have found worked for their hounds:
(in addition to the cooked chicken in the crock pot)

1. ground turkey, celery, green beans, and rice (or pasta or potatoes)
2. ground beef, carrots, peas, green beans, and rice (or pasta or potatoes)
3. ground beef and yams
4. ground turkey and lamb
5. mackerel and rice
6. peaches and pasta
7. spinach and rice
8. lamb, turkey, mackerel, beef, pasta, rice, potatoes, green beans, peas, carrots, and garlic (for putting weight on rescued hounds).

If you enjoy cooking for your hounds, you may find this rewarding.
With mine, besides mashing it all with a potato masher, I ran all of the chicken (mushy bones and all) fresh spinach, a banana, an apple (no core or seeds), and some carrots through the food processor. I ended up with a nice paste. Smelled pretty good too. Then I used the broth to make some rice and added it in. They thought I was a superhero.
 
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#2
you need to thaw these out before serving so i'm guessing it's kind of time consuming. If i had the time and money I'd do it. I hardly cook for myself as it is!

why not just feed raw? When you cook foods you kill a lot of their vitamins and nutrients.
 
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Alex

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#3
I don't feed raw because I don't have the space to buy enough in bulk to make it affordable. I was able to purchase all of the stuff to make this food for $20 and mixed with thier Canidae, it'll last around a month.

Anyone see anything wrong with this food? Not as a complete meal, but as an addition to a good dog food diet?
 

Mordy

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#4
The only thing I see wrong with it is that there is no set recipe that will help you to at least somewhat balance different nutrients.

If you feed this with commercial dry food for example, the amounts of veggies (especially starchy ones) should be low, since most kibbles already contain 40% carbs and more. For the same reason I'd leave out pasta, rice and so on. There's little enough meat in dry food as it is, so supplementing that is the most beneficial thing to do.

If you use a whole chicken, or chicken leg quarters, the good thing is that the bone will supply enough calcium to create a proper calcium/phosphorus ratio that will not throw off the entire diet.
 

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