Homemade recipes for animals?

[FarmerChick]

LOL beekissed
I didn't chat in the thread cause I am like you......I would never do this. But I am a farmer type with that farmer thinking, critters just aren't that important to me to bake for..LOL

no offense anyone. I know you love your critters and enjoy doing this...go to it. I see these types of threads and can't understand them..>LOL

 

[Beekissed]

I know! I would, however, love to have the time to do all these very sweet things for the ones I love too! Well, not necessarily the animals I love, but the creatures I call sons!

 

[attack-cat]

This morning I took some carrots and a pumpkin to the chickens. The pumpkin has been here since Halloween waiting to be broken open and given to the feathered garbage disposals! I have one more pumpkin waiting for them. they were cheap after the holiday! I bought some seeds to grow some next year for hte chickens and tossed the seeds from the last pumpkin on the hillside where I heaved chicken poo and shavings the other day. What grows .... can just grow and produce all it wants!! I try to supplement the chickens feed with green stuff and other veggies. If you can grow some squash, pumpkins or any other veggies for them next year it will save you some money.

 

[keljonma]

I know! I would, however, love to have the time to do all these very sweet things for the ones I love too! Well, not necessarily the animals I love, but the creatures I call sons!

All the recipes I make started as foods I made for the kids, dh and grands.....

 

[kusine]

A great book for making nutritionally sound food for dogs is Better Food for Dogs: A Complete Cookbook and Nutrition Guide by David Bastin, Grant Nixon & Jennifer Ashton. It is very thorough and it lays out recipes by dog weight, as well as nutrient needs, so it's very easy to use. A while back I posted on my blog about it here . (For the record, I don't make my dog's food anymore - not because it wasn't good, but because she ended up having severe allergies and is now on a very restricted diet, poor thing!)

Other recipes of mine:

Banana Cookies for Pups
Ingredients

2 very ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup water
1 egg, whisked
2 Tbs. molassas
1 tsp. vanilla
4 cups whole wheat flour

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients together. The dough will be very stiff and dry. You will probably need to use your hands.
2. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/4" thick.
3. With a fork, prick the dough all over with a fork (this keeps the dough from getting too puffy).
4. Using a pizza cutter or a very sharp knife, cut the dough into 1" peices (I like diamond shapes).
5. Put close, but not touching on parchment-covered cookie sheets.
6. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, until lightly browned.
7. Remove from the oven and cool completely on cookie sheets (while you're waiting and the oven is on, bake some Pumpkin Dog Cookies or Happy Pup Muffins).
8. When the cookies are completely cool, reduce the oven to 300 and bake for another 30 minutes.
9. Remove from oven, and when cool, feed a few to the pups, then store the rest in an airtight container.

Pumpkin Dog Cookies

We use canned pumpkin in our house for the regulation of doggie bowels, and we often have open cans where we've only used a little bit. I needed something to do with the leftovers and came up with these.
Ingredients:

4 cups flour*
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 Tbsp. honey**
1 tsp vanilla (optional)
1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:

1. Blend all ingredients together. Dough should be stiff. Roll into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to overnight.
2. Divide ball in half, then return half to fridge. Roll out the other half to 1/4 inch thick, then cut out using your favorite cookie cutter. Place close together on a lightly oiled (or, better yet, parchment paper covered) cookie sheet (cookies will not rise or spread). Roll out remaining dough as above. Scraps can be re-rolled after refrigerating for 30 minutes.***
3. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container.

Notes:

*I used a combination of whole wheat and oat flours, but it can be tailored to any allergies your dog might have, or even just what you happen to have around the house.
**Or molasses
***Or, since there's no eggs, just feed it to the dogs uncooked. Or freeze it to roll out another time.

Granola Bones

A treat for extra-special, very good dogs.

2 sterilized 4-inch hollow bones or 1 8-inch bone

Filling:
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1/2 cup cooked, mashed sweet potatoes or carrots

1.
Mix together all filling ingredients.
2.
Cover a baking sheet with foil and lightly spray with oil.
3.
Put bones, small-hole side down on the foil. Tightly pack filling into bones.
4.
Bake in 325 oven for 30-45 minutes until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean and the filling seems solid.
5.
Allow to cool completely (about 3-4 hours) before serving.

* Serve under supervision.
* Store in refrigerator or freezer.

Meaty Muffins

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 4 oz. jars of meat-based baby food
1 egg

1. Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl.
2. In a small bowl, mix baby food and egg together.
3. Add wet mixture to dry mixture and mix until just blended.
4. Spoon into 24 greased mini-muffin wells and bake for 10 minutes in a 350 oven for 10 minutes
5. Cool completely before serving.

If your pup needs an extra-special treat, top these muffins with melted white chocolate (white chocolate doesn't contain the substance in chocolate that's fatal to dogs).

Happy Pup Muffins

For very special occasions for very good dogs. Makes four large or eight regular muffins.

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup carob chips

1. Mix together flour and baking powder in a large bowl.
2. Blend egg, then add to flour mixture with remaining ingredients.
3. Bake in a 375 oven for 10 minutes or until golden brown.
4. Cool completely before serving.

Don't have carob chips around? Use cooked crumbled bacon instead. These freeze well. Just defrost in the fridge and serve.

Spike's Birdie Bread

My parrot Spike is a picky eater. He doesn't like new food and won't eat pellets, no matter how I try to give them to him. So this is his usual dinner.
Ingredients:

3 cups mixed chopped veggies (whichever you want, as small as is neccessary for your parrot - I food process mine very small)
2 jars organic babyfood, one with a protein, one with carrots or swet potatoes
1 egg (beat in food processor with shell)
1 cup Arrowhead Mills Multigrain pancake & waffle mix or whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats, uncooked
1 cup pellets (optional)

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients together, adding additional pancake & waffle mix or whole wheat flour if needed.
2. Spread in greased 8"x8" pan and bake at 375 for 20-35 minutes (until dry all the way through - it will pull away from the edges of the pan)
3. Cut into bird-appropriate-sized peices and freeze until needed.

Note: for a special treat, mix in 1 tsp. dried red pepper flakes and/or 1 clove garlic.

 

[attack-cat]

deleted

 

[Beekissed]

If it costs the same to feed cheap as it does to feed expensive, then why go to the trouble to find the expensive...just feed cheap! I know I'll get blasted for this viewpoint, but here goes:

I'm old-fashioned and pretty pratical, not to mention frugal and poor, so my dogs get dog food and table scraps...including chicken bones. Yes, I know cheap dog food supposedly has poor nutritive value, creates bigger and stinkier poops, etc., blah, blah, blah, infinity....

I know I'm quickly becoming the minority in this world but my world isn't your world. We never had even heard of dog food when I was young, dogs ate table scraps and liked them..even thrived on them! Lived to be a ripe old age on them. Dogs never went to a vet. Dogs are dogs, plain and simple. I don't love my dogs less, I love them just as much as dogs should be loved~ but not as much as humans.

As for nutrition? My dogs are sleek and healthy, their poops aren't large or stinky....they are all deposited up in the orchard where they are needed most so, even if they were large and stinky, I wouldn't care! My dog's feces are loaded with apples(lots of em), vegetables and deer scraps, I'm sure, and seem small, formed and not a bit excessively stinky. I have two dogs(big ones!) and you would be hard pressed, at a glance, to even see their feces in the orchard, as they are small, dark and formed and definitely not in PILES.

Maybe because my dogs enjoy a life of plentiful exercise(NOT cooped up in a house all day), fresh mountain air and a varied diet....not just a formula someone developed in a warehouse somewhere and sells to a society that feels that more money spent on your dog, kid, or spouse is a direct correlation to the amount of love you feel for them.

My sister feeds only the best for her many dogs, vets them bimonthly and buys the most expensive medicines and wormers the vet has to offer. Her dogs are obese, have skin problems, diabetes, recurrent worm infestations and health problems....on their very expensive feed. I could see just one or two dogs, but most of them? Oh, but the great news is she probably has less poo in the piles?

Even if I could afford more expensive feed, I wouldn't. They are dogs. I don't even feed expensive feed to my kids!!!

 

[FarmerChick]

I am in your minority also Bee

I am just "a dog is a dog" person also. I love them, they eat cheap food but get all food scraps and chicken bones etc.

I think you might have hit a biggie in your post. Alot of dogs are not treated as dogs. They are ornaments for people. They are not treated as a dog with a job to do.

My dogs are like yours, tons of exercise etc. Not a couch potatoe in a home getting fatter with no walking etc....

now I don't apply this to everyone on how they take care of their dogs, please don't think I am saying that, I am not.....just that as with everything in this world, old ways are going away....dogs had jobs, hunting, protecting, etc. etc.......now they do not.

Just throwing out my opinion on it.....and I also say, if it is your pet, you treat it how you want. I don't have any say in what your pet eats or is treated (unless badly of course) etc.......I say to each his own on these types of things.

 

[StrayDog]

We have a dog food supplier here (in New Zealand) who started out as a husky breeder (they may have actually trained them as sled dogs) and because it was so costly they started experimenting with producing their own food, with kelp and garlic and lots of good things in it... and not so many bad things too. Eventually their food became so popular that they started selling it commercially.

I've got a recipe for dog treats on my blog. It's not meant to be a meal replacement, but it's great as a treat and they love it! You can find it here: Healthy dog treats

I've also got a cookbook for dogs, it's an e-book so I'll have to search my hard drive and find it. But what we normally do is cook up rice or oats along with vegetables (not potatoes or brocolli) and some meat (home-kill roosters, stewing beef, turkey, or eggs etc) add a bit of olive oil, kelp, garlic and sometimes a bit of nutritional yeast and feed that to our dogs. They love it, and their coats look great.