Supplements and Vitamins To Add?

[nikiwantsadane]

I am looking to switch Gracie to entirely home cooked food to cure her picky eating where she will wait me out for a day and a half before eating. I made her a crockpot meal of the following, and she LOVED it:

2 pounds ground beef
2 carrots
1 squash
3 cups broccolini
1.5 cups spinach
1 egg
6 tsp coconut oil (for fat)
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp mustard powder
2 cups water
cooked in crockpot for 8 hours, then added 1 cup rice

Cooking so long, I think the nutrients will mostly be cooked out of the veggies.

I got a children's multivitamin (nutrition %'s of the multivitamin here) to add each morning when serving, and am in need of a bone meal supplement for her calcium, and what else?

Please share your recommendations for specific multivitamins, bone meal, other supplements etc.

I want to make sure that by feeding her entirely home cooked all the time, I am prolonging her lifespan and improving her health well above feeding kibble. She won't even eat Acana anymore despite covering it in wet food and warm water. I have tried everything...so many different kibble types and preparation methods.

I would also like to know how much I should feed her of the home cooked per day? She is 117 pounds and 30" at the shoulder. The vet she could stand to lose some weight because you cannot feel her last 2-3 ribs easily. Pictures included for reference.



The results of the home cooked dog food. It smelled ATROCIOUS

[lisacp75]

You may want to pick up some books on feeding homecooked to make sure you are balancing things correctly. Gracie is already at the one-year mark, right? Most are uncomfortable feeding homecooked when there is still a lot of growth occurring as the mix of nutrients is more important during this stage. When Zoomer was having issues we fed a homecooked diet from Linds Arndt's website (The Great Dane Lady). (Yes, she has passed away, but I felt she knew what she was talking about when she designed it and it wasn't supposed to be a long-term diet).

Pitcairn has a book that many have used, and I know there are a handful of others. Kmythy Schultze raised Newfies on homecooked and has a website and a book. I think both Angel72 and Shamu have experience with homecooked, so maybe they will weigh in too.

[oshagcj914]

I really can't weigh in on home cooked, but why not just feed raw? Then you'd be feeding a species appropriate diet and not have to worry about all those vitamins and supplements, and it seems like a lot less work than all that cooking. Plus that mush is going to do nothing for her teeth.

[nikiwantsadane]

Thank you for the advice, but unfortunately I can't feed raw because we have an immunocompromised family member living in the house with her. It would be too much of a health risk for contamination.

[Angel7292]

Why exactly are you cooking it for 8 hours anyway? Is she having teeth issues that she requires such a mush diet? Even you said that you've cooked it so long, you've cooked out most of the nutritional value. So that begs to question, why are you doing it then?

A basic bag of dog food that meets nutritional requirements has approx.:

25-40% protein
15% fat
20-35% carbs

At bare minimum, you should be similar to what is found in that basic bag of dog food.

I fed a herd of schnauzers (seriously... a herd!) a home cooked diet for years upon years. My control over the fat and calories for the seniors made a huge difference in their weight management. However, I will for sure warn you that a home cooked diet without a good amount of crunch will make their teeth go to hell fairly quick. A bowl of mush has no cleaning action on a dogs teeth.

What I fed and what you are feeding are vastly different beasts. I could make a months worth of dog food in about an hours cooking time. I could recognize all the different things I added and easily pick them out. I never created mush. What I made, I would actually eat and it would be tasty. If anything, it made the house smell delicious while cooking and family were known to come 'taste test' it. I cooked it until it was cooked and no further. I had a huge variety of meats, vegetables and carbs being offered.

I added a ton more meat then you are. Meat was my main ingredient. I easily was feeding the 40% protein. If you are feeding the proper amount of meat, you almost don't need to add additional fat because the fat comes from the protein source. I never fed a single protein either. The main protein was the chicken, but I always added in either pork or beef. Fish was given a couple times a week for the fish oil / omega value. I added eggs but as a very soft scramble with breakfast.

I almost always cooked the whole mix in a bone broth that I made. Anyone here that knows me personally, will tell you that I am a fanatic about making my own bone broth / stocks. No meat bone ever leaves my home without relinquishing every ounce of goodness it has. LOL It's a sickness of mine. If you are a meat eating household, then making bone broth or even stock from all your meat bones is a great addition to a home cooked diet. You are not only producing gelatin from the collagen rich joints, but you are extracting out all the minerals from the bone. When I'm done making mine, it actually jiggles like jello. Make dog food with it, feed your family with, etc. If you already paid for the bones for your families meals, you might as well use them for their full value. Also, a butcher will sell you beef bones for really cheap. I am often buried in chicken and turkey bones. If you don't have enough at once, just bag them up in the freezer until you do. Beef bones are harder to come by. I just ring up the butcher and tell him to save me some. I pay about $2 a pound for them. Some get chewed on by the woofers (non weight bearing ones) and the rest get roasted and then thrown into my stock pot.

Even with an immune compromised person in your home, you can easily give raw meaty bones for chewing and then clean the dog up sufficiently. I am someone with a diagnosed immune deficiency and I have no trouble keeping my dog sanitary. You are going to need to come up with SOMETHING that helps the dogs teeth. A soft home cooked diet is rough on the dogs teeth. FYI, brushing regularly is usually just not enough. I gave my herd of home cooked eaters a better diet but I battled their teeth the entire time. Even the small crunch of kibble keeps dogs teeth in check a bit. When you take that away and are feeding solely soft foods, trouble brews rapidly. You actively have to stay on top of those teeth and offer some regular chews that are going to help scrape the teeth.

Personally, I used calcium citrate with vitamin D. I did not use bone meal. I used a high quality canine multi-vitamin.

Do some online research. Check out the Great Dane Lady site. If you asked your vet for a recommendation for a veterinarian nutritionist, that would be a good start too. It's great you want to home cook for your woofer, but you need to make sure that you are coming up with a sound 'recipe'.

[SuzanneRM82]

Not to play devil's advocate or anything, but unless the immunocompromised person is playing with the dog's food and not washing up, that's no reason you can't feed raw. My husband has a compromised immune system and I fed raw for quite awhile with no issues. You handle meat for the dogs just like you do meat for the people.

[oshagcj914]

There are several immunocompromised folks in my co-op group that feed raw as well. Aside from safe meat handling techniques, they take the extra precautions of feeding the dog either outside or in a crate and clean up the crate mat following meals, plus they wipe down the dog's mouth and paws after meals. It's probably less risky than feeding kibble - it's frequently contaminated with bacteria, but who cleans their dog's mouth after feeding kibble? I only bring it up because I think it's easier to ensure your dog is getting the proper nutrition with raw than with home cooked food.

[nikiwantsadane]

I'm reviving a dead thread because once again, Gracie needs to go home fed due to unknown suspected allergies; her ear is chronically infected and just comes back as soon as each round of antibiotics is done. Unless I know that I can adequately clean her jowls after each meal so there isn't one iota of bacteria from the meat, raw isn't an option, otherwise I would go for that.

Can anyone provide me with a specific recipe for homemade + any supplements needed to provide the nutrition she needs? I've been reading that taurine levels are specifically important, which come from the protein. She can't have chicken, as that is what she's been eating...the presumed allergen. Lamb is low in taurines.

What should I turn to as her protein that would be least likely to cause an allergy?