Back to questions...Homemade pet food!

This one is long overdue...thanks, Definingfamily for the reminder.

Nicole, I accidentally went out of order on this one, but I promise I am not ignoring you!

So, um, yes, I am that crazy person who makes her own pet food. It has been duly pointed out to me that this activity may slow or cease altogether when I have to meet the demands of a baby, but for now, this is how it is.  If we have to adjust things in the future, well, we'll see what we have to do.

I have to say that we have very good reasons (8 of them) for doing so. And since Speedy is a vet and witnessed first-hand the deaths of animals who were poisoned by the melamine disaster a few years ago, it also makes us slightly less paranoid about inadvertently killing our much beloved animals. Also:  when Sophie (the 120-lb great dane/lab mix) came to us, she was very, very sick with hemolytic anemia-- she had a 50-50 shot of living.  The first thing that the specialist vet told us to do was to get her off commercial food (which can cause all sorts of trouble, from digestive issues to maladaptive immune responses) and put her on homemade with herbal supplements. It just made sense that since we were doing it for her, we would put everyone on the same diet.

But for all our lofty reasons for making homemade food, we do cheat.  We have too many animals to be able to afford hormone-free, grass-fed local beef, which we should grind with a meat grinder, bones and all, as the basis of their food.  (Which ideally should not be cooked at all.) Instead, we do a compromise: we buy 30 lbs a week of $1/lb. frozen ground beef or chicken from a local butcher (which is sold as "dog food meat"), throw about 6 pre-cut chunks of it (about 2-3 pounds) with about an equal amount (by weight) of sliced sweet potatoes into the crock pot, then add about 1-2 handfuls of whatever* green veggies we have on hand (or veggie stalks, stems and unwanted remains that we keep in a bag in the freezer for this very purpose).  (We don't compost because we have nothing to grow, but we do recycle as much of our food waste as we can-- we often add apple cores and other bits that break down in the cooking process.)  Fill the crockpot up with water to about 1-2 inches below the top (fill it too high and it will bubble over while cooking and leave a gross, greasy mess on your countertop and in the bottom of the heating element) and leave it on "low" over night.  In the morning, we stir in about 1-2 cups of barley and let it cook up while we walk the dogs (about an hour).  Then we turn it off and mix in one 400 IU vitamin E pill (I snip off the tip with scissors and squeeze in the oil), 10,000 IU of vitamin A (I crush the pills between two teaspoons and sprinkle in the powder), about four tablespoons of calcium powder (which I make in a coffee grinder from recycled egg shells), some vegetable oil if the meat looks lean, a teaspoon or two of table salt, and about 6 Tablespoons of the magical vitamin supplement:

Healthy Powder (straight from Dr. Pitcairn's Natural Health for Pets book):
2 cups nutritional yeast
1 cup lecithin granules
1/4 cup kelp powder
1/4 cup calcium powder
1,000 mg vitamin C crystals (sodium ascorbate)

Mix all ingredients together and store in a big container at room temp.

We mix this all together, and stick the whole thing in the fridge to cool.  I try to have at least 1 full meal made ahead (for four dogs, this equals about 1/2 the crock pot) so I can feed them without making them wait for the food to cool.

That was the dogs...

For cat food, since I don't have to make it every. single. stinkin'. day. I don't mind dirtying a pot and standing over it while it cooks.  Theoretically you are supposed to vary their diet, but again, we compromise-- this is a hell of a lot better than most commercial foods, and they do get variety in a sense when we run out of beef and use our back-up canned food.  They also get tons of snacky goodness when we have anchovies or leftover fish bits from going out to eat.  But for their every day fare, it is simple:  Take a cup of cornmeal (or polenta) and add 4 cups of water in a large pot.  Bring it to a boil, turn heat low, cover and simmer 15-20 minutes.  Turn heat OFF.  Add two eggs, stir.  Add 2 lbs. of ground beef (which we get in the fridge case from the same butcher who supplies the dog food meat), combine.  Add 4 tablespoons of healthy powder, 2 teaspoons of calcium powder, 10,000 IU of vitamin A, 100-200 IU of vitamin E, and 500 mg taurine supplement.  (Taurine is an essential supplement for cats.)  Mix it all up, and-- voila! I put it is recycled plastic quart containers, leave one container in the fridge and store the rest (1-2 more quarts) in the freezer.  If you have fewer cats (we have four, 3 of them large males), maybe keep a smaller amount in the fridge since it will spoil within 3-4 days.

If you are switching to this diet with your animals, remember to gradually phase it in to avoid instant stomach distress. The switch was very easy with the dogs, because they will eat anything, and they love their food, but our cats will still take canned food any day over their homemade food.  Speedy and I are convinced that manufacturers put kitty crack in canned cat food because of how crazy the cats get when it's around.  But they WILL eventually eat the homemade stuff (and happily) if that is all they are offered.  We give them "treats" of little kibbles of commercial dry food.  They LOVE it and always come running when we shake the box.  In small quantities, it's ok, but the dry food, if fed exclusively, can cause serious kidney problems over time especially with older cats.

While the initial investment for all the vitamins and supplements is a bit steep, those things last forever-- we really only have to re-stock one item at a time and every few months, so homemade food is much cheaper (the way we do it) than any commercial food we can buy in Brooklyn.  It is a bit more work, and there are definitely days that I wish I could go to bed without chopping up potatoes for the dog food, but ultimately it is much better.  Gone are the days of spending $200 every month (or every other week, sometimes) at the pet store and waiting for deliveries of 40-lb. bags of possibly poisonous kibble. Plus, I just like being the one to make their food.  It makes me feel like I am going the extra mile for them, and they are so, so worth it.

*Avoid acidic veggies (peppers, tomatoes), onions, things like eggplant and mushrooms because they can have ill effects.