dog food brain storming

[Ioanna]

sometimes is tough for me to get dog food mix from the farm. they have only so much, then run out kind of quickly.

i have a ton of lamb 100% grass-fed fat and heart tends to be always available while other meat cuts and organs run out.  a woman at the farmers market told me i can just put everything in a food processor and pulse blend it to shred it up a bit.

so here's what i'm thinking, please add or tell me what to take away:
fat
heart (and whatever else is available)
sea greens blend (it's a powdered green supplement of sea stuff, no vegees)
clay
bone meal (my dog gets chicken thighs (w bone) when they go on sale, so i'm not too worried about the bone meal)
eggs?

i dehydrate liver in small bit size pieces as dog treats, so she gets liver too.

any thoughts??  i'm trying to feed her the best diet i can think of and find a way to keep it affordable too.

[cherimoya_kid]

That sounds fairly balanced to me.  You might want to throw in the the occasional brain or set of glands. I doubt he needs the bone meal, and it might be excess calcium for your dog.

[Johan August]

I feed my two medium sized dogs a raw vlc ketogenic diet, brisket ( which is cheap and high fat), 30 g each per day of raw beef liver, kidney and heart. They each get one brisket bone per week. Occasionally they get a rib bone as a greater challenge. They get dark green salad leaves of a many kinds as I can think of, sometimes a piece of raw carrot. During the summer months we grow the salad leaves ourselves.
I would not give them bone meal, chewing and gnawing are desirable (perhaps necessary).
They are both 9, very slim and healthy with excellent teeth.
Our main differences then are you favour chicken bones, bonemeal, sea vegetables but not land salads.
I favour harder bones. Dogs are descended from wolves who hunted larger game than chickens. They got a lot of land vegetation partially digested from their prey. So I would not feel sea vegetables to be very paleo for dogs. It is true that wolves have been observed hunting mice and picking blueberries but they are not major diet items.
Carrots are not terribly paleo but my dogs enjoy crunching them occasionally. I limit the size of carrot I give them to about three inches.
I think your dogs would do very well on the things you are giving them as long as you limit the amount of carbs to ketogenic levels which you probably are. Their teeth would be my only concern, but I am sure you must have already satisfied yourself about that.
Other bits of the animal are desirable if you can get them.

[Ioanna]

thank you both!

so i won't need bone meal. what about raw eggs?  how do you feed your dogs land veggies?  do you mix all of the organs up or feed them to your dog in chunks?

i would love to feed myself brain too, lol! haven't found a source yet, but i'm working on it. great suggestion!

thanks again!!

[bookittyrun]

i know this thread is aging, but i'll add the following...
my dog's staple food item is still the store bought dry food, but she snacks on whatever i'm preparing for myself, except for the "sea" items.  muscle and organ meats are fair game.  blending the meats?  maybe not necessary, your dog probably doesn't normally chew food beyond making it swallow - able, anyway...  digestion seems to happen just fine on it's own.  it may seem more natural to your dog, to get animal product in chunks...  blended foods may pass through too fast, they may always seem hungry.  my dog loves celery bits, cukes, salad greens, and carrots.  she enjoys the small, leftover, end piece of bananas, too...  dogs are opportunistic when it comes to dining, and can manage most land food items, they are omnivores who will eat whatever is convenient.  compatibility is usually an afterthought, as they will puke up, or poop out, whatever doesn't agree with them.  a good guage is the waste they leave in the yard, take a look at it from time to time, modify and add ingredients as you go, dogs like variety as much as some people do...

i have a friend, whose dog is a vegetarian (?).  he will eat tomatoes off the vine from their garden, as well as anything else growing in view.  if you threw a steak, or any meat / animal product on the floor for the dog, he wouldn't touch it.        

[cherimoya_kid]

My neighbors' dog would eat blackberries right off the vine.  Coyotes will eat tomatoes off the vine, as well as papaya.

[jessica]

the farm dogs ive lived with would eat carrots and peas off the bush.....they also devoured deer guts.