Homecooked recipe- how does it look?

WHOA! Those are VERY full of antioxidants. They do look pretty healthy, though. They're heavier on protein, than what I'd feed, but they do look healthy.

On those berries - you can get strawberries, or mixed blue/raspberries, frozen almost anywhere, at anytime. Freezing them fresh does little to degrade their nutritive value. Zhi is recovering from a serious wound and she's been getting frozen berries every day - I just whirl them into her special meals (she's on my special super recovery diet).

I guess it's doing some good - she hasn't had a bit of infection, or reaction to the Keflex she's on. The hole that was the size of a quarter (her leg's only the size of a drumstick at KFC) and deep enought to stick your finger in up to the knuckle, is now flush to the surface (whew) and about as big around as a pencil eraser. It's been about ten days, so that's pretty good. Her hair is growing like crazy, too. I'm going to have to take her to the groomers, I think, to get caught up with her body shave. [8|]

Here's what she's on:

1/4 pound ground meat
4 oz canned fish
1 chicken liver, kidney square, or 1/2 oz beef liver
1 egg, with shell
4 oz starchy veggie (rotating sweet potatoes, green peas, squash, carrots - steamed, processed)
1 or 2 oz greens (collards and mustards are what I had around - processed fresh)
1 tbsp berries, processed fresh
1 tsp coconut oil

This is divided in three meals. She also has a smoked bone to keep her company. I didn't want a raw bbone in there with the open wound.

On supplements. Mostly animal protein diets are particularly lacking in B vitamins, E, and selenium - these vitamins reside in brain and nervous tissue and skin and other parts that are hard to get in the store. So I supplement with these when I go all homemade unless I'm feeding whole intact animals. She's also taking a teeny bit of zinc and a glucosamine/chondroitin supplement that contains C and biotin. I've found all these things helpful when we're recovering from surgery, illness (assuming the dog is able to eat) or a major accident.

I think it sounds reasonably good. I'm probably going to get pounced on for saying this, but I don't think you need to worry too much as long as you're giving Gingerbread a balanced diet. The B-naturals site is great for helping you understand what you should put in and why. I do think it's neccessary to give calcium supplements if you're not going to feed raw bones, but I try not to think about it all too hard. I figure, as long as I try to balance the types of fruit and vegies and meats Penny gets, then she should do okay. I guess I've been so blown away by how well she's doing that it's hard to imagine I could be doing anything wrong!

We used to put in brown rice to soak up the extra water, but we've gone grain free, now, for Pyry because he gets skin problems. My mother used kelp powder to soak up the excess water, but I feel like she puts a lot of that stuff in their diet. She's quite kelp happy. We used to do Brewer's yeast as well, but that one's out temporarily due to Pyry's yeast susceptibility. Those were the only supplements we use.

The only thing I would say is maybe think about going for sweet potato instead of ordinary potato. My vet warned me at some point that potato tends to sit in the gut in lumps of starch that can't be digested and slow the whole thing down. And make sure you mash the vegies as much as you can. Our recipe is very simple and is basically meat and vegies at the ratio of 2.5:1 with some garlic and kelp powder.

Good luck!

I am really trying to find a good recipe for Jetta that is simple and doesn't use gross meats like hearts and livers. Where would I even find that stuff??? lol.

 
I just wanted to let you know that the book Better Food for Dogs uses very simple recipes with meats that you'd probably have on hand like beef and chicken.  They do not include any organ meats in the recipes. 
 
I do believe you are supposed to have a percentage of organ meat in the diet.  But, I used to get around it by buying treats with organ like the Natural Balance rolls or freeze dried liver treats.

Brookcove---I love that recipe---nice and easy.  Very similar to my homecooked, but I like the idea of adding the canned fish. I, do, also add berries to the mix, but not as often as I should since I don't always have them around the house.
 
Stacy, I, too love Wysong's Call of the Wild supplement----takes out all of the guess work of balancing nutrients.

Thank you guys for all the input. So is the bonemeal necessary even if I'm feeding kibble one meal a day? Does eggshell powder do the same thing?

Chasza- That's really interesting what your vet specialist said about kelp. It reminds me of something I read in a Solid Gold brochure (which I mostly disregarded because they aren't entirely trusthworthy), but anyway it said something about how kelp shouldn't be fed by itself because of a certain property and needed to be fed with other types of seaweed so that certain molecules would cancel each other out. Sorry if that made no sense, I can't remember the facts exactly. [8|]

Corvus- I was thinking of using sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes, but only because I figured they're healthier. I didn't realize that because of the starch they would sit in dog's stomach, so thank you, now I'll definitely just use sweet potatoes!

Anyway, all the different supplements and recipes are definitely confusing me. Would it be completely awful to feed him kibble for breakfast and for dinner just- meat, carb, and two veggies? For example I'd make up a week's worth and one week maybe: chicken, sweet potatoes, green beans, cauliflower (and bonemeal or calcium supplement).

the next week:
beef, sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, supplement.

next week:
turkey, sweet potatoes, squash, broccoli, supplement.

Would something like that work?

Hmmm,
 
I hadn't read that about mixing the seaweeds.  Yep, you made sense to me b/c I can usually only hold on to the basic information and not hold on to the "why's".
 
Personally, I wouldn't use sweet potatoes every single time.  They are great, but still that would be eating sweet pot's every night, and after a time there would be too much of something and not enough of something else (nutrient wise).
 
Personally, I do use very, very well cooked brown rice.  I put in 3 - 4 times the amount of water and cook very long.  I say this b/c some people seem to be scared of using rice b/c of the carbs. 
 
I switch everything out as much as possible.
 
Say you are cooking lentils and rice for you.  Then keep it simple and that could be a meal since the lentils are protein.  You can easily add in a frozen veggie -  cooked.  I keep mixed bags in the freezer for this reason.  Veggies don't take terribly long to cook.
 
Some dogs do tend to have more problems with some types of startches, so you will have to just watch and see how yours reacts.
 
I do weigh my food simply b/c I don't want to use too much meat, and I find that I can't really judge very well by just looking at it.  But, that's b/c I usually have cooked them seperately and haven't mixed them together in one big pot. 

I think brown rice is fine. You definitely have to make sure you cook it really well because otherwise it just goes straight through them. We only took it out because we have a grain-sensitive dog.

I've heard you can also use sprouted grains, where you soak them in water overnight. Works for just about anything but rice.

Ahhh, okay. Thank you Corvus and Chasza! I didn't want to use rice because when Gingerbread's eaten before it HAS gone straight through him. I'll use extra water and cook it longer- thanks for the tips!

Luvntzus--
 
Just a quick thought--you may want to try a pre-mix such as Dr. Harvey's Canine Health:   [linkhttp://www.drharveys.com/dogs/caninehealth.asp]http://www.drharveys.com/dogs/caninehealth.asp[/link] 
I like the ingredients, Just add the cooked meat of your choice---Simple.
 
Urban Wolf also makes a pre-mix that is grain free if you want to go that route:
[linkhttp://www.urbanwolf.cc]http://www.urbanwolf.cc[/link]
 
Good Luck.
(by the way--I just love Gingerbread's little face--I want to eat it up!)
 Anyway, just trying to think of other avenue