Need calcium help with homecooked

    • Gold Top Dog

    Dyan...I was worried about the same thing, homecooking with a growing pup.

    I fed him Orijen puppy until he was 14-15mnths old, then switched him to homecooked 2 mnths ago. I'm LOVING the results.

    I use either Honest Kitchen Preference or, now I'm using Urban Wolf freeze-dried vegetable pre-mixes to go along with either homecooked beef or chicken. These 2 pre-mixes do not have grains, but DO contain calcium in the correct ratio when added to the correct amount of meat based off their recommendations on the package.

    I found this to be the best and easiest route to start homecooking with, without fear of making sure they're getting the right calcium.

    I also mix in 1/4 cup of Olive oil, 2 capsules of salmon oil, or 1 can of salmon, and they also get eggs, yogurt, bananas, etc throughout the week.

    I rotate their meat every week, or every other week, when they eat beef, they also get beef heart mixed in, and when I do chicken, they get chicken hearts, liver and gizzards as well.

    I'm about to cook them a huge turkey.

    Main key is rotation too....don't get stuck on the same meat, and remember to feed organ meats, they DO need them.

    I noticed a bigger increase in energy in my 4yr old Pom - who's been through the ringer as a pup, when I started feeding chicken hearts/livers, etc.

    My now 18mnth old 53# pup looks fantastic, and I must say I think he's grown another 1" in height in the last few weeks. Skinny as a rail, but he is completely grain free.

    • Gold Top Dog

    stanton

    I use either Honest Kitchen Preference or, now I'm using Urban Wolf freeze-dried vegetable pre-mixes to go along with either homecooked beef or chicken. These 2 pre-mixes do not have grains, but DO contain calcium in the correct ratio when added to the correct amount of meat based off their recommendations on the package.

    I found this to be the best and easiest route to start homecooking with, without fear of making sure they're getting the right calcium.

    Thanks for the information.  Thats good to know about the KP or UW vegetable premix.     I will have to check it out.   Today I bought him some cottage cheese to eat for supper with his chicken/beef/collard greens.     This morning I put in a crushed egg shell that I had from yesterday.

    I slow cooked 5 lbs of chicken leg quarters all night.... man it sure don't make what seems to be enough for him to eat.I got more out of it when I did it in the oven.   But I put all the bones back in and they are still cooking...many have softened but waiting for them all to..so I will mix them up in the meat I have.    I did cook him some brown rice to add to it because he has thinned out and I want to make sure he is not hungry.

    • Gold Top Dog

     Dyan; If you want to feed Gibby meat without cooking any bones you just add 250 mg of calcium for every three and a half ounces of meat; that will balance the phosphorus but I'm not sure it's something you'd want to do long term with a growing puppy. You can get calcium citrate or calcium carbonate at health food stores; the label will tell you how many mg are in a teaspoon.

       If you're going to use a pre-mix like Honest Kitchen products you want to be careful about adding too much organ meat. Beef heart and chicken liver have a lot of vitamin A and since it's already in the pre-mix you could give Gibby too much. Same thing with beef liver; it's very high in copper. You may want to join K9 Kitchen; it's a great source for advice about home cooking; https://login.yahoo.com/config/login_verify2?.intl=us&.src=ygrp&.done=http%3a//groups.yahoo.com%2Fgroup%2FK9Kitchen%2Fjoin%2F&rl=

     Have you tried adding a product like Prozyme to his food to see if that helped;   http://www.vetamerica.com/prozyme-powder-200-grs-160-servings.aspx 

     

     
     

    • Gold Top Dog

    jessies_mom

     Have you tried adding a product like Prozyme to his food to see if that helped;   http://www.vetamerica.com/prozyme-powder-200-grs-160-servings.aspx 

    No...I do feel him a probiotic though...   He does not throw up his food usually....but he has vomited bile several times just about when it was time to eat again. Figuring an empty stomach does'nt set well with him.  Last Saturday when he was sick he threw up what looked like his breakfast......but gee that was about 12:30...and he had eaten about 6:30 AM.....seems it should have been more digested than that.    But then I was just reading how long it takes kibble to get thru their systems.....and I know that  is the reason why this Dane lady is telling me to not feed it.

    Funny thing....when I had my other dogs years ago...I looked down on kibble which was always just known as dry dog food!!!      I thought feeding your dog dry food was equivalent to tying him out to a tree all day.    So all it takes is a few stomach issues to make me think that maybe kibble is not a great idea now. 

    However....I just spent the whole afternoon in the kitchen becasue of making him food.   I have enough for 3 days.  That is not going to work...I don't have that much time..... and God knows how much $ I put into this.  Since Thursday...I have made 2 packages of chicken. and about a 3 lb ground meat and some veggies...... and there is enough for 2 more days.  HHHHmm~

    • Gold Top Dog

    dyan
    Last Saturday when he was sick he threw up what looked like his breakfast......but gee that was about 12:30...and he had eaten about 6:30 AM.....seems it should have been more digested than that.    But then I was just reading how long it takes kibble to get thru their systems.....and I know that  is the reason why this Dane lady is telling me to not feed it.

     

      This information is from Monica's booklet "Enhancing Commercial Kibble"; according to Dr. DC Twedt, DVM, DACVIM, a respected gastroenterologist; it usually takes 5 to 8 hours for processed food to leave the stomach. That doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount of time to me. What did the information you read say?

      It takes me about an hour and a half to prepare a week's worth of food for Jessie, but of course she only needs about 720 calories a day, so a lot less food than a growing Dane. The recipe includes 2 kinds of turkey as well as rice, eggs, canned mackerel, green beans, carrots, apples and blueberries. The apples and blueberries aren't cooked; just pureed. It costs about $20 a week not counting the supplements, but once purchased they last a long time. I don't have to cook the turkey very long because it's boneless; bone meal is added later for calcium; that saves some time compared to cooking meat  until the bones are soft. Sabine and Monica allow you to decide how simple or complex you want the recipe to be, a simple recipe will shorten cooking time but you'll need to add more supplements.
     

    • Gold Top Dog

     What you need, Dyan, is a recipe that includes some carbs.  Probably white rice for the urps you are getting.

    I cook for seven dogs.  Well, I did and tomorrow my wonderful husband is going to do it under my eye so we can get going on this again!

    Anyway, that's certainly as much as, if not more food, than your one Dane pup can eat.  We do it in two hours each week.

    Here's how it goes.  I put on pots of oatmeal for the oatmeal eaters (two dogs and Maggie eats a tiny bit).  A pot of rice goes on for Lynn (she's the one with the touchy tummy).  I put potatoes in the oven (actually I did that much earlier in the day) - so many white, so many sweet.   The veggies are chopped and go on the steamer, along with the fruit - carrots, zucchini, apples, jicama.

    While all that is cooking I set out seven bowls.  I get out the food processor.  I take out the potatoes and slice and process them and divide them amongst the bowls.  I also process parsley and cans of fish likewise.  The fish doesn't need it but I found it makes everything easier to mix.

    Now the grains are usually done and I crack the eggs into the hot pots of rice and oatmeal and let that sit for a few minutes.  This will allow the rice/oatmeal to cool faster and the whites in the eggs will set but leave the yolk runny.

    I then start processing the fruits and veggies.  I usually do this by dog or I get confused, because up to now everything has been pretty much the same, but from now on the recipes differ.  Lynn gets carrots but the boys get sweet potatoes and zukes, for instance.  Everyone gets apples and jicama for digestive health.  And that's it - I don't go for variety any more on the basic recipe.

    When that's done, usually the grains are still not cool enough to work with, so I start slicing up meat.  Each dog gets beef heart and pork kidney.  I cut up each dog's portion and set it on small prep trays.  Out of the reach of the dogs.  lol

    Now usually the grains are done.  I fill each dog's bowl, mix, and then call Patrick because I really hate the next part.  He starts labeling baggies and turning them, and I fill them and set them up in a box.  Then I drop the meat in on top of that.  Then Patrick closes up the bags.

    When we are done, we have seven little rows of seven bags, per dog.  That's breakfast.  These bags go in the door of our commercial freezer.  They could easily fit in a regular freezer, but nothing much else would.  Even Lulu's breakfast (she's 100 pounds) is still only a quart bag full.

    The secret to the boney part of their meals is that they are not portioned out daily, but weekly.  So one dog gets, say, 32 oz of chicken quarters, 48 oz of turkey necks, and 16 oz of pork rib - while another dog gets 24 oz chicken quarters, 8 oz pork rib, and four chicken feet.  The gallon bags are prepared with the dog's name and the portion of food and type, and often I only purchase one type of food that week - ribs or quarters - because it was on sale. 

    Then I simply portion that one food out and I've got the dogs covered on that point for a few weeks to come.  It's much easier to sit and portion out the same type of food over and over in a single sitting, than it is to try to figure out all the different types and portions each week, week, after week.

    If you wanted to simplify this part of your dog's diet, you could simply purchase boneless meat and as several have mentioned, add calcium.  You can use a supplement, or you can use a human grade bone meal, or you can use eggshell.  One of my recipes (the one for Ted), has eggshell in it.  I'm fortunate in that I can use my own duck eggs so I don't have to mess with washing, but there's no harm in using the shell from commercial eggs.  I do mine up when I get enough shells, put the powder in a little baggie, and store it in the freezer.

     

    • Gold Top Dog

    Brookcove....do you cook your meat, or do you feed raw?

    It takes me several hours as well for homecooking. I prepare enough food on the weekend to last the whole week, but during one day I'll spend at least 75% of the day in the kitchen...or so it seems.

    I generally cook around 15-20# of meat, every week it varies on whether it's chicken, turkey or beef. Chicken is the only thing I cook with bones, everything else is ground meats. I also cook beef heart, chicken organs, and turkey organs if I can find them.

    My dogs get no grains, so I don't have to fret with that.

    I use pre-mixes of either HK or UW to mix in with the meat.

    But even with cooking, rinsing, and dividing the meat, I'm in the kitchen for quite a while. How do you cook your meats and divide everything so fast?

    • Gold Top Dog

    None of my meats are cooked.  If I had to mess with that, I'd steam or bake or slow cook.  Probably what I'd do to save money would be to purchase large cuts of bone-in meats like "pork picnics" and whole poultry and slow cook them until they are falling off the bone.  I do this with my family.  I buy a large cut, whatever is on sale, and we eat off it for a week.  I plan menus based on meats that are on sale - usually two different meats.   

    Anyway, all my meats are raw.  Part for convenience, and part because I like it better that way. 

    As to how I divide stuff so fast - looooong practice is at work there.  My husband and I both worked in fast food for years, and we know several little tricks for mass production of food.  I still intend to make two upgrades to my packaging time.  One, I want to purchase a vacuum sealer for the odd-shaped raw meaty bones.  Second, I want a labeler so I can sit at my desk and make up the labels once, and then just print them every week.

    • Gold Top Dog

     Cooking takes For. Ev. Er.

     

    Says the girl who feeds raw, but has started cooking loads of low calorie randomness for her imaginary starving dog.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Think I'm slowly going to start leaving the big guys meat a little rawer each week. Doesn't handle raw chicken period, but he appears to itch a lot with chicken anyhow.

    • Gold Top Dog

    jessies_mom
    This information is from Monica's booklet "Enhancing Commercial Kibble"; according to Dr. DC Twedt, DVM, DACVIM, a respected gastroenterologist; it usually takes 5 to 8 hours for processed food to leave the stomach. That doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount of time to me. What did the information you read say?

    This is what I read..its from the website of Natures Farmacy Blog.  Ultrasonic and X-ray technological research shows that in eight to fourteen hours from the beginning of a meal the process of digestion has been completed in dogs consuming dry kibble. Interestingly, it only takes two to four hours for a raw diet for complete digestion. At this time and point in digestion (both instances), the digested food has been absorbed, and the unusable residue has been pushed half way through the colon. In eight hours, the food has traveled more than twenty-five feet, with only two and a half feet to go.

    So no..it doesn't seem unreasonable that Gibbys kibble still looked like kibble at 12:30 when he ate it about 6:30. However the point that was made follows the 2 to 4 hours for a raw diet to complete digestion...only I don't believe she said raw....she said cooked food...or at least implied that.

    Thanks to all the answers above.....I appreciate all of them. Becka,,,you sure took time to explain how organized you are....WOW...I'm impressed.  What kept popping out though is a couple of things...I'm not thinking raw to begin with. I don't mind some raw...but Im not thinking feeding raw.  And the other thing kept popping out is I don't have a food processor...never did get one over all the years that I kind of wished that I had one...on top of it I got rid of my blender because I never used it much.  

    When I spent so much time in the kitchen on Sunday....that was with having the chicken already cooked in a crock pot all night.  that was taken all the meat off the bones and I actually threw them back in the crock to cook longer until they softened for him to eat without splintering. 

    The theory on that link is ( I believe ) that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. That you need to change food from the catagories of meat, veggies and carbs....so that if one is less in something one day...it might be more than something the next.  It is simply 50% meat, 40% veggies and 10% carbs.   Honestly.........making it easier is the only reason this thing interested me.  But I am just not sure about anything...bought him BilJac frozen....and will feed him that one time a day and my cooked the other,  at least for now... 

    Right now I feel confused and even guilty. Yes GUILTY for doing what I am doing.  Gibby seems to be in a growth spurt....is getting tall all of a sudden...before he seemed to be getting longer....  But he looks skinny again....he was for a while after I got him.  But he is obviously hungry also.   And I am adding a lot more brown rice to his food.  I portioned out what I thought he needed and then added more rice....and/or cottage cheese...and yogurt.     When I started this thing...he learned to get on his back legs and see whats on the kitchen counter.....and then eat whats in the bowl while your mom is looking for lids to put it all in the fridge......never had a dog do that to me before.   Today...I came home from work and thru a couple of plastic containers that had food for lunch in them. Nothing big.... but Gibby got on his back legs and put his head INTO the sink and pulled out a small tupperware that was used for cut up cheese.  So I think he needs more to eat than I have been giving him. Tonight he had the first of his BilJac.   We'll see.     But I also believe in Eagle Pack for my Danes.....I love the company, my dogs love the food....I feel guilty taking Gibby off it. But I feel that I must give it a try...just in case the kibble really is bothering his digestive system.

    • Gold Top Dog

     I've found that frozen BilJac puts weight on anybody. I hope that Gibby does well, with it. It certainly gave Ena the boost she needed! She ate probably 4 bags of it, then I switched her to something I liked better, and she's held her weight. Of course, 4 bags lasts her a LOT longer than Gibby!

    • Gold Top Dog

    jennie_c_d
    I've found that frozen BilJac puts weight on anybody. I hope that Gibby does well, with it. It

     

    Thank you!   Hope so too!   I know my Cindy did wonderful on it for her whole life.  But its hard to feed what your supposed to of the Frozen....it looks like so little.  I gave Gibby more than what I should have for his first meal...and Gibby looked at his bowl when he was done and kept licking the empty bowl as though to say "there MUST be more of this in here!"  

    And I found this kind of crazy...I always thought of a cup of food as an 8 oz cup. The BilJac package says 5 1/2 or 5 1/2 oz cups.

    Huh????

    • Gold Top Dog

    An 8 oz "cup" measures liquid.  Because most liquids vary little, you can count on about the same amount of liquid food being in there if you have 8 oz of broth versus tea versus cola.

    The cup we use in the kitchen measures volume, not weight.  So if you weighed a cup of food, it may or may not weigh anything close to 8 oz.  In fact, I've found a cup of most premium adult dry foods weighs around 4 to 5 oz. 

    If you are wondering, just contact Bil-Jac and ask them to give you a weight on how much food they recommend for a pup Gib's size.  5-ish cups of a semi-moist product does sound pretty close though.  I'd guess that's a couple pounds of food and Lynn used to eat about 2/3 that each day when she was a little growing pup and extremely active (allowing for the difference between semi-moist and her fully hydrated fresh food).
     

    • Gold Top Dog

    brookcove

    An 8 oz "cup" measures liquid.  Because most liquids vary little, you can count on about the same amount of liquid food being in there if you have 8 oz of broth versus tea versus cola.

    You know..... I knew that the dry measure was different from the liquid...it just never occured to me that a dry cup....was equal to only 5 1/4 or 5 1/2 oz.    I guess that is pretty stupid on my part...probably did know that at one point in my life....lol!   So I did NOT give Gibby more than what he should have had....I gave him a little less than two cups.....   Good..tomorrow I will make up for it. Thanks for straightening me out!

    Yes..I can call BilJac. I did one time a few years ago... thinking about changing Ollie to the food....the people there are very nice...and very helpful.