The mince is still a hit! I ran out yesterday so I made another batch today. I offered Conker a chunk of bone-in chicken to see if he'd take it, and like usual, he refused it. But he did like the turkey neck I tried next, so he got to eat that and some liver for today's meal. I am glad he'll still eat those, his teeth are not as pretty as they used to be. I offer him a turkey neck every few days instead of a mince meal for that reason. I do not want to have to get his teeth cleaned when he's older...
I started the mince by chopping up the two chicken quarters I used. I cannot smush the whole thing into my little grinder at once, but it handles 1/3rd of a quarter just fine. I also hacked the steak up into similarly sized pieces.
Once everything was minced, it got put into a large mixing bowl. In the bowl is: 2 chicken Q's, 1 flatiron steak (nice big steak!), 1 large hunk of beef liver, 1 each turkey gizzard and heart, a small handful of clams and oysters, and some canned fish. (Maybe 1/3rd a can?) The seafood does not need to be minced since it breaks apart very easily.
Meanwhile...
I had a pot of oats going while I was cutting and mincing the meaty items. I use more water than you would for regular "people" oats and cook it a bit longer as well. This is about 2 cups of cooked oats, very mushy and creamy. I put the oats into the water before heating since that makes them creamier (more broken up) and easier to digest. I heat the oaty water to a boil then reduce to a simmer with the lid on until they are thick and cooked well.
Once the oats are done cooking and cooled, I add them to the bowl. Everything is mixed thoroughly so that each meal has about the same amount of each item as the next. It doesn't really matter that much since the entire batch is balanced correctly, but Conker digests his food better if it's not haphazardly thrown together. It's not pretty if he gets too much liver or not enough bone...
Next I divide it all up into tupperwares. Each container holds two days worth of food. I do not add in the eggs or supplements until it is fed. If I put 10 eggs into the mix it would be very slurry and harder to store, so I add the eggs in later.
Conker gets roughly 3/4 pound of total food every day after all the extras are added, including snacks and treats. It varies depending on what the snacks are and how many, but in general, that is about how much he gets on a daily basis.
Which is quite a bit for a dog his size.
Is it strange that this is making me hungry? How much time did it take you?
ReplyDeleteHaha! It kinda makes me hungry too.
DeleteIt took, maybe, 45 minutes total? Including prep and cleanup. It's a lot shorter to just hack stuff up but Conker won't eat it any other way. It's not a bad amount of time for 10 days worth of food though.
You mentioned that everything is balanced, do you follow the whole 80/10/10 meat/organs/bone ratio? Or do you do something different based on the research you've done?
ReplyDeleteHow many eggs do you give per week?
I give Lobo 1.2 lbs a day and I err on the side of more rather than less. The recommendation I was given was to start at 3% of his expected weight (40 lbs). Now comparing it to Conker's I feel like it's a lot! Ha. But he is gaining weight without getting fat, and when I give him any less, he starts to get really aggressive with the cats (don't take my food, little tiger! I will eat you instead!) and acts like he's a starving feral dog (jumps gates to find the garbage and growls if you try to pull him away).
I don't really follow the prey model stuff too well. Conker was skinny as hell on an exclusively raw diet, even with a lot of extra fat and protein. I had to feed him soooo much it was ridiculous.
DeleteI do it partly based on that idea, but mainly based on research. I do give roughly 80/10/10 but I also tweak it for various reasons. Take liver for example. I feed (beef) liver based on copper requirements, not a percentage.
And I feed grains, so that makes me eeevil to most rawfeeders.
I use a website called Nutritiondata.com and input Conker's recommended daily values into it instead of mine (that I ganked from a spreadsheet and the 1985 NRC recommendations for dogs) Then I make up "recipes" that I fiddle with until the nutrients line up good enough. More rather than less. I have a couple variants that I rotate though to ensure he gets everything he needs.
It's certainly not perfect, but I have also analyzed many kibbles using this method and MAN are most of them way crazy out of whack!
I did a lengthy post a while back on the subject. It is in need of some updating, and I'll get around to that eventually, but here's the link:
http://losech.blogspot.com/2012/02/using-nutritiondatacom-to-balance-home.html
Conker gets one egg a day, so 7 eggs a week. He's spoiled. But it helps his coat and dry skin like the fish oil does. I mix some of his supplements into it so that is another reason why I give him one a day.
Lobo is still a pup. Conker ate twice as much as he does now when he was younger. Dogs eat a bunch when they are young, then taper off as they reach maturity.
Lobo could probably use some resource guarding training. That stuff is not fun to deal with when a dog bites full force (as Conker did.)
Thanks for the link! That's my kinda OCD.
ReplyDeleteI did start some resource guarding training, but ever since I upped his food intake it hasn't been an issue at all. He doesn't even flinch if a cat comes near his food, even if it's on the floor and he's sitting there waiting. And he hasn't rummage or growled since those few days when I cut his intake in half because I was concerned that too much food was causing his diarrhea.
But, he does get a little possessive when it comes to bones, so that I definitely need to work on...