Dog Food With Details

Last time I made dog food, I shared a photo of the ingredients.

A few readers wanted better proportions so I tried to document it a bit better today. The first thing I want to tell you is . . do your own research. Some of the things I use may not be what you want to use. Make sure everything is safe for your pet. Don’t take my word for it. This is the basic concoction I’ve used for a long time but please be careful what you feed  your dog.

The Meat:

The two packages of ground turkey are 19.2 oz. each. The livers are 1 pound. I use the Instant Pot for most of this. Place the ground turkey in the IP and select “saute” and brown the turkey. It isn’t going to really brown but it will be somewhat cooked. Break it apart with a spoon.

Place the livers in a pot, add about 4 cups of water and then boil the livers. If you have an immersion blender, using that grind up the liver. If you do not have an immersion blender,  you can do a decent job with a potato masher.

By now, the turkey is probably as brown as it’s going to get so pour the livers/cooking liquid in with the turkey.

Rice:

Add about 1-1/2 cups rice. There should be sufficient liquid from the liver water but if you feel you need more, add it. You probably need about 3 cups of liquid total.

Cook on high pressure for 8 minutes. Let it sit for 10 minutes, then release the pressure.

Dump the liver/turkey/rice mix into a large container. It needs to be really large! You’re going to add all the other ingredients.

The Vegetables:

I use two bags of peas/carrots and one larger bag of chopped broccoli.

Place the peas/carrots and broccoli into the IP (no need to wash it after having cooked the meat). Add about 1 cup of water. Pressure cook on high for 3 minutes. Let it sit for about 10 minutes, then release pressure. Drain the veggies and pour in with the meat mixture.

Eggs:

I beat up an egg or two and while the meat is still hot and the veggies are still hot, pour the egg over the mixture and stir it all up.

Save the shells. Boil them and then pulverize them (I use a food processor) and add this back to the mixture (calcium).

Extras:

Here’s where you can add anything you’d like to add so long as it’s healthy for a dog. I add spirulina, ground flax seeds, hemp seeds, and ginger. Today, I didn’t have any fresh ginger and had too much going on to stop and go dig some in the garden so I used some in a tube.

It isn’t my favorite thing to use in dog food. It has added ingredients but ginger does help with digestion and I figured the bad doesn’t outweigh the good but I won’t make a habit of using this kind of ginger. I usually use fresh.

You can see the ginger, flax seeds and spirulina. Once it all cooled down a bit, I stirred in three mashed bananas. I like to add mashed blueberries but again . . no blueberries here.

Stir it all up, freeze it in small containers and you have a nice, healthy food for your dog.

The other day someone mentioned that I needed to be sure to label this as dog food so we don’t eat it. It’s 100% human food, minus any seasonings. In fact, when I was making this, some got on my finger and out of habit, I licked it off. It doesn’t taste half bad.

Four trays in the freeze dryer now. I’m not sure how long this will last. I would guess that each tray is enough for close to three weeks for Rita. The last time I made it was September 21 and only put two trays in the freeze dryer. The rest of it I froze in small containers in the freezer. We’ve not made a dent in that batch but I have a lot going on til the end of October so I wanted to go ahead and get it made and not have to think about whether or not we needed more.