Three Chins in a Bucket

November Diet

Since tomorrow is halloween and later this month is Thanksgiving, I decided to add pumpkin puree to today's food batch.
I'm trying to stick to 30% meat
Lamb Hearts (6 hearts)
Ground Turkey (2 lbs)
Chicken Liver (2 containers)
Lamb Liver - one package

Water  - enough to cover the meat

2 cans Pumpkin Puree
4 Carrots
1 giant Sweet Potato
6 small beets

1 large avocado
2 apples
1 pear
2 bananas

1c steel cut oats
1c frozen neem leaves
Healthy Powder

Miles Davis

Meet little Miles Davis. When he came to us a bit over a year ago he was anticipated to only weigh 4lb fully grown. He's now almost 8lbs. I attribute this to his raw food diet.

I've recently begun adding more oatmeal to the dog's diet. I want to keep the protein levels around 25%. My breakdown is 25% protein, 25% cereal (oatmeal and flax), 10% moisture, 35% vegetables and fruit, 5% healthy powder.
In the vegetables, I'm also adding some need leaves that were picked fresh, chopped and frozen. I'm lucky to have a neem tree in my yard.

Dr Pitcairn

My introduction to HandMade Dog Food was through Dr. Pitcairn. I highly recommend his book Dr. Pitcairn's New Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats. One of my favorite recipes from this book is Healthy Powder which uses nutritional or brewer's yeast, lecithin granules, kelp powder  and Vitimin C. My cat has become finicky and "required" that this mixture be sprinkled on her food. I gave a bottle to a coworker and he said that his dog would wait until she got powder before eating her food.

This book will give you recipes for dog food and useful information about dog nutrition.

What I feed my dogs

My version of "Raw Food"
I have 50 lbs of dogs combined. 2% of their body weight per day is 1 lb per day of food.
Here's a guide for one making food session:

2 lbs boneless skinless chicken
1.5 lb organ meats (chicken livers; lamb veal or pork kidneys; lamb heart),
6 raw eggs
equal volume to the meat of shredded vegetables - generally a mixture of sweet potato, brocolli, green beans, and or carrots or canned pumpkin (unsweetened).
some fruit - an apple or a couple of bananas.

1 cup of flax seed ground
1/2 head garlic
16oz plain/fat free yougurt


1 cup Healthy Powder from Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats - nutritional yeast,lecithin granules,kelp powder,bone meal,vitamin C

I'm beginning to add some grain back to their diets as Stella, my pug has gotten too thin. I put steel cut oats through the food processor to break up the grains some and add about a cup and a half to the above mixture which is put through the food processor. I stand firm by my Cuisinart food processor. A $30 food processor from a big box store will not be able to handle the meat - I've tested one and it failed. If you don't have a food processor, partially frozen meat is easy to chop.

I portion the mixture into containers and freeze immediately. I've found that the 32 oz yougrt containers work well and will feed my pack for 2 days. This way we don't have raw meat sitting in the fridge for more than 2 days at a time.

This is what works for me - each person has their own opinion of what works for them. I suggest reading Dr. Pitcairn's book as he has many good recipes and is a great source of information.