Most
store bought pet foods are just as junky as the processed foods sold
to humans. Read the ingredients. If the first ingredient is not meat,
it's trash. Most list the first ingredient as corn meal. Also beware
if the meat ingredient is something other than MEAT. Some key
words to look for
are animal digest (which is what was in
the animal's stomach when it was slaughtered), meat byproducts (which
can be organs and sinew) or bone meal (which increases the protein
content of the food but provides little nutritional value to the
food).
Dogs
and cats were not designed to eat corn. Felines, especially, are
carnivores. Dogs are a bit more forgiving, meaning they can eat some
veggies, but the bulk of their diet should be meat. They can suffer
from the same debilitating health issues humans do if they are fed
nutrient-poor diets.
So
what do I feed our animals? Well, one of our dogs gets sick every time we
feed him more than a few kibbles (store bought dog food). On
scraps, he does fine. While we do generate a fair amount of table scraps, I also buy a 10 pound bag of chicken legs. In my
local markets these bags sell for $6.90 everyday and less if on sale. Keep reading and you'll see how that $6.90 feeds not only my dogs for a few days, but my family of ten as well.
I
rinse the legs under cool water, being sure to slide my finger along
the backbones to remove the lungs that are usually still attached.
The organs go into the cat or dog's bowl. Yes, they are raw. It's OK
as cats and dogs are, by their nature, hunters who eat raw food.**
Give it to them. I cook the legs just as I would if I were making a
pot of chicken stock.
****
Instructions
for Making Broth
Place
legs in a large pot. Add 2-3 carrots and 2-3 ribs of celery and 1-2
onion(s).
Add
5T salt and 2-3 bay leaves, cover with water and bring to a simmer.
Skim off and discard any scum that forms (usually in the first 30
minutes). Let simmer slowly for a couple hours. When done strain all
of the solid contents and save the broth.
****
Cool
the solids (veggies and meat) in the fridge and when it's feeding
time, simply remove all bones and feed your dog this nutritious,
whole food.
Now on to feeding the family. The
broth continues cooling in the fridge for at least a full day. The
fat layer that develops on the top is usually pretty thick, as the
legs are usually where the bird stores fat reserves. This layer of
fat gets turned into SCHMALTZ. Read more about that in another post.
I use this fat to cook with everyday. The broth gets made into soup
or canned for use for another day.
Using
this method, you get 3 uses from one rather inexpensive product. I
can usually feed our 2 dogs this meat for at least 4-5 days,
supplementing it with other table scraps.
**dogs and cats can handle eating raw meats, but be sure not to allow children to handle the raw meat or dishes that have contained raw meat
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