Commercial pre-made raw diets are a popular choice because of their convenience. They eliminate the guesswork involved in ensuring the correct calcium:phosphorus ratio, balancing muscle meat with organs, and incorporating the right amount of fruits and vegetables. Many reputable commercial raw food brands are readily available.
However, pre-made raw food can be expensive, or you might prefer to prepare your dog’s meals yourself. Perhaps your preferred brands aren’t available everywhere.
For various reasons, many dog owners like you are looking for completely balanced Raw Dog Food Recipes. You need recipes with precise measurements and easily accessible ingredients, ensuring the ideal ratio of meat, bones, organ meats, and produce.
You want to create healthy meals for your dog without complications. Preparing your own dog food is an excellent way to achieve this. Here are some key advantages:
Take Control of Your Dog’s Diet with Homemade Raw Food
Preparing raw dog food at home gives you greater control over your dog’s nutrition. You can:
- Address Specific Dietary Needs and Allergies: Tailor recipes to manage sensitivities and health conditions.
- Adjust Diet for Different Life Stages: Easily modify recipes as your dog grows from puppyhood to senior years.
- Control Ingredient Sourcing: Choose high-quality, trusted sources for all components.
- Avoid Commercial Food Recalls: Have peace of mind knowing exactly what’s in your dog’s bowl.
- Improve Budgeting and Bulk Buying: Potentially save money by sourcing ingredients strategically.
Making your own raw food is a significant step towards enhancing your dog’s overall health. Dogs of all ages, from puppies to seniors, thrive on a raw food diet.
Here are just some of the health benefits associated with raw feeding:
- Improved Digestion: Raw food is naturally easier for dogs to digest.
- Healthier Skin and Coat: A raw diet promotes a shiny coat and healthy skin.
- Better Dental Health: Chewing on raw bones helps clean teeth and gums.
- Reduced Allergy Symptoms: Eliminating processed ingredients can lessen allergy responses.
- Firmer Stools: Raw food leads to more efficient digestion and smaller, firmer stools.
- Weight Management: You can control calorie intake more effectively with homemade raw food.
My Journey to Raw Feeding
Many years ago, my switch to raw feeding was driven by a desire for transparency. I wanted to know exactly what my dogs were eating. The internet, a relatively new research tool at the time, revealed concerning information about conventional kibble. I was disturbed by the stories of questionable ingredients used in commercial dog food. This fueled my determination to feed raw.
Ingredient lists on kibble bags were filled with chemicals, vague “meals,” and other unidentifiable components. It seemed like waste products were being disguised as dog food. Sadly, much of this remains unchanged today. By preparing raw food at home for my dogs, I could disregard dog food recalls, which were frequent and often serious. I had complete confidence in the ingredients I was feeding them.
Let’s explore some simple raw dog food recipes so you too can take charge of your dog’s health. Select the recipes that suit you and your canine companion. All the necessary calculations are provided for you.
RELATED: How to balance calcium in your dog’s homemade meals
5 Easy Raw Food Recipes for Dogs
Here are five of our top homemade dog food recipes. You can prepare them fresh for immediate serving or freeze them in individual portions for later use.
Some recipes include bone, while others utilize a calcium supplement. Certain recipes are formulated for adult dogs, and others are suitable for all life stages, including puppies. All recipes meet the minimum nutritional standards set by The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO).
I’m excited to share these recipes featuring a variety of proteins: beef, chicken, turkey, fish, pork, and even rabbit! These recipes can provide several meals for a 50-pound dog.
Let’s begin with beef and chicken recipes, as these are among the most commonly used proteins in dog diets.
1. Beef & Chicken Neck Dog Food Recipe: Bone-In – All Life Stages
Puppies have a natural instinct to chew. Anyone who has experienced a puppy’s teething phase and the destruction of a favorite shoe understands this! This recipe is ideal for puppies because of the inclusion of chicken necks.
Chicken necks offer puppies varying levels of chewing satisfaction. You can control the amount based on your puppy’s needs. Crucially, they provide the correct amount of calcium to ensure this recipe is balanced for growing puppies. It’s also perfectly balanced for adult dogs.
This recipe allows you to grind the chicken necks into the meat mixture or only grind a portion of them. You can feed the remaining necks whole. Most puppies are capable of consuming chicken necks, and larger dogs will enjoy them as crunchy treats.
If you are concerned about feeding bones to your puppy, you can substitute chicken necks with bone meal. Food-grade bone meal, sourced locally, is the best option. It’s also available from online retailers.
Important Caution: Avoid using bone meal intended for gardening or hardware stores. These products may contain fertilizers and chemical stabilizers that are toxic to dogs.
Ready to begin? Here is the complete recipe: Raw Beef & Chicken Neck Raw Dog Food Recipe: All Life Stages
PRO TIP
If you supplement your dog’s diet with omega-3s, add the supplement at mealtime. This helps ensure proper fatty acid balance and prevents the oil from becoming rancid.
2. Rabbit, Chicken & Beef Dog Food Recipe: Bone-In – Adult Dogs
Rabbit is considered a novel protein, meaning it’s not a commonly fed meat source. It’s an excellent choice when you want to introduce a protein other than beef or chicken into your dog’s diet.
Rabbit can be especially beneficial for dogs with food sensitivities. It can also be used in elimination diets to pinpoint food sensitivities. During an elimination diet, you remove common proteins from your dog’s diet and feed a single novel protein like rabbit. However, if you’re using rabbit for this purpose, avoid feeding it with eggs or organs from other animals. In such cases, restrict your dog’s diet to rabbit only and closely monitor their reaction.
Rabbit also offers benefits for all dogs. It is a very lean meat and contains more protein than chicken, pork, turkey, fish, or beef. Additionally, rabbit is a sustainable protein source. Rabbits reproduce quickly and require less food and water compared to other livestock. They can produce six pounds of meat while consuming the same amount of resources a cow needs to produce just one pound of beef.
You can feed rabbit in pieces or chop it using a sharp cleaver. Whole rabbit can also be fed – your dog will naturally process it. For varied texture, you can grind the rabbit and add chopped organs. Some dogs prefer chunks, while others don’t mind.
Here is the full recipe: Raw Rabbit, Chicken & Beef Raw Dog Food Recipe: Adult
3. Pork & Fish Dog Food Recipe: With Calcium Supplement – Adult Dogs
Incorporating pork into your dog’s raw diet offers great advantages. Pork is highly digestible. Pasture-raised pork is richer in omega-3 fatty acids than meat from factory farms. It also contains higher levels of vitamins, particularly vitamin E.
However, formulating pork-based diets can be challenging due to their high omega-6 fatty acid content. Therefore, adding fish is crucial to balance the fat ratios.
Whole fish is an excellent addition to your dog’s diet and this recipe. It’s rich in omega-3 fatty acids and provides essential nutrients like protein, calcium, selenium, and niacin.
Add fresh, frozen, or canned sardines. They are packed with nutritional value. Mackerel is another excellent choice.
Here’s the complete recipe: Raw Pork & Fish Raw Dog Food Recipe: Adult
4. Raw Boneless Turkey & Egg Dog Food Recipe: All Life Stages
Eggs are an easy and nutritious addition to your dog’s raw food diet. If you can source free-range eggs, even better. Most supermarkets now carry them, but be cautious. Some egg cartons misleadingly advertise “Vegetarian Diet.” Chickens are naturally not vegetarians. Ideally, you want eggs from free-range hens that forage outdoors for worms and insects.
To ensure quality, I prefer to buy eggs from farmers’ markets or directly from local farms. A drive through the countryside often reveals farms with simple signs indicating “Eggs For Sale.” You can simply stop by, leave payment, and collect your fresh eggs.
Now you’re ready to prepare this simple combination of turkey, organs, and eggs.
Here’s the full recipe: Raw Boneless Turkey & Egg Raw Dog Food Recipe: all life stages
5. Raw Boneless Beef & Egg Dog Food Recipe: All Life Stages
Beef and eggs combine to create another straightforward recipe. Visit your local butcher for beef heart and liver. Purchase them by the organ or by weight. Don’t be surprised by the size – cows are large animals!
PRO TIP
When sourcing organs for recipes, buy enough to prepare multiple batches. Measure and grind or chop the required amounts for future recipes. Label containers with the recipe name, date, contents, and weight, then freeze. This makes it easy to add organs to fresh ingredients for subsequent batches.
This recipe is boneless, so a supplement is necessary. Bone meal will provide the extra minerals puppies need. For adult dogs, use either bone meal or seaweed calcium.
[HINT: You can also incorporate powdered bone into your dog’s meals. Visit the Natural Dog Store to purchase our grass-fed bone powder.]
Caution: Seaweed calcium has higher bioavailability and is not recommended for puppies.
Here’s the complete recipe: Raw Boneless Beef & Egg Raw Dog Food Recipe: All Life Stages
Raw Recipes Meet AAFCO Standards
The ingredients in these five recipes have been carefully selected to meet AAFCO minimum nutritional requirements for adult dogs. Recipes indicated as “all life stages” are also balanced for puppies.
How Much to Feed Your Dog
Adult dogs generally require about 2-3% of their ideal body weight in raw food daily. For a dog with an ideal weight of 50 lbs, this translates to 1 to 1.5 pounds of food per day. Highly active dogs may need slightly more, while less active dogs may require a bit less. Adjust feeding amounts if your dog starts to lose or gain weight. This is a practical guideline for feeding.
Puppies should consume 2-3% of their projected adult weight. A puppy weighing 15 lbs now, but expected to reach 50 lbs as an adult, should be fed based on that future weight, not their current weight. Divide this daily amount into three meals until they are about 6 months old. Some puppies may naturally transition to fewer meals sooner or later than 6 months. Adult dogs are typically fed 1-2 times per day.
You now have a diverse collection of raw dog food recipes to incorporate variety into your dog’s diet.
Before heading to the store with your shopping list, there’s one more crucial aspect to consider…
How to Select the Best Ingredients for Raw Dog Food
Now that you’ve decided what to make, it’s time to create a shopping list and source your ingredients.
Meat is the cornerstone of your dog’s diet. Some dog owners are fortunate to have local farmers, meat processors, or abattoirs nearby. However, supermarket meats are also acceptable. Building a relationship with a butcher or farmer can make it easier to obtain a variety of organs and different types of meat.
When choosing meat, aim for a fat content between 10% and 20%. Packaged meat should indicate leanness as 80%, 85%, or 90%. The remaining percentage represents the fat content (20%, 15%, or 10%). This is the information to look for.
In addition to meat, you’ll need a selection of organs for these recipes. I’ve developed a good rapport with my butcher, allowing me to text requests and have organs set aside. This prevents them from selling out before I can get there.
Prioritize buying the highest quality meat, poultry, eggs and produce that fits your budget. Remember, raw feeding is a long-term commitment, so it’s important to maintain affordability. The premium options include free-range, grass-fed, or organic meats. These are typically free from antibiotics and growth hormones and raised on pasture in natural environments.
Minimize genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as much as possible. Opt for organic produce, which is grown without harmful pesticides or GMO seeds. Cleaner food contributes to better health for your dog.
Making these dietary changes doesn’t need to happen all at once. Transitioning to homemade raw dog food is a significant step in itself. Implement small upgrades when possible. Eventually, these practices will become routine.
Now, it’s time to begin your journey with homemade raw dog food. And you’re likely to have eager taste testers ready to sample your creations!
Want more nutritious homemade dog food recipes? …
