I often wonder if the commercial food we feed our babies is nutritionally good for them. Even though we feed them the higher quality specialty food, I can't help but wonder if all the additives and preservatives are good for their little bodies.

Unfortunately the only alternative is to feed them nutritionally balanced home-made food - who has time for that in this day and age?

So, what do you think? Sotre bought or home-made?

We thought about the store bought vs home made issue too. The latest addition to our family is Skye, an almost 2 year old Siberian Husky. She was adopted from a rescue over near Brooksville. Because she had ben put up for adoption, she had been very traumatized by being removed from her former family and had lost a lot of weight while at the kennel for three weeks. We brought her home and tried to feed her the same high quality dry food we've fed our other dogs for nearly 30 years. (Our four previous huskies all preferred to have dry food in their bowl all the time and eat as much as they wanted when they wanted.) We found that Skye wasn't interested in the dry food. We scrambled around the web trying to find a recipe that fit our budget and she would eat. We've been feeding her boiled chicken with rice and mixed veggies. She get about 5 to six oz of the mix twice a day, over just over a cup of the high quality dry food and about two tablespoons of cottage cheeese. She really seems to like it, put on over 10 pounds to fill out her frame over the ribs and such that were showing. She's eager for each meal and scarfs it down. We get the chicken breasts or leg parts when on sale in the 80 cents range, bulk bags of rice and the frozen mixed veggies in the store brand for about a $1 per pound. The pulled chicken (about 6 oz) is mixed with the rice and veggies to total 1 pound "meal packs" and put in the 24 oz plastic containers that the cottage cheese and yogart are packed in. They are frozen until the day before needed. Each pack has three meals. The rice is cooked in with the veggies in the water the chicken was cooked in (gets the flavor in the rice and the veggies). Every couple of days, if she acts hungry during the day, we give her a small scoop of the dry food with a good blob of vanilla flavor yogurt mixed with it. We understood the yogurt and the cottage cheese give her the dairy she needs for bones and stuff. The yogurt is recommended by our vet because it has "good" bacteria that is great for her stomach. The chicken/rice/veggies mix costs us about 7 dollars for 7 days of two a day meals. Add the dry food in and it does fit our budget. It takes me about 2 total hours (start to finish) to cook, pack, store and clean up the meals. We've been lucky to get the makings on sale. She seems healthy and our vet thought this would be a good mix. Watch what veggies you use, there are lots of discussions about what is good or bad for dogs. She gets corn/peas/green beans/carrots mix. Don't be surprised if you find the corn in the yard. It doesn't digest well in dogs either. Skye seems to have a sensitive system, and seems to have settled down. She seems healthy and eager to take our twice a day, mile + walks.

That sounds delicious ! The keys to doing the home made diets is finding the sale items as well as being willing to put in the required time. Good for you for adding the calcium sources as this nutrient is commonly neglected when owners do it themselves. I also usually recommend a vitamin supplement in home made diets.

What type of vitamin would you suggest? Is there something available over the counter?

Oh, Skye is up to a solid 55 pounds. We've added 17 pounds to her on this diet since August when we got her from the rescue, all bony and such. She's filled out nicely and eats what she needs.


Happy Holidays!

Larry