Recipes for your pets

[Jaymes]

Do any of you guys cook for your pets? I don't have to cook for Leo (my golden-capped conure), but I do since I feel much more at ease knowing what I'm feeding him.

I made 'birdie bread' for him (mostly had wheat and ground corn in it), added green peppers to it, and he ADORES it. It made the house smell wonderful while I was cooking it, too. He needs grain in his diet, so I just freeze the extra and give him a cube once a day, five days a week. I've also found a lot of other recipes I want to experiment with over the summer.

Am I the only nutball on here that cooks for her pet? Reassure me and tell me I'm not the only one!

 

[Scuba Pete]

Oh man, I thought this was about how to cook my cat!

 

[Jaymes]

ROFL! Nah, I'm not quite that strange... though I do admit I've wondered what cat and dog taste like no few times.

 

[Pah]

ROFL! Nah, I'm not quite that strange... though I do admit I've wondered what cat and dog taste like no few times.

Horse is nice and served in Northern French and Belgian resturants (sorry, Ceridwen). Koreans will tell you about dogs. I cast NO aspersions here.

I have to admit not taking time to feed my pets, when I had them, anything but "store bought".

 

[Jaymes]

I used to feed Leo storebought stuff until I found out that a pellet-only diet wasn't good for him... I've been cooking and chopping up what I can for him.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I usually slip my dog a big piece of meat from the turkey, ham, or whatever the meal happens to be when no one is looking.

 

[Unedited]

I've tasted pretty much every meat available, and dog is disgusting. Yuck. Of course I think beef is worse. Horse and lamb are my favourite.

I've never cooked especially for my cats or any other of the animals around here, but I will feed them some of the meat we're having. Whenever I have tuna, I end up with only about a third of the can.

 

[Scuba Pete]

My cat is awful fond of tuna... and spiney lobster. She gets rather aggressive with either.

 

[michel]

We only ever give Jessie (our dog) the fat off our meat, when trying to train her- she can't resist that. Actually, thinking about it, who is training who?

 

[Engyo]

My two Akitas are fed raw; I have been feeding this way since 1999. We got into this after an older dog had developed breast cancer, and the vet told us that the surgery was very invasive, painful, and carried NO guarantees whatsoever. My wife went searching for alternatives, and came up with Dr. Ian Billinghurst's B.A.R.F. (Bones and Raw Food) diet for carnivorous pets.

The basic idea is to feed the animals as close as one can approximate to what they would eat if wild (no human intervention), as that is what their digestive systems are evolved to handle. This is taken even to the point of skipping a meal once in a while, as they wouldn't necessarily catch something every day.

Tomoe (the dog with cancer) regained a great deal of liveliness and health for over a year, although she finally succumbed. My other dogs are healthier, happier and calmer than when I had been feeding them bag-and-canned food. When I am able to get the materials in bulk, it is actually cheaper. The biggest problem is freezer space, but we happened to have a big freezer so that was OK.

I am completely sold on feeding a raw diet for carnivorous pets; I'm not going back. It's no that hard these days to find a vet who will support one's choice of diet........my vet once said he had never seen coats so good on Akitas in our climate (very hot & humid).