Affordable Homemade Dog Food Ideas

Preparing homemade diets for your dog takes time and consideration. You have to take into account the full nutritional needs of your dog, the age of the dog and whether the dog has any health problems that require dietary considerations. In order to keep homemade diets affordable and nutritional, you can vary the types of protein used as your main ingredient and shop for affordable local bulk resources for all of your ingredients.

  1. Balanced Canine Diet

    • Use the best meats, vegetables, fruits and grains for your budget.

      When feeding a homemade diet, it is essential for you to fulfill the dietary needs of a canine. For health purposes, your ingredients should be as natural as you can afford, choosing organic meats, vegetables, grains and fruits if you can. If organic is not in the budget, cook all of your meats to ensure their safety and clean all of your vegetables and fruits before lightly steaming them and adding them to your dog's diet.

      A natural diet for a healthy dog should consist of 50 percent to 60 percent protein using your choice of chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, white-fleshed fish or salmon. Venison or elk can also be used and can be quite affordable if you have a hunter in the family. Twenty percent to 30 percent of the diet should contain vegetables and fruits, including leafy greens such as kale or spinach and other essential vegetables and fruits such as carrots and apples. The remaining 20 percent is that of complex carbohydrates found in brown rice, barley and white or sweet potatoes.

      While the controversy of feeding raw vs. cooked diets to dogs continues, in a pet home it is simply safer to feed a cooked diet. You must be certain not to cook the nutrition out of the diet so that beneficial fats and fiber remain. Cooking your homemade dog diet in bulk will add an additional savings to your dog food budget. Joining a local farm cooperative as a source of your fruits and vegetables may stretch your budget as well.

    Supplementing

    • Using a homemade food to supplement kibbled diet is cost-effective.

      Something to consider to keep your dog's diet cost-effective is to make your homemade diet and add it as a supplement to a good commercial dry kibble base. Buy the best kibble for your budget. Holistic and organic diets are available with many choices of a main protein. If adding dog food will stretch your budget and make your choices more affordable, make certain that you choose a dry diet that has complete vitamins and supplements to balance your homemade diet.

    Vitamins

    • Add prepared vitamins to stretch your dog food budget.

      When feeding a home-prepared diet as your dog's complete diet, it may be less expensive to supplement with a vitamin made for dogs rather than to add expensive ingredients necessary to meet the daily vitamin requirements for your dog. Some good ones to consider are Only Natural Pet Super Daily Canine Multi-Vitamin from the online retailer Only Natural Pet or SmartCanine Vite from online retailer SmartPak Canine.

      Some of the vitamins come in powder form that are fed according to your dog's weight. So that the vitamins retain their intended strength, avoid mixing vitamins into your homemade diet when you are in the cooking process. Instead add the vitamin to the food at one of your daily feedings. Chewable tablet vitamins can be given once daily as a treat.