Home cooked diets?

Just wanted some advice please if anyone knows if it is ok to feed non-kibble diet to dogs but not BARF?

We have 2 Kerry Blue terriers who have been fed on Pero Organic kibble until Cherry got an allergy and the vet advised us to change in case it was the food. We changed her to barking heads Salmon and potato. They have been fine on this until I ran completely out of dog food and the pet shop was then shutting so I went to Tescos.

I spent ages looking at what they had on offer there re dried dog food but wasn't happy with any of it as the rubbish in it and only 4% meat in most of the brands!

In the end I got them some frozen white fish, minced lamb, brown rice, and carrots and broccoli. They have been having homemade cooked food each day of either lamb and rice with veggies or fish and rice with veggies. When they were on the kibble they used to have this sort of food as a treat occasionally. They love it so much would it be ok for me to continue to feed them like this? Should I give them a dog multivitamin tablet if it is ok for them to have this food?

I tried them on the BARF diet ages ago but neither of them liked it and it gave them upset tummies and they were passing blood but I wondered if cooked homemade food was suitable instead of raw?

I got a book ages ago called "Cooking for your dog" with lots of recipes in but think this is just for the occasional treat!

Also unsure how much I should be feeding them-they weigh 15.5 kg and 14.5 kg but Cherry who is the lighter could do with losing 1kg.

Any help appreciated!

Hi Stephanie I fed a home a cooked diet to dogs before complete food was invented and it was a lot of work . I have fed all sorts of things over the years but now feed mostly raw with a tiny bit of Fish4dogs kibble and will be feeding Darlings ready prepared raw food when I have room in my freezer.
Feeding raw is a lot less hassle than cooking a diet and none of the nutrients are destroyed in the cooking process.

I used to use a pressure cooker to cook sheep's heads (harder to get nowadays ) and whole chickens until they were soft then put the whole lot through a mincer so the dogs got all the goodness from the bones.

Added to this was a variety of meat, tripe/heart/ fish/eggs/porridge oats/some veg, (greens and carrots) /pearl barley and mixer biscuit (in the past I have used Denes and Laughing Dog) .
The old rule of thumb for quantity used to be for an adult dog half an ounce of food per lb of body weight per day, then adjust this according to the dogs lifestyle and overall body condition.

Some people may argue feeding this way isn't proving a 'balanced diet' but I don't think anyone can really be sure what that is. I think the main thing is to feed a variety of food to ensure your dogs get a good mix of vitamins and essential nutrients.

I agree with Minihaha - I'm sure your dogs will be healthy and happy with their diet.

I also agree with Minihaha ~ raw feeding is a lot easier, cheaper & nutritionally better (then it probably would be for us too, but how many of us could go without cooked food!).

If you feed a good home made cooked diet to your dogs, that contains a lot of variety then it is still probably a lot better for your dog than most commercial dog foods (which are also cooked to death).

But there's no harm in feeding some complete food & some home cooked food. You would need to monitor their weight & condition & adjust quantities accordingly, but with the best will in the world, feeding the "correct" amount of commercial food in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions is only a guideline. Dogs have different metabolic rates, get different amounts of exercise & need different amounts of food, so you'd still have to keep an eye on weight & body condition whatever you feed your dog.

In the wild not every meal is balanced, in fact probably wild canids don't have a particularly balanced diet day by day ~ but, over time, & depending on the prey in season, the time of year etc, their diets balance out overall. So don't worry if you're not giving a "balanced" meal every mealtime. Just remember to try to include a variety of meats, veg, offal, eggs, fish etc over time.