Making dogfood and it fluffs up???

Maybe this batch failed because it is summer now and there is not much help from the environment with cooling. If I made DF in cool weather first stop after cooking was the porch, and divided up as someone else mentioned. So maybe you can do larger batches when the weather can help you out and smaller ones when it is hot.

Usually I think cows etc when I think marrow. Chickens don't seem to have the same type of fatty marrow as hoofed animals so I am not sure if there is even the supposed benefits of marrow from them. I have no opinion on the pressure cooking.

I will comment on one thing and that is your meat to bone ratio. Are you using formulated recipes or have you examined the protein/mineral balance in your product? Whole fowl has way more bone in it than you want to be feeding relative to the meat. I THINK the prey model diet calls for only 10% bone and whole chickens are something like 25% bone. People using things like chicken necks and backs as a high proportion of the diet are in even more trouble. I ultimately decided to avoid the finer points of vitamin/mineral supply and feed 50% kibble.

If you want to be able to formulate you own recipes I suggest the Collins Guide to Dog Nutrition. This is a very old school nutrition book but lots of facts and numbers and I it helped me mix and match ingredients and KNOW what the breakdown of the end product was.

When I was cooking I usually added raw meat. I bought chicken legs one day planning to feed them raw but I just could not do it and ended up cooking them and removing the meat. Fast forward about 10 years when I was feeding mostly commercial dog food and a 12 year old had stopped eating though she like "people food". I went to the 50% raw ratio and she ate for another 2 years. Very easy on the raw meat days, just cut up the meat into single serving size chunks and hand it out. They eat bone-in chicken ( though have to add in a certain amount of boneless) and take turns knowing on larger bones such as a pork shoulder.

I can understand why caninechef assiduously avoids online discussions about dog food. So much misinformation about the topic.

I just wanted to add that you should be careful when giving your dog bones that they can easily break. We have a friend whose dog died after chewing on a chicken bone. The bone broke and the sharp edge became lodged in the dogs throat.

For several years I made dog food for shall we say a fair number of dogs. I never made huge quantities of food at a time and never froze it so have no similar experience. If I had to guess it would be that because of the large volume you are making at once you have had a problem cooling it adequately. I doubt if it is related to this batch being chicken. I usually used cooked grains/vegetables and raw ground meat, occasionally boiled meat. I prepared only what they would consume within 3 days. Even with the volume I worked with ( usually one very large stock pot) cooling it was a pain.

Anyway the only reason I can think for it growing would be that well something is indeed growing. Safety? It really depends on the dog. On average dogs have amazing digestions with very acid stomachs that will dissolve bone and kill off many little beasties which would make people ill. But I doubt if anyone can tell you it is safe. If you have a delicate or compromised dog it might be too much for them while the average roughneck would eat it with out a tummy rumble. Or it may have grown something that dogs in general do not cope with well.

I decided I was spending way to much time making dog food and eventually ended up feeding a mix of prey model diet and commercial kibble. This is a very simple regime to follow but don't be fooled by the camp that insists that anything that is natural must be best in all cases. Nature is driven by the survival of a species and does not care a bit if some old or otherwise compromised individual is not up to surviving on a diet that on average works well.

There are indeed many websites and discussion sites devoted to dog food. I decided that 3 topics to avoid at all cost on the internet: religion, politics, and dog food.

















Safety? It really depends on the dog. On average they have amazing digestive systems ( very high pH) and are not too prone to many of the bacterial infections that would lay our systems low. rg

At one point I was making at home a mixed, balance diet for shall we say, quite few dogs. I never made huge volumes however and never froze, what I made was used within 3 days and then I made dog food again. When I discovered at least some of the dogs preferred commercial food and I was spending way too much time making dog food I changed. I do know follow a 50/50 prey model/commercial kibble diet strategy.

I echo the sentiments here, don't feed a mixture that has "fluffed up" and smells bad to your dogs, it is most probably spoiled and emitting gasses.

Also, I've never even heard of giving your dogs eggshells; it would be very hard on their digestive system since shells aren't meant to be eaten by pretty much any animal. Another possibility is that the calcium from the shells could be dissolving and reacting with something else that you're putting in the mix and making it expand? (use the shells for Swedish coffee instead). Beans are the same way; dog digestive systems differ significantly from ours, and they're not built to digest beans.

I don't make my own dog food for a reason because it is very hard to get the balance of nutrients they need in their daily diet. I feed my two large dogs the Taste of the Wild grain-free salmon and sweet potato blend. Their coats are beautifully shiny, and they maintain a healthy weight. Please consider something like this instead.

Yikes, I make my own dog food, but only food that I would eat, which is 95% lean ground beef and boneless, skinless chicken breast. Never heard of this with eggshells, bones and all those vegetables and beans. I add the meat to a vet prescribed dog food. Watermelon, bananas and apple slices for treats. Is this a recipe you came up with or vet prescribed? There are many sites that have Dog Food Recipes that are wonderful. Maybe they can help. However, rule of thumb, "When in doubt, throw it out!"....especially if it smells bad. JMO

Sounds like the stuff has gone bad. When food smells odd and is emitting gas (i.e. the fluff up), it's spoiled. As much as we try to refrigerate quickly, this can happen. I advise against feeding it to your dogs.

I suggest that next time you make a large batch like this, transfer the hot cooked food to a large tray (that will fit into your fridge). The more quickly the food cools down, the less likely it will spoil. Spreading it thin on a food tray (like the ones they have at buffet tables) will allow it to cool much more quickly than it would in a pot. There's more surface area and it's not a deep, so the heat dissipates faster.

Very odd mystery, but I think you would have better luck on a site that focuses on pet foods. There may be members here that make their own pet foods, but I've never seen a post with a pet food question.

However, there is a member here who goes by Caninechef. I've always wanted to know if they prepare their own dog food, but have not asked. If you go to their profile by using the search function at the top of this page (be sure to choose "users" in the drop down), you can click on the little envelope and send them a message.