Homemade Pet Food: Is It Safe For My Animals?
With the outbreak of contaminated pet food in 2007, many pet owners and animal lovers have lost confidence in store bought brands of pet food, especially here in the United States where many families lost their precious animal friends to the contamination. Many pet owners are looking for alternatives as a result of the massive recalls on bad pet food. Everyone wants their pets to be healthy and have long lives, so it should be no surprise that a large number of pet owners have chosen to make their own pet food, because it can be safer and more nutritional than store bought dog food that contains unknown ingredients.
According to some people, it’s easy enough to make and less expensive than regular pet food, but many experts say that a homemade diet is not ideal for every animal. Some pets may not have an easy time changing and adjusting to a new diet. Likewise, although some people say it’s easy to do, other people say the process of making homemade pet food takes too long for them and they just like the convenience of buying the pet food already made. So the choice is up to you and your animal. If you want to try a homemade diet for your pet, consider it carefully and do a lot of research, even consult a veterinary nutrition specialist if you need to and find some sample diets to start with.
The best thing you can do after switching your pet to homemade food is to simply pay very close attention to the pet. If you see changes in the way they act, if they seem like they have less energy, or if their coat looks different, something might be wrong. A good idea when you introduce your pet to homemade pet food is to gradually mix the new food into the old food for a week or two and then slowly add more homemade food and less of the other each day as you continue to pay attention to your pet’s adjustment.
There are all kinds of ideas floating around these days about what is best nutritionally for animals, and one of the more popular ones now is some pet owners feeding their animals a diet of mostly just raw meat, vegetables and fruits. There are a large number of people that think it’s the healthiest choice for pets, considering its all natural foods. Always make sure the meat is fresh and has been handled appropriately, and you really don’t have to worry about such things as salmonella.
Also very important to know is, don't feed table scraps to your animals and think it’s a safe nutritional alternative because it isn’t. This is why you need to research before you start your pet on a homemade food diet. Animals have special nutritional needs that are different than our own. There are some good resources online for researching this kind of stuff, and even cookbooks especially for pet food. So don't feed the animals the same thing you’re eating. Some things that humans eat can actually make an animal very sick or even kill the animal. Here are just a few foods that can be poison to animals: chocolate, onions, garlic, leeks, mushrooms, macadamia nuts, grapes, raisins, chives, potato peels, and caffeinated or alcoholic drinks. Tomatoes can be poisonous to cats. As I said though, that’s just a few of the toxic foods, so make sure you know what you’re giving your pet won’t be harmful.
If you study the nutritional aspects, and consider the advantages and disadvantages for yourself as well as your pet, then homemade pet food can be a great way to ensure your pet gets good nutrition and you don’t have to worry about unknown ingredients in store bought pet foods.