No one argues that the diet of a dog of any breed must include meat. But whether it is necessary to give minced meat and, if so, what kind, there are diametrically opposed opinions. There is especially a lot of controversy over whether minced meat can be given to puppies.
Other questions immediately arise: how useful or harmful it is in feeding dogs, how well it is absorbed, and whether it is needed at all.
Let's talk about the types of this product, what it is made from, and if you include minced meat in your pet's diet, then how to do it with maximum benefit for the animal.
The benefits and harms of meat
High-quality ground meat is usually made from beef stomach without the use of additives. But the more expensive ones may also contain other by-products in crushed form, for example, liver, lung, tail, skin and fat.
Another option is meat with the addition of offal. In this case, beef tripe (cow stomach) is most often used. This variety is produced, as a rule, from second-grade beef; other types of meat can be used.
Beef
Ground beef is obtained from second-grade meat with the addition of offal or beef tripe (offal), to which other processed parts of the animal's body, for example, lungs and liver, can also be added.
In its raw form, it should be well frozen - for several days. After which it can be given to dogs in small quantities, mixed into porridges or soups.
Chicken
Regarding minced chicken, it must be said that it can cause allergies, especially in small breed dogs. If the dog is aged, the volume of the product should be reduced by 20% compared to the amount given to an adult young individual. Pregnant dogs can include this product in their diet, mixing it with vegetables to avoid constipation.
Pork
As for minced pork, it is quite fatty, so it is better not to give it to dogs at all. This type of feeding may cause liver problems.
Other
There is minced rabbit, lamb, horse meat and other types of meat. In each individual case, it is necessary to take into account the feeding characteristics of the breed. And if this is a shelter with a large number of animals, you need to follow the general rules: the product must be well frozen, added to cereals or liquid food in small quantities.
And, of course, it is necessary to monitor the animals’ reaction to a new product in the diet.
What kind of meat is best to give to a dog?
It is believed that the best food for dogs is beef. It is low-fat, but contains a lot of cartilage and tendons that are useful for your pet, and they eat it with appetite. When eating veal, digestive problems may occur. Chicken is the easiest to digest, but it can provoke allergic reactions. Animals prone to allergies are recommended to include lamb, rabbit, and duck in the menu.
What meat should dogs not eat? It is believed that dogs should not be fed pork. This is wrong! The fat content of pork sold in stores is not much higher than that of chicken or beef. It undergoes veterinary control, guaranteeing its safety after heat treatment or deep freezing.
If you prefer to feed your pet canned food, our online store has a large selection of balanced wet dog food:
How to give?
If you are a proponent of including this product in your dog's diet, you should consider the frequency - no more than 3-4 times a week and only in small quantities.
In this case, you need to combine it with other products: pumpkin, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets. It is useful to give along with fruit, especially apples. Citrus fruits should be strictly excluded.
You can add finely chopped greens and combine well with nettles scalded with boiling water.
When including minced meat in the diet of puppies, you need to know that its norm is 50 g per kg of baby’s weight. You can give it from one and a half months, and from 3 months you need to switch to meat in pieces.
Raw and cooked
Raw minced meat contains more protein, but in this form the product must be frozen within 24 hours. This will help avoid parasite infestation. If you give it boiled, the loss of protein is small: only about 6%, but you need to put the minced meat in boiling water. By the way, the product is absorbed equally well both raw and boiled.
Experts recommend giving minced meat from offal and pork only in boiled form. Before cooking, be sure to review and test the composition of the product - it should not contain any foreign or dangerous additions.
Be sure to let the minced meat drain well. Manufacturers are often unscrupulous, so everything depends on your personal control of the quality of the purchased product.
With porridge
Is it possible to give dogs minced meat with porridge? Need to! It is to the porridge (or soup) that you need to add a small amount of the product after it has been frozen. Under no circumstances should you feed your animal only minced meat - this can lead to intestinal upset and other unpleasant problems.
Here is one of many recipes for porridge that your pet will definitely like if he is used to “natural”:
First, boil the buckwheat or rice until tender. This is one part of the ratio of the proportions of the finished dish. Then add grated carrots to the cereal - another ingredient. Finally, add 2 parts of minced meat and 1 tablespoon of odorless vegetable oil. Mix everything. It will be delicious! Your friend will certainly appreciate it.
How to make a cake?
Dogs tend to love all kinds of treats. Therefore, you can please your pet with a delicious cake. You can bake it yourself - you know very well what your four-legged friend likes.
And if you don’t have time, but there is a reason, for example, an important achievement in training or an award at a competition, you can buy a ready-made cake. There is a lot of choice today. And confectioners who bake for dogs are well aware of what the composition of such a product should be.
For the cake that you decide to bake yourself, you will need a simple set of products:
- 1 kg of lean minced beef (or rabbit, turkey, liver, mixture of offal);
- 200-300 g of vegetables, which need to be cut into small cubes;
- 1 egg;
- 1 cup rice cereal (or buckwheat, oatmeal - whatever your pet likes.
Mix all the products, place in a mold, bake for 20 minutes at 250°C.
All that remains is to decorate after cooling. This could be low-fat sour cream, or light cream, or small dog biscuits, pieces of pumpkin, apples, even some crushed nuts. Just not raisins or grapes!
Cooking methods
It is better to give your dog minced meat raw, it contains more protein. On the other hand, eating raw meat is fraught with parasite infection. Boiled minced meat loses only 5-6% of its protein if it is placed in boiling water. Both raw and boiled meat are digested equally normally by animals. It is advisable to freeze raw minced meat in the freezer for 24 hours before feeding.
Recipe for porridge with minced meat and vegetables:
- Boil rice or buckwheat until tender (one portion serving).
- Grate the carrots into it on a medium grater (one part serving).
- Add minced meat (two parts) and a tablespoon of odorless vegetable oil.
Minced meat can also be combined with Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, pumpkin, and lettuce.
It is useful to feed your pet minced meat with the addition of fruit, especially apples.
Your dog may develop an allergy from citrus fruits. You can also finely chop the greens, including nettles scalded with boiling water. The product can be frozen and given as needed.
From offal
Minced meat from offal differs from other types in that it contains a large set of vitamins, protein, and many essential microelements. And the liver and kidneys contain essential fatty acids. The presence of vitamin D makes this species especially important in winter.
Usually the stomach, liver, heart, udder, lungs, kidneys, and meat trimmings are used for cooking. Before cooking at home, you need to rinse all offal well, let the water drain, and then pass it through a meat grinder.
Since offal is low in fat and carbohydrates, it is considered a dietary product. But you shouldn’t get carried away, despite the great benefits. By-products can be given twice a week, and they should not exceed 15% of the diet. Only a small amount is allowed daily.
Is it possible to feed a dog only meat?
Beef, chicken, rabbit, lamb, offal contain a lot of protein, some vitamins, microelements, but it does not cover the body's need for carbohydrates and fats. It also lacks vitamins and some microelements. The lack of other food will lead to deterioration in the health and death of the animal.
The menu should include vegetables and grains. But not all animals willingly eat rice porridge, cabbage, carrots, and parsley. And it is not always possible to prepare food so that the pet does not choose its favorite ingredients, even if you give them chopped. Consult your veterinarian on how to create a balanced diet and whether you need to take additional vitamins and minerals. They are selected taking into account the breed, weight, and lifestyle of a particular dog.
Can it be fish?
Minced fish should be from sea fish, and if it is river or lake fish, then red species. Before cooking it, large bones must be removed from the fish. This product should be combined with vegetables, which can be given raw or poached after chopping. Cannot be combined with meat or dairy products.
In addition to vegetables, a couple of spoons of rice would be a good addition: it is better to take unpolished, brown (for large breeds) or a small amount of rye flakes that need to be steamed.
Features of digestion
Perhaps we don’t need to talk about the benefits of minced meat. If this is a homemade product, then it contains only high-quality offal and meat. Experts strongly recommend giving the treat in its original form. Why?
When creating minced meat, the structure of the meat is disrupted. The dog's stomach copes much better with tough fibers. After a treat, your pet often suffers from indigestion. Unfortunately, due to the processing of meat, fewer nutrients are absorbed.
Theoretically, homemade minced meat can be given to a dog. However, this doesn't make any sense. Why deprive the dog of a portion of “building materials” for the body and harm the gastrointestinal tract (gastrointestinal tract)? Soft feces do not stimulate the intestinal wall or cleanse the anal glands. As a result, the disorders become permanent and the glands become clogged. And these are not all possible problems.
Why can't it be bone?
It is believed that minced bone can compensate for acute calcium deficiency in the animal’s body.
But let’s say right away that for this the bones must be thoroughly crushed. Large pieces, at best, will transit through the intestines, at worst, they will affect the mucous membrane, linger and cause obstruction. Then serious surgery will be required.
In addition, it will not be possible to cope with calcium deficiency only through minced bones - you will still need to use medications. And for puppies it is generally not suitable as a calcium supplement.
Moreover, in no case should this product be used as the main one in feeding due to its low cost. This species, even if well crushed, has the property of being compressed into a solid mass and forgetting the intestines.
This product can be given to adult pets once a day, adding a minimal amount to porridge or soup.
Veterinarians have identified a certain pattern: those dogs whose diet contained large quantities of minced bone are more likely to suffer from stomach ulcers. Therefore, it is better to refuse it.
By-products
You can give your pet by-products obtained from healthy livestock, rabbits or poultry:
- lungs;
- liver;
- scar;
- udder;
- trim.
When preparing your diet, keep in mind that the nutritional value of these products, with the exception of liver, is 2 times lower than that of muscle fibers. They should make up no more than 50% of the protein diet. But adding them to the menu is useful not only to reduce its cost, but also to the health of the animals. Beef liver will provide the dog's body with well-absorbed folic acid and iron. Tripe is rich in zinc and contains enzymes that improve the absorption of plant foods. With the udder, the pet will receive iodine, potassium, potassium, calcium, sodium, vitamins B and P.
Meat and bone
It is quite acceptable to use minced meat and bones in feeding if it is prepared without any violations, i.e. does not contain pieces of sharp bones or large fragments.
In addition to bones, it contains lean meat, meat trimmings, cartilage, skins and offal. The ratio of ingredients varies. At home, it can be prepared from chicken necks.
Types of minced meat
Minced fish for dogs is prepared from river or sea fish, after removing large bones from it. But mostly minced meat is made from meat products.
Meat
Made from beef (most often, second grade), rabbit, lamb, horse meat and other types of meat.
Pork is not used as dog food due to its high fat content, which can impair the functioning of the animal's liver.
By-products are also added to minced dog meat, most often peeled or unpeeled beef tripe (one of the cow's stomachs). Meat and offal are ground through a meat grinder. No spices are added.
Chicken
It is prepared from chicken meat trimmings, skin, wings, and sometimes fat is added. Ground chicken may contain bone debris, such as ground chicken carcasses. Ready minced meat is often too fatty for animal livers.
You can prepare the minced meat yourself by passing the breast meat and leg meat through a meat grinder. Some dogs are allergic to chicken. In this case, you can cook ground turkey.
Bone
Bone mince contains ground pork, chicken or beef bones, as well as bone marrow and animal skin. Minced bones are cheaper, but less filling. It is used as a healthy supplement containing calcium, which is beneficial for the dog's musculoskeletal system.
However, there is a high risk that the bone mince will contain a sharp particle (this is especially true for chicken tubular bones), which can injure the mucous membrane or digestive organs.
Veterinarians often prohibit feeding animals this type of minced meat.
Meat and bone
Minced meat and bones are prepared from bones and lean meat (except pork), meat trimmings, cartilage, skins and offal. Depending on the manufacturer, the ratio of meat to bones varies. Homemade meat and bone minced meat for dogs is made from chicken necks.
From offal
Minced meat is prepared from liver, hearts, stomachs, kidneys, lungs, udders, and meat trimmings. At home, offal should be thoroughly washed and minced.
Reviews
Owners
Victoria, owner:
“I may upset someone, but this is not dog food, and not porridge either. You need beef tripe, beef, cottage cheese. Minced meat is poorly digestible due to the peculiarities of the gastrointestinal tract of dogs, which can cause illness, and porridge breaks down the stomach. The dog runs the risk of turning into something like a barrel.”
Elena, owner:
“I feed my Doberman homemade minced hedgehogs. The portion is enough for a day: I take 1 kg of minced meat (I make it from beef and offal), add a glass of rice (cook), 2 raw eggs, rub 3 medium carrots - I form hedgehogs and put them in the oven for 40 minutes. The dog really likes it.”
Tatiana, owner:
“A dog is a predator. She needs meat in pieces, and the minced meat flies in transit through the intestines, no nutritional value. The dog doesn't eat enough. Therefore, only meat (at least 60% of the portion), the rest is porridge with water from rice or buckwheat and stewed vegetables - 20% each. Just not potatoes or white cabbage.”
Vet
Dmitry, veterinarian:
“Many dog owners have a misconception that they can feed minced meat instead of meat. This way the product is absorbed faster and better. This is not true. After all, a dog does not chew food, it swallows it, tearing off pieces. The gastrointestinal tract of dogs is designed in such a way that it is better to digest food in pieces. Therefore, feeding minced meat is impractical and even harmful.”
Raw or cooked?
When choosing what kind of meat to feed your dog: raw or boiled, keep in mind that its diet is in nature. The walls of the stomach are good at pushing through large pieces, and concentrated hydrochloric acid quickly breaks down muscle fibers.
Feeding dogs raw meat has the following benefits:
- contains more protein, and the animal becomes full faster;
- during heat treatment, part of the protein is broken down, the amount of vitamins decreases - some dogs are more willing to eat boiled food, but they receive fewer nutrients;
- suitable for pets prone to allergies - it does not contain preservatives, flavors, dyes, or flavor enhancers, which often provoke allergic reactions.
Some owners are afraid to feed raw food for fear of helminth infection. To get rid of them, just freeze the product and then defrost it before feeding. Parasites and their eggs die when the liquid freezes and crystallizes.
