If you are a regular reader of Conestoga Chuck you know that we Home cook all the pup’s meals 🙂 and that even tho we leave out a bowl of commercial dry kibble in case they get the munchies… they rarely ever touch it. Now with this new method I can say they have refused to touch the commercial kibble at all! Lol their bowl has remained untouched for two weeks now…
We usually buy a mixture from our local butcher that he makes specifically for dogs but lately when we go to buy it, he is sold out! Well Conestoga Chuck and his sister have to eat! And they pretty much refuse to eat commercial kibble now lol so what’s a doggie momma supposed to do!
Well I had a brain storm based on growing up on a farm and having a family full of hunters who process their own meats after hunting season lol … time to look for a meat grinder! I was pleasantly surprised that the new versions of meat grinders are quite small and don’t take up nearly as much rooms as the old ones we used to have back on the farm! They aren’t really that expensive either.
For between $60-$100 depending on where you shop (there are several with good reviews on amazon and our local farm supply store sells them too!) you can pick up a meat grinder that is not much larger than a toaster 🙂 which is what we purchased from our local farm supply store. I wanted to buy the less expensive one on amazon, but we were completely out of the stuff from the butcher, he was sold out, and the dogs needed feeding that day… so we bought the more expensive meat grinder locally due to pressing needs lol.
We then purchased our first batch of meats from the local super store for $25 (just to see what pricing would be like for when we travel) and that (plus a few other ingredients that we keep in the house/RV as regular food staples for the humans as well as the pups) is what we used to make our homemade dog food recipe that I previously posted the recipe for. We used beef tongue (has to be trimmed before grinding), beef liver, chicken, and pork and placed it in the grinder to make out ground meat mixture. That $25 of meat makes enough meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) for 2 weeks for both dogs. So that’s very economical in my opinion! We placed the ground mixture (about 3 lbs per bag) in ziplock bags and then into the freezer until we were ready to cook the next batch of food. We got 4 bags out of our batch we ground up from the $25 worth of meat we purchased. (For one dog I would imagine that $25 worth of meat would last much longer depending on its size lol)
The meat grinder worked excellent! And Conestoga Chuck was very interested and attentive as we were adding all those meats to be ground lol I do believe he was drooling! Here is a photo of us trimming the beef tongue and placing the mixture thru the grinder. We placed it thru the grinder twice to make sure it was mixed well but I don’t think we will bother with that step next go-round.
We also decided that having a small meat grinder would be awesome for taking with us when we travel in the RV. This way we can purchase family sized packs of meat, save a few pieces for us humans to cook and enjoy, and then process the rest for the pups! Family size packs are usually cheaper that smaller packs so this is a price savings. Also we won’t have access to our local butcher while on the road (even if he is so popular to be sold out of his dog food mixture all the time lately lol) and we won’t have to search all over the place for the particular brand of commercial kibble or have to store a bunch of dog food in a tiny living situation.
So really this is a win for everyone and a major cost savings! Just a simple run to the grocery store and humans and pups are stocked for food supplies that are healthy and fresh, doesn’t take up a lot of space, and doesn’t cost a lot… and can be purchased in any grocery store along the route.
Yep, I’m very happy with my meat grinder and I think from now on I will be making my own hamburger to place on the grill as well! The cost is much less and the meat would have less fat added… ground steak burger anyone? 🙂 making sausage is easy too it’s just ground meat and spices! Yep I see this meat grinder getting lots of use!
Conestoga Chuck 