So far, I've determined that meat meal isn't going to work for us. The dogs need more bulk in their diet so I've decided that boiled meat is the way to go, which is a huge relief because making the meat meal was just too time consuming and too much work! That first batch of meat meal lasted us about five days for the eight dogs, but we were still feeding them commercial kibble in the mornings so that was helping to offset the lower volume of food. I was hoping that the higher levels of protein in their diet would appease their appetites and allow us to decrease the volume of food they were consuming, but that hasn't worked yet. Luckily we ran out of the meat meal and commercial kibble at about the same time so making the transition to whole cooked meat was easy. On the downside, the meat meal was MUCH easier to store (I could fit two chickens in a storage container) -- the boiled chicken takes up a good bit of space in our freezer.
It became obvious pretty quickly that I was still going to need to supplement the dog's meals with kibble for a few reasons. First, I needed a viable solution for feeding the dogs the bone meal. I tried putting it in the rice initially -- but I had to feed that mixture to them quickly because it wasn't going to last long before going rancid. Second, I was worried that the amount of the rice mixture I'd have to give them to meet the volume of food they needed each day would be a little too simple carb heavy. Third, I've always read that dogs need the crunchy stuff to keep their teeth and gums healthy -- and there certainly wasn't anything crunchy in the chicken and rice. So that's what I've been experimenting with for the last week and I think I've finally gotten it down.
I adapted this recipe from several that I found online. Each recipe I found was different and many wanted you to add fruits or veggies to the mixture, but most of them had the same core ingredients -- so I kept those. I decided to leave the fruits and veggies in the rice mixture and I added the flax seed, bone meal and egg shell powder to help cover essential vitamins/minerals/oils they need.
8 cups of whole wheat flour
1 cup of milled flax seed (takes care of the Omega 3 dietary needs)
2 cups of dry milk powder
2 cups of whole oats (uncooked)
1/2 lb of bone meal (from the butcher)
4 eggs
4 tablespoons of egg shell powder (calcium)
meat broth
Mix all of the dry ingredients well. Add the beaten eggs and slowly add the meat broth about a cup at a time until the dough is the consistency you desire. I like my dough to be very stiff because frankly, I'm terrible at rolling out dough!
Roll it out to the thickness you desire. I like to keep the kibbles small -- I just find it easier to work with.
Then use a pizza cutter to cut up the dough into the kibble size you prefer.
Then bake at about 200 degrees until all of the moisture is cooked out and they're crunchy. Mine usually take a little more than an hour at that temperature. This usually makes about a gallon sized bag of kibble and because they only get a small amount each day, each bag is lasting a couple of days. And most importantly, they love it!
My dogs eat twice a day -- a small breakfast and a more significant dinner. So, the new meal plan for the dogs is a slice of whole wheat or whole oat bread cut up into cubes, and about 1/3 of a cup of kibble for each meal. For breakfast, in addition to the bread and kibble, they get a 1/2 cup of yogurt and a tablespoon of yucca powder. (The yucca is an anti-inflammatory and also aids in digestion - the dogs LOVE it!) For dinner, in addition to the bread and kibble, they each get 1/4 cup of organ meat ground up to the consistency of canned food, 3/4 cup of shredded chicken and about two cups of the rice mixture. This gives them approximately the 4-cup volume they're accustomed to and it meets the 1/3 protein 2/3 carb/veggie dietary requirements.
Next project ... to try to make my own bone meal.