Breakdown research is great. But, do any of you pay about close to $500.00 to fill up on heating oil??
No, but I pay $800/month some winters for gas heating and part of the house is on electric heating. But, that's not really the issue. If it would be easier to wait until summer to try home feeding, then maybe that's a good idea.
As far as equipment goes, you don't need as much as
Kaffe has on her
wonderful list to start with. You can make some good meals with a knife, a cutting board (or some surface that you can cut on), a mixing bowl (which could be a serving bowl, or soup bowl, or any other type), a teaspoon (the ones normally used to stir coffee or tea are pretty close to a measuring teaspoon). You probably have all of those things in your home already. If not, you can probably find them in a second hand store or borrow them from friends or family. If you keep borrowing the items, they may even get the idea to gift them to you.
An example of a low equipment, low cost food for cats:
1 lb. chopped chicken
2. 5 oz (1/2 can) of sardines in tomato sauce
1 tsp. (1200 mg) of calcium carbonate
4 cat multivitamins
Chop chicken and mix with other ingredients. Serve raw. Makes 4 servings for an average cat. If your cat needs more fiber, you can add two heaping teaspoons of canned pumpkin or non-onion baby food veggies. If your cat isn't used to this diet, I wouldn't waste the whole meal on him/her. Just try giving a teaspoon along with regular food until they get the idea that this is food.
The meat and vegetables you're giving to your dog sound like a great start already. If you've also got a pot, you can boil eggs and/or a starch like rice or potato and add a calcium supplement. Crushed eggshells are great if you're using eggs. A grinding mill is nice, but large dogs are capable of eating eggs (shell and all) whole and putting the shells in a bag and using any heavy dull item to pound them a little gets them small enough for many small dogs. My puppies were able to fully digest eggshells prepared this way when they were 3 months old and less than 15 lbs.
Home feeding doesn't have to be an all or nothing proposition either. You can mix home prepared food with commercial food as I saw you were in another thread, just replace the canned portion of the diet with home prepared food, or even use home prepared only once in awhile when money isn't as tight or foods go on sale or during the summer when the heating bill isn't such a big factor. It's great when pets get 100% home cooked food, but there's no reason to believe that 50%, or 30% or 10% less BHT, BHA, exothyquin, sodium phenobarbital, melamine, acetaminophen, and whatever else wouldn't do a pet some good, not to mention more and better quality protein, vitamins, and other nutrients.
There's no reason for anyone to feel guilty about not being able to afford the best possible food every meal for their pets. That's not why I started the thread. There are alot of knowledgeable people on here in a variety of living and financial circumstances. If you keep asking about ways to overcome the obstacles your facing, someone may just chime in with a method that suits your situation. So, don't give up. We're rooting for you and trying to help.
Sharky: Wow! Fifty dollars a month on supplements? What are you feeding your pets?
