Help me get ethical with dog food!!!!!

[Clara]

I just posted somewhere else about "blindspots" when it comes to doing our green thing. I have several, but a big one that I would like to resolve is dog food.

I have 5 dogs, it´s not hard or unusual for us soft brits to accumulate this many in Spain. At the moment we buy in 80kg of biscuits a month for them. I´d like to change this, as I feel complicit in the factory farmed birds (or battery old-timers) that go into this food.

As its 80kg a month, organic dog food is just not affordable, or available for that matter.

We have thought about supplementing with home-grown rabbits, given the sheer quantities of meat that could be produced, but this brings up another ethical dilemma. There are no rabbits here, none. If I get some and they escape and breed, I will at worst get lynched and at best have to leave. Not enticing prospects.

So how do I keep rabbits safely without having to confine them in the same way that the chickens in the biscuits are? Can I give them super secure outside space?

Can anyone think around my problem? Is there another way?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, Clara x.

[catalyst]

i dont know if you can get happidog in spain, i've not seen it in portugal, but there may be a similar spanish equivalent?

http://www.happidog.co.uk/

[Millie]

I think you would have to confine rabbits. What about feeding them chicken, rice and veg? Lots of people feed a fresh diet, you could source local organic, humanely reared/killed meat and feed them that, mixed in with veg and a gravy.

We have lots of organic pet foods over here, but Im always a bit suss as to whether they are truly organic or just a marketing ploy..

[Clara]

Happidog looks good, but works out at 111quid for 75kg, as opposed to 40 euros I pay now - I´m sure it´s MUCH better but that´s just not viable for us. We used to buy posh dog food when we lived in the UK and only had 2 AND had the jobs to pay for it.

Free range/organic chicken in Andalucia - no just not an option I´m afraid. My local butcher only sells pork for a start, not sausages mind that would be too exotic! I think that would be too expensive as well.

But thanks for the advice about rice, I have seen cheap rice which is for animal consumption (not organic but you can´t have it all ways!) - perhaps this and some homereared meat and veggies could mean total replacement of these nasty biscuits (called Yako would you believe!).

The problem I have is the quantity I have to replace, that´s why I think that doing it ourselves is the only way - and more SSish too.

[Muddypause]

Do you see much road-kill in Spain?

[Stonehead]

From memory, dog food should be 40% meat, 30% vegetables, 30% starch. Meat should be cooked; liver, kidney and boiled eggs are very good; oatmeal, potatoes and brown rice are good for the starch requirement; carrots, green beans, shredded kale and fresh green peas are good vegetable ingredients.

There should be plenty of dog food recipes on the net.

[ina]

Maybe the local butcher sells offal cheap? Lungs, heart etc. would be perfectly ok for dog food.

[Tigerhair]

In the UK - I don't know if it's available overseas, Burns Pet Nutrition has an organic food which isn't much more expensive than the regular food. Which is made here and is excellent quality.

[Clara]

Do you see much road-kill in Spain?

Where I live not really (besides I don´t actually have a road), nearer the towns its usually puppies that have been thrown out of cars at high speed

Stonehead - thanks for the ratios, that´s the kind of info I need - I was forgetting all about eggs!

Offal - now there´s a thought, I´ll look into it (though they have a black pudding type thing that is really popular here so maybe it all goes into that).

My dogs supplement their own diet with old goat bones that they find and the pig trotters (from the jamon factories) that the shepherds dogs leave behind. In fact I have one who is a bit of a wild foodie - she seems to shun the biscuits in favour of windfall, bones and the odd cracked egg that I throw her way!

I´m beginning to feel a bit more positive about this - it´s all too easy for me to buy the cheap food, this will take some resolve (and another job for the day). Wish me luck!