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A few months ago, I wrote about my practice of making homemade dog food for three small dogs. I detailed my process for making crockpot dump from-scratch dog food, what kinds of foods I like to add, and a few tips on how to make the process easy for beginners.

You can read that article here, at How I Easily Make Healthy Homemade Dog Food.

For a long time, this process was serving me quite well! I was easily feeding all three small dogs (roughly 15lbs each) from one crock pot meal per week.

Then I got Milo.

Milo is 75lbs and growing. According to his FitBark GPS, he needs more calories per day than many adult humans. I needed to pivot my process to accommodate him if I wanted to get him on homemade food.

For a little more than a month while I got things ready, Milo was eating Ketona chicken recipe from KetoNatural Pet Foods. I write about it in my article, Review: We Tried Ketona Dog Food for 30 Days, and I have to say he did quite well and saw some awesome improvements in his body composition, skin, and coat.

During that time, I tested out how much food for Milo I could make with my current setup. After testing the process, I found that I would have to run my crockpot for days to accommodate Milo for one week.

I needed a more efficient setup.

After tons of research and deciding that Milo would need roughly five cups of homemade food per day, I scaled up my system.

Enter the Weston 22 Meat Grinder

I had purchased a commercial-grade meat grinder, the Weston 22, to break down whole chicken and turkey frames, fish, and other meats. I kept seeing it recommended in raw feeding spaces, so I took the plunge.

My reasoning for purchasing a meat grinder was to open more possibilities for protein sources while keeping my cost down. While the Weston 22 is far from a budget machine, at the rate I use it it will pay for itself within a year of owning it just on the cost of meat alone.

I also wanted a machine that would be able to break down whole chicken frames because I wanted to add bone safely to my dogs’ diets. Any raw feeder will tell you that bone is crucial in a dog’s diet for the calcium and phosphorous it provides.

In breaking down whole frames, my dogs are getting all the nutrients without me having to worry about them choking or suffering from splintered cooked chicken bones. I talk a bit about the dangers of cooked bones (including the ones sold at pet stores…) in my article, What Foods Are Harmful to Dogs?

I should note that, while I sometimes do buy whole turkey for dog food, parts of the turkey such as the pelvis and parts of the spine aren’t able to fit in the Weston 22 properly. I use these parts to make bone broth, and then discard them.

The Weston 22 is a beast and helps me keep up with the amount of meat I need to feed a large dog, because I can go to my local discount grocery and grab any unseasoned meat, including whole chickens and turkeys. I don’t have to rely on the pre-packaged ground meats (which are more expensive, anyway) and can leave those for others.

While I do recommend getting a meat grinder if you have the means, it is definitely an investment. The 1.5 HP Weston 22 that I purchased goes for a whopping $849.99 on the Weston website , which is still a good price for a meat grinder capable of processing soft bone like chicken.

Now that I’m feeding Milo, however, I’m set to save on ground meat way more than I paid for the machine in a matter of months. If you’re feeding a large dog with homemade from scratch dog food, I do recommend it! The price may hurt up-front, but down the road you’ll save thousands.

Ditching the Crock Pot

After finally no longer having to rely on pre-packaged ground meat, my crock pot was the next thing to go.

While my crock pot was doing just fine for my small dogs, the poor thing just wasn’t going to cut it. I still think a crock pot is great if you’re feeding one medium-sized dog or a few littles, but for 75+ lb Milo plus the existing dogs, it just wasn’t going to work.

But I still wanted the convenience of dump-and-go dog food, and loathed the idea of “slaving over a hot stove” all day to prepare food for the week for my dogs. I just don’t have time for that!

I finally found a suitable alternative: turkey roasters.

Turkey roasters are those big countertop appliances that people use at Thanksgiving to keep the oven available while cooking the turkey. I found out through some research that they function very similarly to crock pots, and had much larger capacity. I’m talking capacity starting at 18 quarts, which is what mine is rated at.

I got my turkey roaster secondhand locally, but similar ones are also available on amazon.com. I like the Oster brand turkey roaster I purchased because the roaster pan comes right out for cleaning.

Batching Homemade Food For Large Dogs

Shortly after Milo finished his Ketona kibble, I officially dumped by crock pot, set up the new roaster, and got to work.

The actual cooking process and recipe was more or less the same as what I’d been doing with the crock pot for months.

Put the rice in first for a while to cook in some turmeric powder and water or broth. Add a layer of dog-friendly veggies, usually spinach or “spring mix” and some broccoli and cauliflower. Then add a layer of eggs, broken and with the shell included; I’ve been not separating the eggs and letting the yolk cook hard before mixing to add some flavor variety. Then add the meat, usually the whole chicken or turkey with some extra chicken or beef liver.

Let it all cook on a medium heat (around 200 on the roaster) for a few hours — usually my batches are done in six hours. I come by to check on the food and stir the contents every two hours or so to make sure things are cooked through.

Lastly, I add a bit of vitamin mix from Just Food For Dogs to help fill out any areas. This last step isn’t totally necessary, as the food itself is slow-cooked and full of vitamins and minerals. But I like to add it just to help round things out in case of human error.

Not a lot has changed in the actual process. The roaster works wonders.

I’m able to cook 3-4 times the food in one batch that I was able to in the crock pot. I found that on top of the rice, egg, vegetables, and any other foods I decided to incorporate for that batch, I was also able to fit three whole ground chickens at a time or more.

I usually do this process twice over a weekend, starting with sectioning and grinding up all the meat, then making one batch after another.

Doing this twice makes enough dog food to feed Milo and the three little dogs for about two weeks (a little more for the little ones, a little less than two weeks for Milo).

Any time the food ends up a little watery, I take a few minutes before portioning and storing the food to squeeze the excess liquid out and put it away in jars or cups. I collect the broth by pressing a mug into the food and letting the liquid rise and collect into it, then pouring the liquid into the containers for storage.

This broth is great for freezing into frozen treats, pouring over kibble, or to use as a food topper later on.

Meal Prep Containers for Dog Food

In my last article on homemade dog food, I mentioned finding some awesome one-cup sized containers that were perfect for my dogs’ food. Unfortunately those containers disappeared from the store for a while, but I recently found some more of them and stocked up.

These little containers are great for the small dogs, but just aren’t going to cut it for Milo, who would easily devour 5 or more of them per day.

I ended up using these 24oz meal prep containers for Milo, which accurately fit 3 cups of food. He eats two of them per day.

I also like to hold on to appropriately-sized take out containers to have extras around for him, so if you’re on a budget you can always hold on to and reuse odd containers for storing homemade dog food.

That said, a 50-pack of those 24oz containers costed less than $25; perfectly reasonable for appropriately-sized containers that stack for easy storage!

Feeding a large dog takes a little more planning and prep work than feeding little dogs. They’ll run out of food faster, and batches of food won’t go as far. But if you get yourself prepared right, it’s actually fairly easy to stay on top of.