What are the best ways to prep for our pets to eat?

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DynamoDynamite@reddit

Have outside dogs, they feed themselves.

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I've been thinking about this more, prepping anything beyond about 1 month to stay in a city is pointless. After that chaos will ensue and you need to be out and you won't be able to carry enough supplies much less pet food!

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Funkymonk9090@reddit

Dry food can’t be stored long period but I have kept multiple big bags of food in small metal trash cans for at least 6 months. My plan is to always have 6 months of dry food in multiple garbage cans. After that…my food is their food. And I’ve stocked to include them if necessary

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PVPicker@reddit

I completely misunderstood the title and am relieved.

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anonadon7448@reddit

I was about to joke “I mean…you looking for a recipe or…”

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Annette_Runner@reddit

Salt, pepper, bbq rub, and a smoker at 180 F for 4-6 hours depending on the size of the pet.

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jtj5002@reddit

I was halfway finished typing how to clean a dog.

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nauurthankyou@reddit

So many cats, so few recipes

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A_Thorny_Petal@reddit

Cats are gonna be way more useful hunting vermin than filling a pot. They clear out all sorts of pests and all cats will eventually revert to hunting for food because they aren't truly 'domesticated'.

Protect your cats in the collapse, they'll protect your supplies, crops and gear from being eaten by rodents and nuisance insects.

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Calm_Opportunist@reddit

There's only one way to skin them though, right?

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nauurthankyou@reddit

Contrary to popular belief..

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parrotopian@reddit

Me too, "how to prep our pets to eat"

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Azou@reddit

That was my first thought too, and then i jumped to "prepping our pets to know they can eat us"

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DeFiClark@reddit

I was going to say, canned butter goes a long way…

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PVPicker@reddit

I know Ordinary Sausage/Mr. Sausage has done a lot of videos but I hope he's not that desperate for ideas.

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sentientshadeofgreen@reddit

I did too and now I'm wildly disappointed. /r/preppers was a dick hair away from being unfathomably based

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groovy_little_things@reddit

To Serve Man(‘s Best Friend)

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MrD3a7h@reddit

I like to give my dog weekly salt rubs.... wait, nevermind.

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La-Belle-Gigi@reddit

Whose turn is it to wok the dog?

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LatterAdvertising633@reddit

This one stepped it up a notch.

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KJHagen@reddit

Me too.

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ProlapseMishap@reddit

Oh, c'mon now just treat scruffy like one of the SERE rabbits.

Neck chop and move on.

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KJHagen@reddit

Dogs and cats taste like the food they eat. You’ve got to be hungry to scarf them down. (Puppies and kittens may be a little better.)

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RepulsiveYard4320@reddit

“Hunger is the best sauce…”

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BallsOutKrunked@reddit

Little bit of salt, little bit of pepper.

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Matilda-17@reddit

Glad it wasn’t just me

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Shoehorse13@reddit

Same same!

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SunLillyFairy@reddit

Online you can find great recipes for homemade, vet-approved pet food. Besides storing a few weeks or months of their regular pet kibble, you can print out recipes and store the ingredients you would use to make them. Things like canned or frozen chicken/tuna, powdered eggs, rice, carrots, lentils, sweet potatoes, oats, pumpkin, peas.

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whoibehmmm@reddit

I have a lot of canned food put aside for my cat but also a good supply of freeze-drried chicken cat food which can be stored for an extremely long period. Kibble can't be stored indefinitely, so it's good to plan to use and refresh any kibble that you are storing for them.

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RoundProud1218@reddit

My cats eat two different types of wet food. I always have one large, unopened box of canned food on-hand for each of them that I cycle through. Each lasts about 45 days. I don't feed kibble, but i do keep a small bag with my 72 hour kit. If it doesn't get eaten by the best by date, I plan to donate it, but it would be nice to grab and go if I needed something in a pinch. I really like the freeze-dried idea!

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whoibehmmm@reddit

The free-dried food is also great because it's soooooo lightweight. I can put it into my emergency travel bag with a canister of sawdust litter as well and they add almost nothing to the overall weight.

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Lethalmouse1@reddit

Pet food is effectively a new modern marketing and convenience thing.

The whole domesticated animal process was scraps. If you're preps are highly efficient, and espeically if you're not rural, then dry food is probably your easiest storage operation.

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SingedPenguin13@reddit

Raising meat rabbits ensures food and treats for my dogs…. I also farm my own meal worms for my chickens. The World Health Organization has designated them (meal worms) a valid source of protein for humans…. So I guess I would dehydrate or stir fry or bake some of those into rice or greens from back yard.. me and my dogs will survive. Guessing in a mad max scenario, would do maggot buckets and collect what chickens don’t eat and wash/cook those too. We will survive.

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StarshipPuabi@reddit

I always have two bags of cat food & 3 of dog (my dogs are big LGDs, so food goes fast) on hand, using the oldest first. That’s enough to outlast 90%+ of disaster situations. Past that? Mouser & supplement with meat and fish leftovers. They’re obligate carnivores so you need to keep meat on hand if it’s winter or they were unsuccessful hunting.

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D-Ray1469@reddit

Rice is a good staple for them. Add a chicken bullion when you make it, and the dawg will be thrilled.

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FlashyImprovement5@reddit

Wet food for the cat.

Cats like to get the majority of their water intake while eating. Very few cats naturally prefer drinking water alone. That is also why you don't have their water bowl right beside their food bowl. Water to them equals an increase in predators and it can give them anxiety.

So if ever in doubt about cats, it is always wet food or rehydrate.

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Jammer521@reddit

actually cats like moving water, they sell water dishes for cats that keep a flow moving, and they love it, it must be instinctual since moving water is safer to drink in the wild

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FlashyImprovement5@reddit

Yes but they still will prefer moist food. Running is preferred over still water, not over wet food. Running water is good because many cats won't drink from still water if at all possible.

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dittybopper_05H@reddit

Salt, pepper, and other spices.

Wait, what?

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Web_Trauma@reddit

deep pantry of kibble

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Kurtotall@reddit

I figure it’s best to trade with somebody else’s pet of equal size. Then lots of marinade.

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marcopoloman@reddit

Whatever may be leftover is what they get. The rest they can scrounge.

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VegaStyles@reddit

I toss my cats chicken, turkey, and pork. All of it. The dog and the 2 cats line up at the pan whenever I cook meat cause they know they all get a piece. Cat will eat meat. Maybe not reight away if they have never been given real meat but once they know its food they will eat it happily.

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Jammer521@reddit

they will also eat eggs and cheese at least mine does, mine even likes spaghetti noodles

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Jammer521@reddit

Pet food is a fairly modern invention, only been around for a little over 100 years, I grew up on a farm in 60's, my grandmother feed all the farm dogs table scraps, and bones, for thousand of years that was the way and I'm sure it would still be fine, that being said, I have a grinder so I grind up chicken, mix it with rice, carrots, and peas, fill cupcake muffin tin with the mixture and put them in the freezer, once froze I put them in a zip lock freezer bag, i feed it to them frozen and the love it

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GravySeal45@reddit

Sorry to say, but in a SHTF or EOTWAWKI scenario, the pets are pretty much on their own. I mean we will give them scraps and whatever we can, but making it a priority to prep for that long term, is not going to happen. Cats will feed themselves, dogs get scraps.

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JL3Eleven@reddit

What's your favorite paint chip flavor?

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Mel691@reddit

I’m fucked . My dogs eat farmers dog

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JL3Eleven@reddit

Grab some cans of Pumpkin for sickness.

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TacticalSpeed13@reddit

End of the world they can eat most of what we do

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748aef305@reddit

Holy shit, I totally misread this title at least twice... That being said, great point to bring up OP!

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in_pdx@reddit

If you end up feeding your cat chicken, get some taurine powder (find it at people vitamin store) You can figure out how much your cat needs by figuring out how much cat food your cat usually eats and looking at the label of their usual cat food. It’s not a vitamin your cats body can make or store, so if you give a bit too much it won’t hurt them. If you are a massive pepper you can buy cheap liver at a restaurant supply store -liver has taurine in it- and mix that with the chicken meat you give your cat. A freeze drier would come in handy for that because the chicken and chicken liver freeze dried could last 20-30 years if processed and packed correctly.

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Mr_MacGrubber@reddit

Dark meat has way more taurine than white. Looking online I see they need 35-56mg per day, and dark meat has 133-256mg/100g. So dark meat will adequately provide all the taurine they need.

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BethMNC@reddit

Canned corned beef, canned sardines, any tinned fish, suitable for people or pets, high nutrition, easy to store, lasts long.

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playdontpreach@reddit

Don’t bother the pets are part of your food prep

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Tjaw1@reddit

OMG! I misread this and thought you said, “How do we prep our pets to eat?”!!!

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nakedonmygoat@reddit

In part this depends on what you're prepping for. For a few months or less, just buy extra kibble and keep rotating it out. Kibble can be frozen to make it last longer. Any long-term crisis requires a more or less permanent solution, such as hunting. Depending on where you live, this may not be realistic.

For my cat, I also bought a #10 can of Augason Farms freeze dried chicken. It contains only chicken and has a 30 year shelf life. If for some reason I were caught flat-footed regarding cat food, I could feed it to her. It also would make good cat treats, and I can even rehydrate it and eat it myself.

For a dog, Forever Foods offers freeze dried ground beef, shelf-stable for 25 years, no added ingredients. Once again, not a permanent solution, but if a family emergency were distracting you from keeping up with having extra dog food on hand, it would work in a pinch, and it's rated for human consumption, so you could make hamburgers with it instead, if you wanted to.

Remember that people have had dogs and cats for years, treating them far less indulgently than we do now, and yet here they still are. Most are smarter than we give them credit for, sort of like people. 😉

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joelnicity@reddit

I’m kind of in the same situation. One of my cats was abandoned and now will eat almost anything (she’s more of a dog than a cat in a lot of ways). The other cat will only eat her dry food, she won’t even try any treats or anything. I keep a couple extra bags of her food but that’s about all I can do

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Never_Really_Right@reddit

Of course most people cater to their pers, goodness knows I do. But cars that are hungry will eat anything available. I have volunteered at several shelters, focusing on cats. Any cat coming off the streets that is starving will eat. Wet, dry, you name it. If canned or pouches are best for prepping, then do it if you want. In a zombie apocalypse, I guarantee your cats will eat it.

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nakedonmygoat@reddit

Agreed. My neighbors and I spent two weeks last fall trying to catch a kitten. She was only about 8 weeks old but somehow kept finding things to eat, even though she was very young. An adult cat can therefore totally figure it out if they must. From what I've read, cats are the domesticated animal most able to figure out how to manage on their own. Large dog breeds can do it too, but typically by finding other dogs to team up with.

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RebMyD@reddit

I thought you were asking the tough questions of survival.

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Ryan_e3p@reddit

Dry food isn't meant to be stored for long periods of time. There are a lot of fats and oils in it that will go rancid and make your furry friend ill.

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BallsOutKrunked@reddit

Not "long" periods, but all of my "good by dates" and my own experience is about a year if kept in a cool place. Taste of the Wild, bagged food.

I just got my chewy order a week or two more frequently than needed so I got a staggered set of bags with increasing shelf life. Once I got to a year (\~6 bags, for me) I shifted it to what the dog actually uses, and it stays current. I think I had adjust a little last year because I was off by a bag but you get the idea.

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CallSign_Fjor@reddit

We love Chewy!

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helluvastorm@reddit

This👆I asked my vet how long I could store dry food. He said no more than 60 days and not in heat. Thankfully I’ve got a small dog and she will be able to eat scraps. Not ideal but in a bad situation lots of things won’t be ideal

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driverdan@reddit

You should find a new vet. Most dog food is good for significantly longer than that. The kind I get is usually dated for 10-14 months.

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voiderest@reddit

It's OK if you keep the dry food for a bit and rotate out the old stuff. I've keep some in the fridge or freezer when buying my small dog a 40lb bag as well.

Canned food probably lasts longer. They also won't mind people food.

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Meanness_52@reddit

Take some time and research this topic there's quite a bit of human food you can feed to both cats and dogs.

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roberttheiii@reddit

My dog passed but when she was with us I always kept and extra 35 lbs bag of dog food for her and when I opened the spare I bought a new spare. That was a couple months worth of food for her.

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DannyWarlegs@reddit

The cats are what I worry about too. I had 9 when I moved in 2017, down to the Ozarks. We're down to 6 now. 1 passed at 23 of old age, one from an aneurism, and the other just passed from kidney disease and cancer. All our cats are rescues and special needs, and we do our best to keep them going and healthy. Unfortunately all but 1 are 100% house cats. The youngest was a feral kitten who almost got turned to roadkill, and she will absolutely destroy anything and eat it if she can. The others, they'll eat a moth or 2, but they wont hunt a mouse. They're more likely to just play with it a bit.

We call our dog the "plate inspector" and he'll eat absolutely anything. We feed him good food, with vitamin supplements, fresh berries from our yard, every day he gets chicken gizzards or liver, or some human grade meat with his kibble, some rice, spinach, peas, pureed pumpkin or sweet potato, etc. A lot of the rice and veg are just our leftovers from a day or 2 backs dinner too.

If need be, im within walking distance of a river that is full of trout, catfish, bass, and a few other species. I can hunt deer, rabbit, and squirrels, trap raccoons and rodents, etc and id try to feed them with what I can catch and cook. Organ meat first, and anything I know my family wouldn't eat. Our dogs going crazy right now because a deer got hit about 4 days ago and died in our woods. He got out the next day and bolted to it and started going ham on whatever the coyotes left of its innards, so I know he wont be an issue.

I figure with the cats, they'd get mostly fish, rice, and whatever bits of greens I can add in for the trace minerals and vitamins. Puree it all together for them.

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ladymorgahnna@reddit

FYI…perhaps you know this but in case others don’t…Cats need taurine in their food. A solid fish diet wouldn’t have that if you feed from nature. Lack of taurine in cats can cause blindness. You could add the amino acid though. See link.

https://cats.com/taurine-deficiency-in-cats

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ilbub@reddit

I buy jars of meat-flavor baby food for my cat. It doesn't have a complete nutritional profile, but I figure I can serve these as a supplement. There are also nutritive additives (mineral complexes) that can be mixed in to attain something closer to a commercial cat food.

There are also canned tuna packed in water and without salt. I include canned chicken in our supplies, because I don't want to overload on mercury.

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Open-Attention-8286@reddit

For cats, taurine is essential. Most meats have some taurine, but not at the concentrations they need. The meats that do have it at high concentrations are mostly saltwater seafoods like octopus.

One of the exceptions is dark-meat turkey, which is why turkeys are on my list of things I want to raise. (I like white-meat turkey, so this work out well.)

Slow-roast the meats you intend to feed to your cat, as taurine is destroyed by high temperatures. It's better to freeze than can, if possible, since pressure-canning uses temperatures that are higher than normal cooking methods.

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Winter_Owl6097@reddit

No matter what you feed them now, stock up on cans and bags of cat food and dog food. They will need the vitamins and minerals,.

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Sea_Entry6354@reddit

I bought a fishing rod

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StarlightLifter@reddit

My wife and I have 3 months minimum for all pets, same as for us. If I haven’t figured out something new in 3 months I got bigger problems. First priority after establishing the 24-48-72h window emergency items will be planning long term sustenance plans.

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ResponsibleBank1387@reddit

Just reading your post—- good fat layer. You want them to be a bit pudgy, they will eat leftovers off your plate.

Reading into the rest. Pets eat the leftovers of yours. Mine thinks the toaster popping is the dinner bell. Some butter and jam on some toast is the ideal snack.

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This-Rutabaga6382@reddit

Could you not in a real emergency just grind up some wheat berries if you had them set aside ? I watched a video of historical pet food and aside from the obvious (they eat our leftovers and bits of meat we don’t want) they have been getting fed grain for at least a few centuries.

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TexFarmer@reddit

This is an ongoing discussion in our group, keeping the dogs well-fed is very important, they serve a vital role.
Standard off-the-shelf dog food will not store very well, so only 2 options, treat the normal dog food to preserve it for storage or find a substitute. I have heard of people running standard dog food through a freeze-dryer and then vacuum-sealed. This option is costly and requires a freeze-dryer even more costly.
For us, the better option is to substitute pre-made dog food for storing the individual components separately, Rice, Beans, Freeze-dried vegetables & TVP are much easier to buy and store for the long term.

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Eredani@reddit

I'm not sure I understand the question here... but I will share how we prep for our dog:

1) He eats fancy Nom Nom packaged wet food that ships frozen. We thaw a package of seven every 3.5 days. We have about a month's supply in the garage freezer and another month in the prep room chest freezer with the means to keep the freezer running indefinitely.

2) Once the Nom Nom runs out we have about 30 cases (360 cans) of high quality canned dog food. In a serious emergency he would be limited to one can per day, so that would last a year. (Supplemented with scraps, leftovers, whatever...)

3) We also have about 200 pounds of dry dog food as a last resort.

I do have several packages of his Nom Nom food that I ran through the freeze dryer but this is mostly intended as a lightweight bug out option.

If things are Mad Max bad then there will be some other food options for dogs. Use your imagination.

The fate of the family dogs (a pair of Golden Retrievers) from the book One Second After motivated me to ensure I wouldn't end up in a similar situation.

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IRLNub@reddit

I always made rice as a nice filler for my dog. And boiled chicken. Would giver her the broth too.

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Mitchum077@reddit

Keep the dogs rid the cats. The cats won’t help you the dogs will.

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Led_Zeppole_73@reddit

Cats can help rid vermin when there’s no garbage service.

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bcs491@reddit

I mean, you might want those vermin to yourself by then

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Led_Zeppole_73@reddit

That‘s another way of looking at it.

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BWest829@reddit

Honestly you feed them scraps of what you eat. And if it is a SHTF situation I know my cat can survive as an outdoor cat. He will hunt what he needs. My dog on the other hand will need to eat with us. Food is actually one of the things I feel confident in my prepping as I can grow a lot of what I need even indoors and I live close to the ocean and know how to fish from the shore.

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H3LI3@reddit

Cats can be carnivores but dogs are omnivores. They need some veg/carbs/something. Tbh good quality dry kibble is a great prep because technically humans could eat it in absolute worst case scenario

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Omfggtfohwts@reddit

A job is a job. You make it what it is. Like any job.

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plantsandminis@reddit

Most dog food I've purchased recently has a best by date of 6 or more months out. If you figure out how fast you go through a bag you could buy a few extras or more and start rotating through them. Between Chewy and Costco or Sam's you could likely have UPS drop it off at your door.

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