How to Make Natural Homemade Dog Food.

You may be surprised just how easy it is to adapt your dog’s diet by introducing him or her to a homemade recipe. Not only can you control the ingredients much more closely by creating homemade dog food, but you may also be able to save money and your pet's longevity.

What ingredients to avoid when making homemade dog food

There are some ingredients you should never feed your dog, whether you’re making your own dog food or buying it at the store. These are some of the most troublesome ingredients for your dog’s health and should never be used in your homemade dog food recipe:

    Avocados
    Chocolate
    Macadamia nuts
    Onions
    Grapes
    Greasy foods
    Spicy foods
    Mushrooms
    Mustard seeds
    Moldy foods

Healthy ingredients for your homemade dog food recipe

Ensuring that you have all of the vital ingredients in your dog food is essential for keeping that spring in your pup’s step! Always check with a vet before making a change to an all natural homemade dog food regimen by showing him or her your recipe and analyzing it for nutritional completeness. In particular, you’ll want to make sure to have enough of the following components:

• Animal fats: Necessary for a variety of bodily functions, essential fatty acids (omega 3s and omega 6s for instance) are needed by dogs just like humans and should make up at least 5.5% of your dog’s food by weight (but don’t use too much - you don’t want an obese dog!). You can add olive oil, fish oil, or flax-seed oil to your homemade dog food to ensure enough of this ingredient.

• Carbohydrates: This is a bigger portion of a dog’s diet and will account for about 50% of your homemade dog food. Choose from things like cooked pasta, rice, potatoes, quick oats, and black-eyed peas.

• Minerals and vitamins: Dogs have very specific mineral needs, including calcium, chlorine, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, sodium, and zinc. They also require adequate quantities of vitamins C, B-comlex, A, D, E, and K. To get adequate amounts of these, you may consider adding a vitamin and mineral supplement or powder to your dog food recipe.

• Proteins and amino acids: Like most animals, dogs are not able to make their own essential amino acids (that’s why they’re essential), but unlike cats, dogs can be healthy with both animal and plant-based proteins in their diet. Your dog will need a minimum of 10% protein by weight in his or her diet. Just be sure they’re high-quality proteins such as whole meat, hard-boiled eggs, cottage cheese, tofu, soybeans, or lentils.

• Water: Necessary for life, water is important for your dog’s overall health. Although there are no specific requirements for water content in your dog’s food, having some in your dog’s food is beneficial.

Vegan and vegetarian dog food recipes


Unlike cats who are obligate carnivores (they generally cannot live without animal protein), dogs are more adaptable to a vegetarian diet. Though you should always consult with your vet regarding a switch from a meat-based diet to a veggie-based diet, it is not nearly as complex as the same transition for cats. 

A homemade, healthy dog food recipe

Though there are many options for making your own dog food naturally, here’s one recipe that will give you an idea of just how simple homemade dog foods can be:

    1/2 cup each carrots, green peas, and pumpkin
    1/4 cup each squash, unsweetened berry juice and sweet potato
    1 tablespoon barley juice powder
    1 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
    3 tablespoons plain yogurt

Mix all of the ingredients together until well blended and almost creamy. Serve in a bowl or with cooked rice or pasta.

Barbecued Chicken

 Ingredients 

3 lb chicken parts (breast, drumstick, and thigh), skin and fat removed
1 large onion, thinly sliced
3 Tbsp vinegar
3 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp brown sugar
To taste black pepper
1 Tbsp hot pepper flakes
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 C chicken stock or broth, fat skimmed from top

Method
1. Place chicken in 13- by 9- by 2-inch pan. Arrange onions over top.

2. Mix together vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, pepper, hot pepper flakes, chili powder, and stock.

3. Pour mixture over chicken and bake at 350 °F for 1 hour or until done. While cooking, baste occasionally.

Note : Don’t forget to remove the skin and fat to keep this zesty dish heart healthy.

Home Remedies for Cracked Heels

Cracked heels, also known as heel fissures, are a common problem affecting men and women all over the globe. Cracks on the soles can develop on one, or both feet. This affliction is more common in those who are elderly. You may also suffer from cracked heels if you exert an excessive amount of pressure on the soles of your feet, over a prolonged period of time. This problem may worsen during the winter months, or if you live in dry climates.

People often regard cracked heels as a sign of inadequate foot care and hygiene. However, there are several different factors that could lead to the development of fissures or lesions on the heels. At times, heel cracks may also be an indication of certain nutritional deficiencies.

For many, the appearance of cracks on the heels is nothing more than an embarrassment or an inconvenience. However, at times these fissures could cause you to experience an immense amount of pain. This could make it difficult for you to stand, walk or wear certain kinds of footwear. Left unchecked, cracked heels can also start bleeding or get infected. Therefore, it is important to try and control this problem as early as possible. Fortunately, most cases of cracked heels can be easily treated with the help of simple remedies and self-care measures. Alternately, you could also consult a dermatologist or a podiatrist for medical treatment options.

Making Recycled Paper

Everyday we use something that is made from trees. One of the things we use most often especially in school is paper. Although paper can be made from a variety of natural materials including cotton, hemp, grass, banana plants, tobacco and even elephant dung in some parts of the world, paper is most often made from pulp that is produced by grinding up trees.

Because paper is so important to us and because we use so much of it, we need to make sure we don’t waste it. It only takes a second to use a paper napkin or tissue, but decades for a tree to grow.

Fortunately, we can save trees by using less paper and by recycling paper. Here’s how you can make your own homemade paper.

Crispy and Creamy Doughnuts

Ingredients
Original recipe makes 18 doughnuts Change Servings

    2 (.25 ounce) envelopes active dry yeast

    1/4 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)

    1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk

    1/2 cup white sugar

    1 teaspoon salt

    2 eggs

    1/3 cup shortening

    5 cups all-purpose flour

    1 quart vegetable oil for frying

    1/3 cup butter

    2 cups confectioners' sugar

    1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

    4 tablespoons hot water or as needed

How to Prevent Road Accidents

It is better to be safe than to be sorry. Prevent accidents by taking all the precautions you can.

1. As they say speed thrills and also kills. Keep a rein on your speed, so that one is in better control of the vehicle. Find out what causes you to speed up?  Is there an urge to speed when you have a driver close behind?  Or, is it an effort to keep up with the traffic flow. Or, do you simply enjoy over-taking? It is especially important to lower speed while nearing schools, on narrow roads, hilly areas, rural areas and when visibility is poor. Wet roads and speed is a perfect recipe for an accident.

2. Obey traffic rules. Traffic rules have been designed with safety foremost in mind. It takes into account safety for all, including pedestrians. Follow the lane, and keep the required distance between vehicles.  It is important to display appropriate indications/signals especially while changing lanes or before a turn. Respect for other drivers on the road is sacrosanct to road safety.

How to create a bootable USB flash drive

• Insert a USB flash drive into a running computer.

• Open a Command Prompt window as an administrator.

• Type diskpart.

Homemade Ant Killers

 
When you provide a tempting treat that is actually poison (known as ant bait), you want to make sure it’s not too strong that it will kill the ant before it gets back to the colony (sometimes they are gone for days), and that it’s not too weak that it’s ineffective. You want poisoned food brought back to the nest for the rest of the colony to ingest.

The type of food they look for is either sugar or protein, it depends on what the needs of the colony are at the time. This is why a “tried and true” ant killer recipe that came highly recommended doesn’t work for you, the bait holds no interest for the particular critters in your home.

Tip: First determine if the ants in your house are after sugar or protein. Leave a sample of each bait out and see which ones they go for. Once you’ve determined what they’re hungry for, set out a few baits with their choice.

Create a Aquarium

A Community Aquarium is a fish tank made up of different species of fish and live aquarium plants to form a well-balanced thriving community, which can co-exist with each other. Rather than one single type of fish, having different species interacting with each other in a small ecosystem and living in harmony is much more fun and entertaining. One main criteria towards setting up a successful community aquarium is that, all the fish must be compatible with each other and able to tolerate the same living condition without exhibiting aggressive behavior towards another species.


The most important prerequisite towards creating community aquarium is that one must have large aquariums to start with. Usually aquarium tank measuring 30-50 gallon is the most ideal size to begin with and all the aquarium equipments such as filter, heater, must be put in place and have the capacity to treat huge volumes of water. This will ensure easy maintenance and therefore more attention can be focused towards other aspects of maintaining the community aquarium such as careful observation for fish compatibility issues and monitoring for early signs of fish disease which is very common in large aquarium community. Be forewarned that since all of them live together, outbreak of disease is very detrimental and it could bring disastrous effect.

How To Make 3D Glasses At Home

Needs 

•     Paper

•    Pencil

•     Sturdy cardboard, posterboard or cardstock

•     Scissors

•     Tape

•     Sheets of red and blue acetate (available at your local craft store)

•     Assorted decorations (optional)

    For a quick alternative, simply print the pdf 3d glasses pattern below overhead projector transparency film on any color printer.

Maintenance Fish Tank

Once established, regular maintenance of your fish tank is essential to continue to provide a healthy environment for your fish. Routine tasks to keep your aquarium and fish looking their best include:

Water exchange  

Recommended routine maintenance is advised as being a 20-30% water exchange once weekly to fortnightly, whilst performing a gravel siphon. This can be done by purchasing a plastic gravel cleaner which works on a siphon principle, removing the organic waste in the tank whilst leaving the heavy gravel where it is.