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Is my dog's homemade rice, chicken, pumpkin diet balanced? How much?

Updated on September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Dog | Mixed Breed Small (up to 22lb) | Female | unspayed | 7 months and 21 days old | 17 lbs

I have been feeding my dog white rice, chicken and pumpkin boiled together twice a day. Should I continue this diet? If not, what more should I add to make it more balanced? Also how much amount should i feed?

3 Answers

Most Helpful Answer

Answered By Ann Dion, DVM

Veterinarian

Published on August 25th, 2017

Hello and welcome to Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. In terms of diet, a well balanced kibble is best as it will have all of the nutrients needed for a dog. If you need to make a home cooked diet, boiled/boneless/skinless chicken breasts with boiled rice along with added cooked vegetables is a good idea (pumpkin, carrots, broccoli, etc.). You can add in vegetables to make it more balanced. Avoid raw food and bones as they cause many dietary issues. Also, avoid onions, garlic, chocolate, grapes and raisins because these are very toxic to dogs. Best of luck with Jessi!

47Pet Parents found this answer helpful

Related Answers from Veterinarians

Answered By Rebecca, DVM
Veterinarian
Published on January 14th, 2019
Thank you for using Petcoach. This is not a complete diet for Toodie. It is very difficult to get all of the correct vitamins and minerals in a balanced diet doing home cooked meals. I recommend consulting a veterinary nutritionist to develop a diet for Toodie, or using a program such as Balance-It. This will help you develop an approriate diet, using nutritionist developed supplements. Improper nutrition can cause serious health problems, including heart disease and even death. Please consult a nutritionist if you want to continue making Toodie's food, or consider feeding her a high quality, researched dog food such as Pro-plan, Iams or Royal Canin.

This is the Balance-It website if you would like to look into it futher. https://secure.balanceit.com/recipegenerator_ver4/index.php?rotator=EZ
2Pet Parents found this answer helpful
Answered By Dr. Heidi DVM, CVA, CCRT, CVTP, CVSMT, CVCH
Veterinarian, Certified Veterinary Acupuncturist, Certified Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner
Published on September 3rd, 2017
It is important to feed a balanced diet to growing puppies. I recommend using the website Balance It (https://secure.balanceit.com/#) to help create homemade recipes. They have some free recipes for healthy dogs on their website or you can pay to have their nutritionists create a custom recipe for Jessi.
I hope that helps!
2Pet Parents found this answer helpful

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Is boiled chicken and rice a complete and balanced diet for dogs?

No, this is not a complete and balanced diet for long-term feeding. It's fine to use for a few days here and there, especially if your dog has an upset stomach and needs something bland and tasty, but you should feed a commercial dog food or work with a veterinary nutritionist to put together a balanced home-cooked diet for the long term, if you prefer.

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My dog is a picky eater. How do I balance a homemade chicken diet?

It's very hard to get the correct balance of nutrients to keep your dog healthy with a homemade diet and instead of trying to do it yourself, I recommend checking out these two websites I will link to below. They are run by veterinary nutritionist and provide recipes for homemade diets that are both healthy and balanced for dogs, providing al the nutrients they need. I would feed Sasha a diet from recipes you find on there. I hope this helps :-) https://secure.balanceit.com https://www.petdiets.com

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Can I add cooked chicken, sweet potato, and rice to my dog's kibble?

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Is my homemade rice, chicken, veggie mix good for puppies and mom?

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