Dry food or homemade diet: which is cheaper and which is more balanced at 2026 prices

Feeding a 20 kg dog for a day on a homemade diet based on whole chicken costs about UAH 49, on beef about UAH 120, and on a complete dry food about UAH 32. The calculation uses average Ukrstat prices for August 2026 and the same daily requirement of 1,060 kcal.

Money is the easier half of the question. The harder half is that in a study that checked 100 published homemade diet recipes, not one provided the recommended levels of all nutrients, and over 84% of the recipes had three or more nutrients below the requirement.

How much does a day of feeding cost in hryvnias?

Ukrainian search results say a homemade diet is “expensive if done right” but give no figures. We calculated a day for three dogs of different weights using Ukrstat's average consumer prices as of August 2026.

We took the daily requirement from the same formula as in the food calculator: 70 × body weight in kilograms to the power of 0.75, multiplied by an activity factor of 1.6. For 10, 20 and 40 kg this is 630, 1,060 and 1,780 kcal respectively. The diet for each weight was scaled from one and the same recipe.

Ingredient prices, Ukrstat, August 2026: beef UAH 383.05/kg, whole chicken UAH 112.21/kg, rice UAH 52.63/kg, carrots UAH 25.26/kg, oil UAH 100.45/L. Dry food: UAH 1,188 per 10 kg at 397 kcal/100 g (metabolisable energy, NRC 2006). The cost of the homemade diet does not include a vitamin and mineral supplement or the time spent cooking.

The recipe for a 20 kg dog we used: 400 g of whole chicken, 50 g of dry rice, 50 g of carrots, 5 g of oil. Most of the calories come from the chicken: according to the USDA database, raw chicken with skin contains 66.0 g of water, 18.6 g of protein and 15.1 g of fat per 100 g, which works out to roughly 210 kcal per 100 g when calculated from these macronutrients. The rice makes up the rest.

A homemade diet with chicken costs about 1.6 times more than dry food, and with beef 3.8 times more. And that is before supplements, without which the diet is incomplete.

Why does a homemade diet almost always lack something?

Because meat, grains and vegetables by definition do not cover the full list of trace minerals and vitamins, and recipes from the internet are written without being calculated against requirements. This has been checked twice, on large samples.

A 2019 study analyzed 100 homemade diet recipes, 75 of them for dogs. Not one recipe provided the recommended levels of all nutrients; over 84% had at least three nutrients below the requirement. The most common deficiencies in dogs were calcium and potassium.

In a separate analysis of recipes published in Portuguese, 48% did not give exact ingredient amounts at all, meaning the diet cannot be reproduced the same way twice. Every recipe checked had at least one nutrient below the requirement.

Based on an analysis of homemade diet recipes published in Portuguese (Pedrinelli et al., 2017). Publication identifiers are in the list of sources at the end.

A deficiency of copper, zinc or vitamin E is not visible in the first week or the first month. You cannot see such a deficiency in the bowl: it builds up unnoticed, and it is usually not linked to the diet.

The problem with a homemade diet is not the quality of the ingredients but the fact that nobody calculates it against requirements.

Can a homemade diet be complete?

Yes, if two conditions are met at the same time. First: the recipe is formulated by a veterinary nutritionist for a specific dog, taking into account weight, age, activity and health conditions. Second: a vitamin and mineral supplement is added to the diet to cover exactly the gaps the ingredients leave.

Both conditions cost money. A consultation with a nutritionist is a one-off expense, the supplement is an ongoing one, and it was not included in the calculation above. So a complete homemade diet costs more than the UAH 49 or UAH 120 a day we calculated.

A separate risk of a homemade diet is table food that ends up in it “while you're at it”. Some of it is toxic to dogs in doses that look trivial; we covered dangerous doses by dog weight separately.

A “homemade diet” and a “recipe from a nutritionist with supplements” are two different diets, and the second costs more than the first.

How much food does your dog need?

The daily requirement depends not only on weight but also on activity. A factor of 1.3 is for a calm or neutered dog, 1.6 for a normal routine with two walks, and 1.9 for a working or very active dog.

Next, the calorie requirement is divided by the food's energy content from the label on the bag to get grams. You can calculate it for your dog's weight and routine with the food calculator and daily feeding amount guide, which also explains how to adjust the portion based on the dog's condition.

If you have decided to switch from a homemade diet to dry food, an abrupt change often causes digestive upset: the stomach and gut flora are adapted to a different moisture level and composition, so switch gradually. The steps and timing are in our article on switching a dog to a new food.

Comparing diets only makes sense at the same daily calorie requirement, not by “eyeballing the bowl”.

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