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• Food Drops

• What equipment and food do the mushers use?

During an endurance race such as the Iditarod, every sled dog requires 10-14,000 calories of food every day.  They are performance athletes that require the best possible, high performance food every time they eat.

Meats usually come in frozen blocks that are cut with axes or saws and then prepared in the dogs' food.

Sled dogs require a high-calorie combination of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.  Sled dogs' bodies can burn fats much more readily than humans can, so sled dogs eat diets that are especially high in fats. 

Mushers feed the dogs a mixture of different kinds of meats, fats, oils, dry dog foods, and vitamin supplements.  Every mushers' recipe is a little bit different, but the bottom line is that the dogs need the best nutrition possible.

Some of the things that mushers feed their dogs include:

• A very high quality dry dog food

• Ground Beef (either in the form of large chunks or hamburger patties)

• Beef Fat

• Lamb and Lamb Fat

• Chicken and Chicken Fat

• Chicken Skins

• Turkey Skins

• Wild Game (such as beaver, moose, caribou, seal, elk, and deer)

• Horse Meat and Fat

• Fish (can be fed frozen raw, cooked, or even dried)

• Vegetable or Animal Oils or Lards

• Special Meat Mixes containing meats and other nutritional supplements formulated just for sled dogs

• Vitamin and Mineral Supplements

• Pro-Biotic supplements to help promote good bacteria in the dogs' stomachs

Many of the foods fed to the dogs are considered "human grade" foods.  Hamburger patties are an excellent ready-to-use source of ground beef.

Most of the meats and fats are fed frozen and raw, but some things, like fish, can be fed in the cooked or dry form.  Cooking red meats or poultry changes their taste and nutritional value, and makes them less "tasty" to the dogs.

Feeding the Dogs--How are these ingredients actually fed to the dogs?

The other essential ingredient for the dogs' high-performance nutrition is water.  Frozen meats do have some water content, but lots of water must be given to the dogs in addition to this.  The easiest way to get water and the dog food into the dogs is to mix everything together and make a "soup."

Typically, mushers use stoves to melt snow and obtain three or four gallons of hot water.  The hot water is then added to the meat, fat, oil, and dog food, and allowed to soak for a short time.  The resulting concoction is a stew that the dogs absolutely love.  Mushers must be careful to get the temperature of the stew just right.  At cold temperatures, the dogs like the stew warm.  When the weather is warmer (near freezing) the dogs want the stew cold.

Mushers also give the dogs pieces of meat and fat with this stew to add extra calories when needed.  Additionally, most mushers give their dogs snacks once every couple of hours while the dogs are running.