Raw/natural Chitchat

[azima]

My dog comes home with me on Sunday. He's being fed Pro Plan. So I have a small bag of that to transition him. My previous dogs ate homecooked. Is it okay to do part-part homecooked and raw? E.g. A few times a week each.

[mumtoshelley]

skip, how much do your dogs weigh? I have a Papillon that weighs about 2.7kg and I find that the prepackaged BARF mix I was buying goes off before I can finish using a pattie He is incredibly picky with his food and it was a task to even get him to eat a 1/4 of a brick a day... so by the the third day the food stinks beyond all belief and I throw it away. ARGH! He's very active and right now seems to be at a perfect weight, but when he loses even 100 grams he's too skinny and it's a battle to keep the weight on.

I'm curious as to how much to feed a tiny dog too. Poots has finished the majority of his growing now (6 months) and I was thinking of trying the Big Dog cat BARF patties as they might get consumed quicker and are made with the same stuff, just smaller! I worry about over and under feeding and ratios and all that jazz, but kibble just isn't a viable option for us as he basically hates eating it unless it falls out of a treat ball and then he gets bored after 5 pieces unless he's MEGA hungry.

E x

I feed the big dog barf patties to all my dogs my chihuahua 1 pattie last him for 4 days what I do is take a pattie out of the freezer let it parlty defrost then cut it into 4 pieces,keep 2 feeds in the fridge and put the other 2 back in the freezer. My other 3 dogs get 1 full pattie each at night.

[julesluvscavs]

Id never thought I would be interested in this thread until we got Miah (her breeder advocates raw and natural)

I have applied aspects of it to my Cavs and past dogs, but not as full on as Im doing with Miah now.

Its not easy being that Im a vego but my husband (who is not a vego) is helping me with it.

Ive been going by Miah's breeder's feeding guidelines, so far so good . Its not as difficult as I thought it was going be.

Took her to the vets last week for a vacc booster and checkup, and he said she was in really good form for her age :)

Edited March 27, 2013 by Jules❤3Cavs

[sas]

Thanks guys . You know, I went back and forward with the oats issue. One of the main reasons I added them was because they were a main ingredient in the Vets all Natural blend and supposedly contained a lot of necessary nutrients. But you're right about the carbohydrate issue tomas, and my initial thought was that not only were they not necessary, but won't be digested properly anyway. To be honest, I got swayed by the fact that they were in other products and marketed as being advantageous to the dog's health. Thank you both for the reminder ...(edited)

I was under the impression that the Oats in VAN was just there as roufage (mmm how do you spell that!) and nothing else.

[sas]

I currently feed Dr Billinghurst to my Dane, I was using Country Comfort BARF but they'd always itch on it.

And with my sensative skin dog I am using the Augustine Approved receipe: http://www.augustineapproved.com.au/recipes.php

[sas]

My dog comes home with me on Sunday. He's being fed Pro Plan. So I have a small bag of that to transition him. My previous dogs ate homecooked. Is it okay to do part-part homecooked and raw? E.g. A few times a week each.

Not really, kind of goes against the principals of it all, I'm not sure that it would be a positive thing digestion wise.

[sas]

Sorry a bit OT but does anyone know why racing greyhounds are fed bread and weetbix?

LOL I seriously have no idea why so many Greyhound folk people feed their dogs absolute crap when they expect performance out of them. I know alot of them are feeding Coprice and then Roo mince - really makes no sense to me at all. I have heard some of generation ones coming through putting the best into their dogs to get the best out rather than feeding crap and having to give every supplement under the sun.

[blakkjackal]

Hello all, new raw feeder joining your chit chat. :) We do prey model raw, my dog has been fed meat since birth. Started off with 50-50, then at 8-9 months switched him to completely raw as I felt confident enough to do so. The next one I'm most definitely raising on PMR.

[Kirislin]

Just bumping this thread up so it's easier to find. :)

[Podengo]

We're to raw feeding after a couple of months on kibble

Have been feeding prey model raw on and off for all of Elsie's life, occasionally she goes onto kibble (Acana or Orijen) for awhile, but it makes her fart so much!

[Steph M]

Hello there, I'm a total raw newbie and have gone through most of this but it really hurts my brain.

Gus is a 4.5 month old Flat Coat and eventually I'd like to move him to totally raw, he's on high quality kibble at the moment for convenience's sake while I get my stuff together (and organise a chest freezer )

Rather than shock him with a total change what should I start with?

So far we have about a cup of kibble with a whole egg or a tin of sardines or yoghurt for breakfast.

Lunch might be more kibble or a big meaty bone if I have one on hand, he will usually have a small lamb flap or something similar mid morning if he just gets kibble for lunch

Dinner is similar to breakfast, plain kibble or with some yoghurt/sardines or egg if he's had a plain breakie. Lots of scope for improvement, I know.

He does seem to be doing well on what he's on, so I'm trying not to rush into it all too much, I'd hate to balance it wrong when he's growing so rapidly.

We alternate his lunch to keep it interesting, he's had boiling chicken quarters, chook frames, turkey wings, chuck steak and various offal like lamb hearts, beef tongue, chicken livers etc, so he's definitely receptive to the idea.

What's the best formula for balance? Anyone have a similar age/size/breed dog with a diet I could steal and start with? I'm really worried about leaving him deficient in anything when he's so young!

[Brandiandwe]

A silly question. My three greys are all on kibble. One, the largest is also on the Big Dog Raw patties, because he couldn't eat enough kibble to maintain his weight. All of them seem to be doing well. However, I'm interested in moving to RAW feeding. It would have to be homemade, but one of my princesses really only tolerates white meats - chicken, turkey or fish. Anything else produces bloody diarrhea. She's also quite picky, and didn't enjoy the raw patties when fed them. She loves cooked chicken though. Sigh.

So my question is whether it is possible to feed raw only using white meats? I would mix it up, but the grass being greener in other bowls just means squabbling.

They have antlers to chew on, and their teeth aren't bad, but could be better. They also get fish oil, and glucosamine every day, along with homemade natural yoghurt.

[Steph M]

What about chicken livers, bones or hearts etc? Or do they fall into the bad catergory?

If it's just white muscle meat I imagine it could be done but you might miss a few vitamins. I'm no pro at all, but I imagine this could be the case...

[Brandiandwe]

I'm a bit scared to try - the results if it's wrong are fairly dramatic..... I could give it a go though and see.

[blakkjackal]

Unless you choose to supplement liver is absolutely necessary. It's really the only good source of vitamin A. I personally choose to supplement vitamin D as it is not cost effective for me to buy my dog fish.. If you can feed fish and your dog tolerates it you should feed it weekly in reasonably large quantities to cover for their vitamin D needs.

Bones are also an important part of a dog's diet (although a fairly small one), it's their source of calcium. You can supplement this too but you'll be missing out on all the dental benefits + most dogs love working on their food a bit more than just lapping it up from their bowls.

If you take these things (and possibly more) into account it's possible, but not exactly ideal. Red meat really is best for them but I guess if your dog really cannot tolerate darker meats at all then white meat is better than no meat at all. Have you tried introducing darker meats into the dog's diet slowly? Ridiculously slowly (teaspoon a day and work it up type of thing)? Tried all kinds of different meats?

[Brandiandwe]

Unless you choose to supplement liver is absolutely necessary. It's really the only good source of vitamin A. I personally choose to supplement vitamin D as it is not cost effective for me to buy my dog fish.. If you can feed fish and your dog tolerates it you should feed it weekly in reasonably large quantities to cover for their vitamin D needs.

Bones are also an important part of a dog's diet (although a fairly small one), it's their source of calcium. You can supplement this too but you'll be missing out on all the dental benefits + most dogs love working on their food a bit more than just lapping it up from their bowls.

If you take these things (and possibly more) into account it's possible, but not exactly ideal. Red meat really is best for them but I guess if your dog really cannot tolerate darker meats at all then white meat is better than no meat at all. Have you tried introducing darker meats into the dog's diet slowly? Ridiculously slowly (teaspoon a day and work it up type of thing)? Tried all kinds of different meats?

Thanks for all that. She's had everything introduced very slowly but anything mor than about a tablespoon results in a reaction which only worsens. I've tried her on beef, lamb, pork, and roo. Chicken, fish and turkey seem to work best. I'm a bit jworried about trying rabbit o venison because I like a couple of protein sources she hasn't had just in case she decides to become intolerant to the other stuff too. Grain also doesn't work well for her.

I might get some liver and see how she does. If its ok, I might be able to work something out.

[HeroeswitBSD]

I have a question regarding ratios of Raw to Weight I have 3 dogs 1 40+ kg German Shepherd, a Belgian Shepherd Groenendael who I am trying to keep weight on as she is soooo active, and a White Swiss Shepherd puppy. I am looking at changing to raw but just can't figure out how much to feed.

Also how do you know your doing it right

[luvsdogs]

Apparently turkey legs are classed as red meat. My dogs mostly get chicken legs & sometimes 1/4's, turkey legs if small enough & turkey wings with excess skin cut off, lamb shanks maybe once a fortnight, same with beef chunks. They don't mind chicken hearts & lamb kidney but I can't get them to eat chicken livers - only the packet vet's treat liver. Very occasionally they get tinned sardines & raw egg. Raw chat forums say to feed 2 - 3% of a dog's adult weight per day.

Here are suggestions on what to feed.

http://rawfeddogs.net/Recipes/

[Esky the husky]

Hi all..Bumping this up with a few questions.

Used to feed fully raw, but the sibe won't touch any offal. So it's always been super disgusting trying to make her up mince.. Uuuuuh can't touch liver.. makes my stomach churn...

And since we started racing we won a fair bit of dry food. So Esky has been on a mixed diet..

Anyway, my young feller will eat anything you give him. I remember once watching as he devoured a whole pigeon in front of me. :laugh: prey model!

He eats a LOT.. 3-4 cups of dry AND a fair hit of meat a night. Ouch.

Thinking he might be a good raw dog once his growing is done.. DOn't want to risk growing him out wrong ..

With really active dogs, what % of bodyweight do you feed?

Also anyone with performance dogs- mine are sled dogs- do you have concerns about feeding bones the night before hard work? A few hunters I've talked to don't feed bones before a hunt, as the dogs are obviously very active running through bush, jumping around etc and are concerned about internal organ punctures with bones.. Is that a legit concern?

I don't give bones the night before a race simply because I can't always get her to poo before she runs

[huski]

Esky I still stick with 2-3% of their body weight unless the dog has a fast metabolism. Wiz has a very fast metabolism as well as being extremely active so will eat more like 5% of her body weight each day.

For performance dogs I feed Super Fuel (natural supplement) in meals each day and give them a drink of Go Dog before and after heavy work outs.

My dogs eat bones daily regardless of what they are doing the next day.