Raw Feeding Isn’t Rocket Science But..?
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Question & Answer on
Oct 28th, 2009 |
3 responses
i just don’t get it besides chicken stuff. i don’t get bone and phosphorus ratios and what %s and how to figure it out. i don’t get where people get bison hearts or elk liver. i even joined yahoo groups about raw feeding and read sites. i need a “raw for dummies” book lol..
so if you raw feed..can you write what you give each day, how much your dog weighs and where you buy your raw food please? ty so much.
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I mix up chicken, beef mince and raw meaty beef bones.
The majority of their diet is chicken..and along side that they get a small amount of bikkies.
I feed them cooked veggies (they only eat cooked veggies) maybe every few days.
I don’t know maybe I should be more worried…but all I can think of is canned food is the same crap over and over. So if I feed them a variety of raw meat and vegetables I don’t know how that could be worse than canned food because it’s all fresh. And i’m not worried about the amount of what and when to give them this n that because in the wild they eat old rotting meat and i’m sure their main source of veggies comes from the meat they eat.
Every few days I cook up mince and gravy and put a small amount of veggies and rice through it.
I think you should just relax… if your dog starts acting sick or getting too skinny or too fat then definitely start changing their diet… i’m sure you’ll do fine!
Hope you can understand my logic haha.
p.s my vet says my dogs are a fine weight.
edit: Yeah thats how I see it. If you feed them canned, it has the same meats in it all the time…. so mixing up raw meat has to be better. Do you think dogs in the wild hunt down elk and eat that certain bit of them? I think some ppl take it a little too far hah. g’luck
Bless your heart- you must really love your dog to do all this.
But you know, seriously if I were you and I wanted a diet comparable enough with raw to be comfortable as a supplement if I were afraid of getting ratios wrong etc., I would simply feed Innova EVO. EVO has such a high protein/fat content, I know some raw folks that switched to it and are very pleased. If you read the contents, you’ll be pleased. You’re giving yourself a headache making the whole raw thing into rocket science and you mean well, just try feeding EVO or supplementing your raw with EVO.
Yay! Thanks for feeding your dogs the right diet.
They’ll appreciate the time and effort, even if they don’t know it, lol.
I wouldn’t recommend pork… too many strange things used to preserve it and I won’t even eat it myself!
Here’s the easiest way to get an idea of how much food per day: http://www.raw4dogs.com/calculate.htm Doesn’t get any easier than that, right?
I don’t know how big your dog is, where you live, etc. I rely mainly on chicken, turkey, lamb and fish. Also, raw eggs are a beautiful thing and I actually do use a tiny bit of the premade raw frozen diets from time to time, since it’s the only affordable way for me to give my guy venison or rabbit
Tiny amounts of beef are normally ok, too. Some dogs are sensitive, so careful!
I buy my food at the grocery and freeze it, thawing portions out in the fridge a day or two ahead of time. ?I just go by the best unit price, and buy something fancy when I feel saucy, lol. There are a lot of different opinions on percentages out there, so I keep it simple:
I give my dog mainly plain raw meat, including a little bit of organs once or twice a week. That makes up about 50% – 75% of the diet. The next big thing I feed is the RMBs… I just avoid anything that’s too huge and jawbreaky. Chicken and turkey necks, drumsticks, small bone-in steaks, a whole chicken from time-to-time. The rest is just the little extras: organic grain-free treats, raw eggs, and my dude digs veggies so l let him have a small carrot stick from time-to-time.
If your dog gets constipated, cut back on the bone. If the stools are too loose, cut away some of the fatty parts from the meat (skin, etc) and add a little more bone. Good investment = really really nice poultry shears! I got a pair at Bed Bath & Beyond for like $30 or $40 bucks and I don’t know how I lived with a knife alone for so long, lol.
Try amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com to see what books you can find on raw, as well.
My first (and favorite) book was “Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats” by Kymythy R. Schultze. I love all of the detailed REASONS to rawfeed, because I think it’s good to know why the heck you’re doing something, lol. There are also comparison charts between cooked, raw, and commercial pet foods, etc. She gives sample schedules for feeding a dog, as well. There’s a fantastic chart that compares cooked meats against raw, and explains the pros and cons. Cooked meat doesn’t have the same nutritional value as raw, by a longshot!
The only part I take with a grain of salt is that she recommends a really demented amount of vitamin supplements. The general consensus around other rawfeeders I know is that this is an unnecessary waste of money if nothing is wrong with the dog and the meat sources are good. They poop out vitamins that they don’t need, lol. I do like to give efa oils from time to time, since my guy is sort of a wuss about eating fish!
MAKE SURE YOU FREEZE any salmonids (salmon, trout, etc) that you are planning to feed for a minimum of 24 hours before thawing and feeding it to your pet. Salmonids can carry disease that is killed by freezing. Also, if you catch the fish, hack it open, rip out the belly and look for hooks and rubber baits!!! I’m always tossing out the weird stomach contents of the fish I catch, lol. I also like to cut off the spiny parts on fish with pointy things 0_o
Good luck! Don’t get too worried on the details, anything remotely like what I described is a thousand times better than Science Diet or any of that other corn-based, grain jammed crap out there!