Raw Feeding Means Less Parasites?
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Question & Answer on
Nov 1st, 2009 |
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I am currently trying to create a sheet of the yearly expense of raw feeding over kibble so i can persuade my parents. I want to have everything in order before I completely present the idea. I have read a lot about healthy dogs being less atractive to parasites such as fleas, ticks, and heartworms. Is this true? How long will it take a dog to become healthy enough that the fleas won’t be interested persay? I am trying to figure out at what point we will save money on flea preventions, etc. Also has anyone ever figured out how much they save a year by going raw?
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I’ve been raw feeding for 15 years. I never had issues with fleas until I moved from a place with relatively few of them to a place that has them nearly year around. I don’t believe diet does anything for fleas… some of my dogs get them worse than others (the Samoyed seems less susceptible than the Bernese).
As far as internal parasites- I see no real difference. In my experience, stressed an unhealthy dogs have more issues with worms.
One difference I will note– My dogs seem to deal with intestinal upset much better than most dogs. When I travel with friends whose kibble fed dogs contract giardia or coccydia at dogshows, my dogs never seem to be affected.
As far as the expense of raw feeding– there is a huge variety of ways you can cut the expense– I feed 3 Bernese and a Samoyed for less $ on raw than it would cost me to feed them a high quality kibble.
I should also mention I feed a primarily prey model raw diet- I say “primarily” because I do also feed my dogs kibble as treats/training aids (rather than feeding them JUNK) and I also regularly feed them leftovers and scraps. I believe this form of feeding is closest to what my grandparents fed their dogs who lived nearly 3-5 years longer than the same breed lives today on average.
If you’re in a region that has heartworm do NOT skimp on the medication.
we feed our dog raw, and from our own expeirence, fleas seem to bite them anyway . HOWEVER, like you probably realize, there ARE other benefits to feeding raw over kibble.
People who fear their dogs getting E.coli and parasites need to realize that chicken, cows, etc don’t naturally carry parasites or e.coli. E. coli and parasite present in cows that get passed on to humans or our pets are a result of poor raising grounds. That is to say, most of our chickens and cows and other livestock are raised in feed lots that breed overcrowding. Feedlots also feed their animals parts of other animals, even cows (said to cause the prion bourne disase Mad Cow, or bovine spongiform encephalitis). Parasites and other food illnesses, are, in short, a matter of how the animals themselves are raised and after-slaughter food safety handling issues.
In short, YES, a dog can get parasites and other food born illnesses, but that’s NOT due to eat raw meat. It’s due to eat poorly raised, poorly handled raw meat. People eat raw meat, and if my boyfriend is any indication (he eats a lot of bloody beef), it’s relatively rare to get food bourne illnesses or parasites provided the animals are well cared for and prevented from getting parasites by giving good, natural grass feed and enough room so they’re not living in each other’s waste. In other words, if you feed your animals sick animals, you’ll end up with a sick animal. That, in itself, is a valid fear.
For these reasons, I believe it’s best to feed your animals only organic (meaning they aren’t fed parts of other animals or modified crops), free range (hard to define, still, under USDA standards, but better than nothing) animals.
We find that feeding dogs raw compares well to feeding our dogs a good dry kibble, even less.
Of course, what you do invest is time. When we don’t have time, we feed our animals commercial frozen diets. While we haven’t calculated in exactly dollar amount of how much we save, I am pretty confident it’s pretty comparable.
PS. Dogs, even were they to catch salmonella or e.coli don’t respond to it in the same way as humans. Their stomachs are more than able to deal with a meat diet (pH of 1 compared to a humans 4 or 5).
Fleas will bite healthy animals as soon as ill ones – the only thing to add to a diet that I have ever found to work is garlic – for some reason fleas and ticks are not keen on blood from animals which regularly ingest garlic. The raw diet made absolutely no difference to fleas and ticks.
Heartworms don’t seem to be an issue over here in the UK – I’ve never heard of a dog with them, so I can’t answer that.
Certainly a raw diet is excellent if done well – but you do have to be extremely careful to get all the nutrients and minerals in the correct quantities for your breed/weight/activity level of dog. Most dogs fed on the correct, good quality kibble are just as healthy as those fed on a raw diet – so really it is more a matter of personal preference than a health issue.
Raw diet is the best one can do for his/her dogs.
I do not believe in the “flea part” at all.
In my case I don’t save a penny but my dog loves it.
No vet will ever officially recommend “raw” diet.
It’s a pity.
Fleas, ticks and mosquitoes don’t care about what the dog eats, just like they don’t care what meal a person has consumed. You won’t be saving money on flea preventative nor heartworm medication.
I work at a vet clinic and we have a few clients who do the raw diet, and I can’t say that they have saved any money, per se. It’s more about personal preference rather than any real health benefits. You also need to make sure that the dog is getting the propper nutrition. I have seen some dogs being fed raw incorrectly, and ended up malnourished. Talk with your vet about what needs to be included in your dogs diet. Raw diet can be good, but it must be done correctly. You also must be careful about handling the dogs feces and food dishes because of the risk of salmonella and E.Coli to you.
Fleas are ALWAYS going to be interested in a dog. I’m not sure exactly what you are talking about as to raw feeding; but, if it is feeding the animal raw meat then you are looking at more problems with e-coli, parasites, etc.
Fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes (which spread heartworm) pay ABSOLUTELY no attention to the diet or the heath of the animal they prey on. Sorry, but this is not a point that can go on your “for raw diet” list!
Make sure you put on your list of consideration the medical drawbacks of raw diets – veterinarians are seeing a lot more vitamin deficiencies, intestinal perforations, and gastroenteritis (ie. food poisoning) because of the practice. If you want to go raw, may I suggest the compromise of cooked food, (to prevent food poisoning) following a veterinarian-confirmed medically sound feeding protocol, and minimizing the bones?
EDIT: They absolutely are lies, sorry gossip girl. If you want I can refer you to some text books. Parasites will take advantage of any host. Please keep your pup on flea, tick, and HW preventative!
I can refer you to textbooks on the GI system too – it’s the same as humans. They get food poisoning too!
I (I’m still a vet student) have seen intestinal perforations and GI problems first hand. Not yet enough hands on experience yet to have seen the deficiencies – I take that from the testimony of my mentors.
Hey there. I started feeding my 2 dogs raw 1-1/2 years ago and have had great results with their health and the cleanliness of their teeth. I was able to find a cheap source of chicken backs (40 lbs for $18 – from Bell and Evans, see if your grocery store or butcher can special order this for you)
I also feed plain yogurt, canned pumpkin, prepared Bravo! – brand venison, rabbit, and beef, plus vegetables (apples, broccoli, carrots, dandelion greens, kale, blueberries, parsley, squash) which I prepare in a blender. People who feed raw are pretty sharply divided on whether to feed veggies or not.
Speaking of opinions, you might want to join some of the Yahoo! Groups on raw feeding :
BARFLite
K-9 Raw Feeding
RawChat
RawPaws, etc. These groups are great sources for info.
My current Vet thinks that it’s fine that I feed raw. My old vet in Brooklyn did not wholeheartedly recommend it, but then, they had a whole front office full of food they were selling, so…..
Good luck!