About to go RAW (& rather nervous!)

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Inthemud

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I found this forum about a week ago and started reading the RAW food sticky.

I've always fed my dogs complete food and while they seemed happy and lived to a good age, the RAW idea seems to make so much sense.

Anyway, I've read up about it until my head hurts, have just bought an extra freezer and plan to place my first order on Monday.

For some reason though, I'm really quite nervous. I suppose I have spent so many years being told not to feed chicken bones and doling out biscuit, that it all seems very new.

I have a 12 week old whippet pup and really want to do the very best I can for her, so please excuse any seriously daft questions over the next few weeks!

What a fab mine of information this forum is - so much knowledge and great advice. :)
 
Welcome to the forum, we have been feeding our 7months LH pup on raw for about 3 weeks you may find this useful http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/111437-raw-feeding-everything-you-need-know.html

Like you we are newbies and having just aquired a dedicated freezer we are going down this route. I hope to do the same with my 2 Dobes and we have had a word with our local butcher we have ordered chicken and turkey carcasses. We have also bought lots of chicken necks and have a couple of rabbits in the freezer.

Ask away for any info as there are loads of people on here who feed raw and will be only too glad to answer any queries.http://preymodelraw.com/how-to-get-started/ This is also good
 
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May I ask, those who feed raw what do you feed your dogs? Is there a chance that someone could put up a weekly 'plan' for 21kg collie - for example:
Mon - chicken carcass, 2 carrots and an egg.

Thanks :)
 
Hello and welcome :)

I was scared of RAW too lol! I now feed RAW alternate days to her complete food. The things I began feeding (which I consider the least scary) were :
mince (on a Sunday evening.. proper cheap from the supermarket!)
chicken fillets,
tinned fish in tomato sauce (pilchards, mackeral etc),

I have now plucked up courage to speak to Butcher and he gave me some offall... which is pleasant =/ lol

eta - ooh and raw eggs with the shell.... although the first couple of times I had to break the egg so she realised what was inside :)
 
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Yay, I had an awesome haul from our butcher yesterday!

My young dog is about large collie size at the mo, he gets a chicken carcass in the morning, three frozen Kongs during the day, at the moment filled with either liver or tripe, and then another meaty bone of some description, lamb neck, turkey back etc. He is also fed from my pocket for training, usually chicken mince or cheapo chicken roll.
You can mix it up with the ready-made raw stuff like Natural Instinct's working mixes or DUCK.
 
Your collie is about the same size as my springers. Remember the basic rule of feeding 2-3 % of the dog's weight (if not dieting or wanting to put on weight)

I order from the Dog Food Company (hard to contact, but so worth it, keep pestering) who will deliver anywhere south of Lincolnshire but not down to the south coast.

http://www.thedogfoodcompany.co.uk/products.html

Products eg tripe come in 2lb bags only so remember that if ordering.

Morrisons are also fab for heart, kidney, liver, pig trotters, lamb bones. Try your local butcher too.

You're meant to feed 80:10:10 meat, bones, offal. I do slightly more bones. Start slowly with only chicken for the first two weeks, then add in one different protein source at a time (to check for allergies) and go very slow with offal or you may get an exploding bum. :eek:

My staple is lamb tripe and chicken, wings, carcasses, necks, cheap cuts. DFC wings are huge. Supervise bone eating to start with.

In terms of what to feed ,it's a personal choice. Dogs can't digest plant material unless it's blended because they can't break down the cell walls/cellulose.

My lot get about 4-500 grams a day, more if they've had a lot of exercise. The get a mix of chicken mince (includes bone from DFC), lamb or green or lumps of tripe, offal, sprats (bought fresh locally), whole raw eggs, tinned fish in tomato sauce, chicken carcass, beef mince, bones. As long as you're roughly giving the right percentages over the week, don't fret about the ratio daily.

The one thing most raw feeders seem to do is buy a massive freezer! Read the stickies, especially the first two pages of the link Dobiegirl put up. There's also a list of suppliers on that other forum and a few on our sticky ^
 
Dunno, really. Green is common. I get lamb tripe and lumps of tripe, which is great for teeth cleaning, like flossing. Green tripe is a staple for many raw feeders and usually much loved by dogs who are otherwise fussy. Possibly because, yes, it freaking stinks like the worst bad breath! :eek:
 
The smell!!!!!!!!!! LOL

When you first start feeding raw it is best to start with one meat and then after a few days introduce another.

If you are feeding chicken and the dog gets an upset feed the next lot without the skin. The skin contains all the elements f the stuff they give chickens to make them grow faster.

Beware of feeding to much liver at once until the dogs are use to it.

I have never fed anything but raw (following on from my parents) and the basis is green tripe. I think, unless you buy it already minced and frozen, you can only get it from a local abattoir as butchers cannot have it transported with meat for consumption.
I can assure you that even the freshest tripe still has a distinctive odour and if it has got a little 'old' that gets worse.

I have a strong stomach and it doesn't bother me at all. It is one of the best things to start a dog on as it contains the good flora which will aid their digestion.

I feed road kill which at the moment is a lot of pheasant and deer. As said tripe, pigs heads and trotters, lights (lungs) liver and at the moment thanks to having four Foxhounds from the local hunt mine are getting prime beef, veal and horse. They also get bones.

I do not weigh any foods as I have an eye for it. If a dog drops weight or has been very active, they get more, if showing a weight gain, less. I never cut it up for the young dogs, they get it thrown to them in chunks. Three elderly terriers I do cut it for them. Two of these dogs have very bad teeth due to being allowed to chew on stones and the other has difficulty in swallowing. (I think there is something nasty in her throat but we are waiting for test results from the vets)

I tell you, as I was cutting chunks of beef to feed tonight I was tempted to have a chunk fried for me!
 
I don't weigh either :o

My friend have raw green tripe, minced with chicken then minced again with fish.
I thought I had a strong stomach until I got a whiff of that stuff. It is fantastic food but truly eyewatering!
 
CaveCanem said:
I don't weigh either :o

My friend have raw green tripe, minced with chicken then minced again with fish.
I thought I had a strong stomach until I got a whiff of that stuff. It is fantastic food but truly eyewatering!
Click to expand...

Having been around several casualty slaughter houses and hunt kennels I can assure you I would rather have tripe than a sheep that is a week past its die by date in the summer!

A few months back the dogs found a road kill Bambi that had to have died a couple of week previously. They thought it was a Michelan 5* I thought differently!
 
Basis for me is tripe


I stopped weighing after droppin the dog scales.

So I would say Teal (24kg) gets in a dog bowl (think human breakfast bowl, medium dog bowl size)
I have no set menu per say but this is what he typically gets (I think 400-500g but then they have big food days followed by a token feed day)

good handful of tripe + turkey wing

good handful of tripe+ chicken carcass + back

good handful of tripe + trotter

Handful turkey necks + heart

Handful turkey necks + fish (normally sardines/salmon heads + tails/ cheap mackeral)

Then on weekends:

Whole pigs head

Trachea, kidney, lungs, heart, liver (all joined up) they get this once a month its pig.

This time of year (for best price...freee):

Pheasant
Rabbit
venison leg, neck, spine
Boar


They tend to get a egg once in a while, yoghurt if I have some going spare, and get various beef ribs, lamb ribs, trotters, knuckle bones for short periods, pig tails.


I need to review what I am feeding as I have got lazy especially this time of year where I have bags of rabbit and pheasnat shoved in the freezer.

I feed to what I see in them, at the moment Dylan (my forever growing puppy 1yr old)and Buster (my new boy who is a bit skinny) are getting the above + sardine or extra tripe.
 
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Toffee that's brilliant, thanks!
I have given some pigeon with the breasts taken off but my dog has turned his nose up at it! Can I make it more appetising or should I just throw it?
 
My 12 week old malamute pups, weighing in at 13 kgs (not fat at all, have little puppy waists LOL) have:
Breakfast - 1 chicken quarter each
Lunch - handful of mince or offal, tablespoon of pureed veg (carrots, peppers, beansprouts, broccolli, cauli, and spring greens), yoghurt, cottage cheese, egg. They have a mix of these, veggies one day, or yoghurt, etc
Supper - 1 1/2 chicken carcasses (sometimes 2 if they look a bit lightweight) or beef, pork etc followed by a small piece of apple, melon, orange, whatever.

My 10 year old samoyed, weighing in at 23kg, has the same but a bit less for supper, eg 1 carcass.

Not sure if this is helpful.

I was really nervous about going raw, as have always feed complete foods, but the malamute breeder, and lots of our sleddog friends feed raw, so I took some advice and filled the freezer. Never looked back - honestly once you've got your head around it, it's easy!

My neighbour has just got themselves a mini Dachshund pup, and I'm wondering whether it would be enough for a lunchtime snacket for the pups - I think they're wondering the same thing :D
 
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