Another Question about the RAW diet

jasmine said:
Yikes!!!!!! the fresh ones are scary things, i cant imagine how horrid the dried ones would look :(

Fresh ones please CT :)
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Then maybe a decent butcher? I saw them in the Irish Family Butcher in Burnt Oak near me the other day. I'm not sure why you're after them, tho, really. There's no meat, they're small? I'd rather a wing or carcass.
 
Jasmine I am still waiting for my consignment of turkey feet! Have you tried any local farmers? I am feeding Vit C tabs at East Kent's suggestion and codliver oil, and that SA37 powder that was recommended to me is now called S50 or SA50 or something, MurphysMinder tells me :)
 
CC, turkey feet will be pretty big :D I will have a look for the powder.

Just to add, Elliot had the chicken feet for about a fortnight (one every two days) and you could already see an improvement in his pasterns :)
 
Yeah, definitely going to look into it, I am hanging on to the fact that his dad's feet are the same and he has had five years of work and has managed!
The vet put the wind up me the other night by saying there was quite a lot of movement in his cruciates but then a Sheppy person told me to stop panicking, he IS only six months old :p had him swimming tonight for a little while so hopefully that will help too when he is old enough to do more :)
 
We're now into a month of raw feeding.

Both dogs have adjusted happily. Salem rarely itches now and old Xara has a spring in her step!

We're feeding chicken wings, ox heart and various free ribs from a butcher.

Plan is to add more meat and some organ soon.

I tried chicken liver (5% of diet ratio) and neither would eat them until I seared them.

I have no kitchen for the next 2 weeks, so any further plans need to wait until then.

I will be able to facilitate a spare freezer once the kitchen rebuilt, so worth the wait.

Had to carve up ox hearts in the garden the other morning. Frightened my neighbour's daughter with the huge knife and gore......

Managed to get the costs to around £35 a week so far, but that should drop when I can get the freezer and bulk buy.

I tried raw fish the other week - cue fish vomits all night on the carpet - yikes!
 
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They seem to be happy enough.....
 
Costs me about £4 a week per dog (big freezer).

Re fish, mine were bad to start with. I feed them sprats (2 per meal) and tinned sardines/pilchards or very bland white fish now.
 
I have been feeding RAW for a few months now via Natural Instinct (word of mouth from Ringcraft and friends on the Border Collie Show circuit). Reading all this I can see that I am going to find it much more affordable if I start sourcing at least some meals elsewhere!!

I have 2 questions from what I am finding from my 2 dogs:

1) They sometimes seem slightly constipated (my bitch also had to have her anal glands emptied) what would people suggest to help?

2) Chatting to the lady at Natural Instinct when I was there the other day she said never to feed pork raw. It is the one meat they don't sell in meal or bone form. Why do you think this would be?

Thanks in advance!!
 
I've no problem with pork.

Bacteria wouldn't bother a dog's stomach and parasites are killed when meat is frozen first.

Constipation is usually a sign of too much bone and not enough meat content.

My old girl is merrily eating chicken wings, but being a pain with the ox heart - so she is constipated at the moment.
 
cinammontoast said:
Costs me about £4 a week per dog (big freezer).

Re fish, mine were bad to start with. I feed them sprats (2 per meal) and tinned sardines/pilchards or very bland white fish now.
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I'll stick with the pilchards in sauce - we're safe with them;)

I totally fail to see how you get it down to £4 per dog?
 
I spend about £35 a month on three dogs.

From Landywoods I buy

2 bags of tripe chunks
2 bags of chicken chunks
2 bags of turkey wings
1 bag of poultry necks


from the butchers I get
2kg of carcass a week about 50p-£1/free depending on what butcher serves me lol. They have a carcass alongside chunks of tripe or chicken.
Bag of rib bones 50p


From our friend I get free pork (organic pig farmer)

Pigs head- they have this once a week and have a fatty day and normally have a starve day or just a token feed the next, they dont get walked the day they have pigs head as the literally pig out and spend the rest of the day sleeping and digesting

Trotters-Will gets one every day

Tails-treats, Dylan swallows them whole :)

Offal-heart, lungs, kidney, airway. I tend to give this to them each as and entire piece still together, they get walked in the morning nd then have this for the evening. They have this maybe once a fortnight as it is a lot of offal.


Only Teal has ever had tapeworm but Dylan and Will didn't, so I dont think it was from the pork more likely the manky things he finds when out on a walk.
 
I don't worry about pork. If you do worry, freeze for two weeks before feeding.

Bone is supposed to stop Amal glands being a problem according to other raw feeders. I have no idea if this is true or not.

Oberon said:
I'll stick with the pilchards in sauce - we're safe with them;)

I totally fail to see how you get it down to £4 per dog?
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Per week, this is.

Green tripe is 35p for 454g/lb. So that's enough for one dog per day. Multiply by 7 equals £2.45. Obviously, they have a huge variety of meat, offal, bone and some things are more expensive. Chicken wings are 97p a kilo so under 50p a day if I'm feeding mostly bone one day. (My lot eat about 4-600g a day. I feed by eye and 600g is the max they should have for breed standard/actual weight average of both.)

I spent a ruddy fortune when I first started on raw. My advice to anyone thinking about it is source before you start and make eyes at the butcher. :D
 
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Managed £20 this week (4 Ox hearts, 2 bags of chicken wings and a bag of boney icky bits for free).
It's getting cheaper each time I go to the butcher - and this week I name dropped my family - who've owned the business next door to the butcher for many years;)

Then I spent £3 for a bag of frozen tripe from Pets at Home to start them on.

Can't WAIT till I have a kitchen again and then can have another freezer......I can get some organs from Landywoods then.

I've bought some Cod Liver Oil to give them as I'm scared of trying raw fish again after the Fish4Vomit experience last week.

I'm panic ing about Vitamin E now - I'm hearing from the net that they need it???
 
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MydnightShadow said:
I have been feeding RAW for a few months now via Natural Instinct (word of mouth from Ringcraft and friends on the Border Collie Show circuit). Reading all this I can see that I am going to find it much more affordable if I start sourcing at least some meals elsewhere!!

I have 2 questions from what I am finding from my 2 dogs:

1) They sometimes seem slightly constipated (my bitch also had to have her anal glands emptied) what would people suggest to help?

2) Chatting to the lady at Natural Instinct when I was there the other day she said never to feed pork raw. It is the one meat they don't sell in meal or bone form. Why do you think this would be?

Thanks in advance!!
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In answer to question (1) Fibre
 
Just to throw it out there....

Dogs can live a very happy healthy life on a vegitarian diet...

So this begs the question if your feeding just meat and bones where do they get the rest of their nutrients from?
 
I stand to be corrected but I understand from other posters that fibre for a dog is fur and feather, not things like Weetabix or All Bran :p :)
Nutrients a dog needs are not the same as nutrients we need.
I feed tripe, chicken wings, a dry food as a training aid and oily fish to my young dog and he eats plenty of grass :p
My older dog is on a dry 'complete' food and also eats lots of grass.

Also, I am not doubting the vegetarian thing, I am sure my older dog could thrive on a vegetarian diet (in fact, that's pretty much what he does eat) as he is intolerant to high levels of protein.
Better vegetarian than some types of dog food :o
 
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But why the heck would you feed your dog a vegetarian diet?! There's a girl on another forum talking about this, but IMO, if you have dogs, it's only fair to feed them as properly as possible.
 
Better than B***** :p TBH a lot of the cheaper brand foods have more grain in them than meat content so it is swings and roundabouts really.
As mentioned previously, my older dog tore all his hair out and scratched until he bled on the raw diet, yeah maybe in time he would have adapted but I am never putting him through that again. He was truly miserable.
 
Regarding dogs vomiting on raw fish - I had this problem with Dylan when I first tried him on whole oily fish. He used to swallow whole & then chuck it up at least 3 times & re eat it, nice.

I tried giving it to him frozen so he had to gnaw it like a bone - success, problem solved. Might be worth a try.
 
My two reguritate and re eat oily fish especially - they have it in the morning so it the regurgitating happens in the garden!!:eek:

As daviesn says I think its the speed they eat it - but that is how they are designed to digest it - it is probably linked to the oil and bone content - but by regurgitating it they are breaking it down into more easily digested parts:)

No one said dogs don't have disgusting habits;):D:D
 
Wouldn't mind if they actually re-ate it. But alas, the old girl found a rare bit of carpet in our house and left it there for hubby to stand in, and me to clean.......:(
 
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