Another Question about the RAW diet

Raw fed dogs really enjoy their meals......

MMMM green tripe
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MMMMM chicken feet (yes, those are toes hanging out of her mouth :) )
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Collected my first order from Natural Instinct yesterday, got a box full of stuff for just over £30, four tubs of the working turkey mince, week's work of lamb necks, week's worth of lamb spines, will report back!
Still loving the DUCK, it is very versatile in terms of making a Kong stuffing and also being able to use it for hand feeding, fits in a pocket and breaks up easily.
 
Butchers are hit and miss as they also give to a greyhound man locally, Tescos for lamb shoulder shanks and ribs, turkey legs if I am stuck, Natural Instinct do lamb necks, lamb ribs and lamb spines, chicken and turkey backs. I have the full price list somewhere but they have a website too?
Source a turkey farmer before Christmas - my boss' parents are turkey farmers and they have to pay to dispose of the waste product, I am trying to either get a van load of us to go down to him or he is going to bring a skip lorry up to us :p
 
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Definitely try another butcher, mine keeps bags of chicken bones and trimmings for me now. :)

Desperately wish we had a big chest freezer, last year he offered me sacks and sacks of turkey bits, they do a lot of boned rolled turkey butterfly joints so all the bones, legs and wings are discarded. :eek:

Morrisons also do packs of lamb bones for stock and other raw-friendly bits like hearts and trotters. :)
 
After reading this thread with great interest, I've decided our dog should go down the raw route. She has never enjoyed her food, not a big eater at all and can (and does) go for days without eating/eating very little. So on Sunday I bought her a chicken quarter and my OH cut off the drumstick for her and presented it to her for her tea. She ate the lot, then had another one last night. It's nice to see her excited for food and to see her enjoying eating.
So, a question- she weighs 6.5kg and is at the perfect weight, she was spayed last Thursday, vet very happy with her condition. Is 1 'fat' chicken leg enough/too much? My scales need a new battery so going by the pack the drumsticks weigh approx 180g. Can she have the rest of the quarter tonight, it seems to have less bone on it? Sorry for all the questions!
 
The ratio is usually 2-3% of their ideal bodyweight

So at per day, 6.5kg....130g - 195g.

80% meat would be 108g - 156g
10% bone would be 13.5g - 19.5g
5% organ would be 6.75g - 9.75g
5% liver would be 6.75g - 9.75g

These are the rough ratios that are when they are established at Raw feeding and they're not written in stone.

For the first two week's I'd stick to chicken pieces only. Then introduce different meats slowly. It's going too fast that makes the dog's unwell.

I found the advice from this site invaluable at first.
http://preymodelraw.com/how-to-get-started/
 
Ostrich said:
It sounds an obvious question, but where do you get your bones from? I get chicken carcasses from a local butcher, but they also sell them to the local takeaway places so quite often they dont have any in :( They tell me they dont have any 'waste' bones - mainly because I think they have realised they are on to a good thing, and charge pet owners for everything now :D

I think I shall try the other local butchers this weekend....
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I got fed up of scratching around at butchers every week and worrying about not getting the right amounts of everything so I order from Durham Animal Feeds each month and just dump it all in the spare freezer in the outhouse.

If you go around butchers and ask for what's in their slop buckets, you get a lot of stuff for free and then just buy what you need.

I'm too lazy to do that though;)
 
Buster just ate his first turkey wing, took him 20minutes bless him, least he ate his tripe quicker. His first meal of no kibble what so ever. At least he was really interested in it, he could quite happily stop eating skinners and wonder off :)

(hes going to be on just tripe and turkey for two weeks)
 
My terrier is 2 weeks into the raw diet and is loving it, squeaking at the fridge for her dinner every night! Can someone tell me if it's ok to give her a wee bit of liver this week or should I give her another full week on chicken?
 
threeponies said:
My terrier is 2 weeks into the raw diet and is loving it, squeaking at the fridge for her dinner every night! Can someone tell me if it's ok to give her a wee bit of liver this week or should I give her another full week on chicken?
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I left liver until week 8.
This is how I did it:

Week 1) & 2) Chicken
Week 3) and turkey
Week 4) add pork
Week 5) add fish (sardines are best, I just feed wild salmon oil though)
Week 6) add beef
Week 7) add kidney/organs
Week 8) add liver

I followed the advice on this site http://preymodelraw.com/how-to-get-started/

Going too fast will give your dog cannon butt and is the biggest cause of 'failure' of the Raw diet. Her stomach acid needs to be 'trained' to digest raw and bone and you shouldn't rush this.

When you do feed liver, if she isn't keen - try it frozen. Mine turn their noses up at organs but will enjoy it when frozen.
 
Weeks 4 - 6 can be in any order though, but I feel (and I'm NOT an expert in this) that Weeks 1 -3 and 7 - 8 are best left as they are.
 
I'm doing raw the lazy way and have Rocky on Natural Instinct. :o It's already minced and boxed up for us so we simply serve.

That said a couple of times a week he gets a bone instead (from Natural Instinct or the supermarket discount shelf).

Reasons mainly for being lazy are we both work full time, our local butcher feeds his own dogs raw (so there is none left over) and we don't have much freezer space.

He is absolutely thriving on it and is another that has gone from being a "wander off in the middle of dinner" type dog (on kibble) to wolfing it down in one go (on raw).

He looks healthy and most importantly (and our main reason for changing to raw) his poos are now solid and can actually be picked up! :D
 
The NI lamb spines, lamb necks and turkey backs are really good for bone. I'm saving the tubs of working mix so I can buy a big job lot of chicken mince or tripe, then defrost and decant it into them for less smell/mess and it will work out cheaper.
 
We are going the "easy" route too, using packs from Raw to Go.

As a newbie to raw feeding, I want to get used to how it all works first and may try DIY at some point in the future.

It is so funny to see a 12 week old whippet pup, discover her inner wolf, lol.
 
Some pet shops stock the Prize choice big packs of chicken necks, have bought a pack for mine when I ran out of everything recently (about £4), and they do meat and tripe chunks as well if you get stuck.
 
Ostrich said:
Blurggh fed herrings to mine tonight as they were cheap at Tescos, and two hours later Islay has just chucked the whole lot up again with no warning :o I suppose they are too rich for her, so I will wait for a while and give her some chicken instead :o All the dogs loved the herring though :)
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Oops! Chop up one, divide between three (?), freeze the rest. Mine always chuck if I give them too much new stuff.
 
Ostrich said:
Blurggh fed herrings to mine tonight as they were cheap at Tescos, and two hours later Islay has just chucked the whole lot up again with no warning :o I suppose they are too rich for her, so I will wait for a while and give her some chicken instead :o All the dogs loved the herring though :)
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I had this problem with Dylan eating oily fish.

I now feed it frozen so that he has to nibble & bite chunks off rather than swallow it whole. This has made a huge difference & he is no longer sick after eating. Might be worth a try?
 
It happened to me too:(

I heard whole sardines were the best fish to feed as they mature quickly and don't take in as many pollutants? But I found them hard to get hold of, so I've given up in favour of Wild Salmon Tablets.

Much easier and Salem thinks he's getting a treat every night;)
 
Whippet pup initially fell on her raw to go chicken, but is currently refusing to eat it until I heat it up for half a minute in the microwave (!).

Should I just put it down at room temp, for 10 minutes and then remove and let hunger kick in? Would do this for an adult dog, but not sure about a 14 week old pup?

Really don't want to train her into being a finnicky feeder, but don't want to mess up her growing either.

All advice gratefully received!
 
Inthemud said:
Whippet pup initially fell on her raw to go chicken, but is currently refusing to eat it until I heat it up for half a minute in the microwave (!).

Should I just put it down at room temp, for 10 minutes and then remove and let hunger kick in? Would do this for an adult dog, but not sure about a 14 week old pup?

Really don't want to train her into being a finnicky feeder, but don't want to mess up her growing either.

All advice gratefully received!
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Do the put it down for ten minutes thing or hand feed to get her going, just not forever or you'll have to rename her Tricky Woo! Why not hea it as you have been doing? If it's straight from the fridge it might not smell as stinky and nice.
 
Xara tried to bring her green tripe indoors.

I slammed the door in her face.....and she just stood there with it in her mouth until I gave in
:(

Who says an old dog can't teach a human new tricks.....:p

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My terrier has been doing well on raw for 6/7 weeks but on Friday she sort of choked on a chicken wing bone (eating too fast) and had to go to the vet for xrays to make sure the bone wasn't stuck. She is ok, no stuck bones, but I'm now a bit apprehensive to give her chicken again. She has been having beef mince and oxtails since Saturday but yesterday she struggled to poo and was squealing :( Can someone hold my hand/kick my backside and tell me what to give her please?
 
If she's eating too fast & not chewing properly I'd give her bigger bits so that she has to chew - chunks the size of her head or bigger would be best. Try chicken legs/quarters or carcasses, or turkey wings/necks.

If you are only in week 6 I guess you are still slowly introducing different 'animals'. If you tell us what you have introduced so far we might be able to suggest other things.

If her pooh is too firm she needs less bone & more meat. Have you introduced offal or fish yet? Liver can sometimes be a bit rich & some dogs take time to accept liver & kidney, but heart, lights (lungs) & tripe should be ok. Oily fish (mackerel, sardines etc) are great, but I need to feed them frozen otherwise the lab swallows whole & brings it back up several times.

I hope this helps a bit.
 
davisn, she has been having chicken up to week 5, week 6 I introduced the beef and she has had a few meals with beef/pork mince with her chicken. I tried her with sprats but she wouldn't eat them, not even frozen. She had beef mince tonight do I wait a couple of days before giving her bone again?
 
threeponies said:
davisn, she has been having chicken up to week 5, week 6 I introduced the beef and she has had a few meals with beef/pork mince with her chicken. I tried her with sprats but she wouldn't eat them, not even frozen. She had beef mince tonight do I wait a couple of days before giving her bone again?
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I'd ease off on the quantity of bone you are feeding. You are aiming for firm pooh, but it shouldn't cause straining or pain for her to pass motions. You could try introducing some green tripe, ox tongue or heart or maybe some chunks of braising steak (often reduced in supermarkets).
 
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