Bakers

Well this is a really helpful thread.

Our working dogs all get a mix of dry food, bones from the butcher and tripe occasionally, but their workload is massively increased this time of year and if we dont hoof the dry food into them as well as bones they will drop weight super fast. In the winter they go back to dry 20% protein food for maintenance with the odd plucked pheasant or duck, and any fallow bones going.

The terrier (who was on bakers) always looks so good on it, she downright refuses to eat james wellbeloved and she does look really good on bakers, her poos are firm, her glands need doing far less, her coat looks shiny as ever and she keeps her weight on, something which at 14 she struggles with (i think its worth saying that at 14 she is still a lean, hyper and healthy dog (ahem...human) with no dulling of her coat, weird smells or old aged paunch)

BUT i did give her half a fallow leg bone last night to chew on, (we had the meat as a roast but there was loads on the bone still for her) and three hours later found it pretty much untouched in my BED! actually under the covers, so im assuming raw meat really isnt her thing.

Disclaimer, when i say she is human, i mean it. :)
 
My vet said the other day that one of the main things he sees done which annoys him is people feeding wet or adding protein on top of a dry complete diet..?

ETA mine didn't want JWB either when they came off their heinous puppy food. Few days later they sure wanted it, they weren't up for killing themselves :D who wants to eat salad and lean meat when they have had maccy d's every day of their lives? :D
 
Another thumbs up for Prize Choice here, they stack neatly in the freezer drawer and would easily keep for a week in the fridge.

I get my butcher to do me roughly 2kg of chicken wings split into four freezer bags, fits into a small freezer drawer with room to spare, again a bag can keep for a week in the fridge if needs be - £5 a time. :)

I've just looked at ASDA online and they are £1.89/kg, I need to start braving the unwashed hordes. :p
 
Prize choice do chicken wings too......

Ok once back off hols Fat pants needs to be on raw..... so will read sticky- go to butcher with low cut top on (for bones) and rely on prize choice......

One small problem the one and only thing I have ever seen him spit out is a piece of raw chicken....................
 
I don't feed raw and dry at the same time/the same meal, it is not recommended.
In fairness a lot of that food is *sold* as an accompaniment to dry, wet and mixer was a very big idea in the 1980s.

Of course raw doesn't suit every dog, two of mine included.
 
CaveCanem said:
I don't feed raw and dry at the same time/the same meal, it is not recommended.
In fairness a lot of that food is *sold* as an accompaniment to dry, wet and mixer was a very big idea in the 1980s.

Of course raw doesn't suit every dog, two of mine included.
Click to expand...

Thats what i was reading- "coats dry in lovely meaty yadda yadda".... I know back in the day mum used to feed meat with a biscuit mixer....
 
ermmm, I just wanted to say, I pay less than £15 for my Skinners :o:)
This time of year my dogs feed themselves, mainly on rabbit, but as we all know, cos Stephen fry has told us, if you eat only rabbit you will die... so I still fill their bowls with Skinners Maintenance Field & Trial.
As to RAW, I'll be very honest here - I just couldn't be bothered, really. Also, all this talk about cheap meat... How come we want to be ethical about what meat WE eat, but it is allright for our dogs to eat meat that has been battery/mass produced?
 
But your dogs do eat raw :p rabbits are raw :p

I really don't get where this 'it's so hard, it's so much effort, it's so complicated' thing comes from.

Re meat - I don't really eat meat unless I am out at a restaurant/cafe.
Those Prize Choice blocks are mostly by-products anyway,would rather my dog ate it than it was incinerated.
I am not particularly ethical either :p my father used to work for battery farms and hatcheries and eventually went into inspection roles, I am comfortable with my dietary choice and the choices I make on behalf of my dogs.
 
CC, it's not so much effort, no time, difficult - I just don't want to do it, I am not that keen on handling raw meat and certainly not comfortable with my dogs running around carrying dead, raw fish, that's all.
Rabbits are raw, very raw indeed :D as long as they are consumed in the fields or somewhere behind the muckheap, I don't mind :p :)

I am not questioning your dietary choices at all, I'm not comfortable with eating non free range/ethically raised meat myself, though :o
 
You think the shot they put in dog food is ethically raised? No it has also been proven to contain levels of pheno. Yay for euthanised animals in your dog food.

For what its worth almost all of my meat comes from local farms but I would sure as bell rather feed them poor quality meat than almost any of the dog food available in England.
 
katielou said:
You think the shot they put in dog food is ethically raised? No it has also been proven to contain levels of pheno. Yay for euthanised animals in your dog food.
Click to expand...
What? All dog food in the uk (you don't specify dry or wet or any brand) doesn't come from ethically farmed animals AND contains pheno? That's a pretty huge claim!
 
No one ever heard about threatening a horse with the dog food factory?!
I would say the vast majority of meat products in mass-produced dog food was from anmals which were themselves mass-produced in the cheapest possible way.
 
Neither can I. But then he doesn't eat steak.

It is much cheaper for the farmer to give me bags of waste than it is for him to pay to have them taken away.

Not all dog food is bad but most of it I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
 
It's a really good point though guys, you think about what you are trying to achieve by feeding your dog WELL. It's abourt welfare. So why on the way to giving your dog a good standard of welfare - should you poo on another animals welfare.

I have first hand experience of how expensive it is to farm animals WELL. In order to be viable it needs to ellicit a good return. If there is high demand for cheap meats, a corner willbe cut somewhere - and where will that be?

Why demand the best for your dogs, but expect the cheapness that reflects the worst for the animal they are eating?

Just a few musings!
 
Do you really think the meat and fish content in JWB/Skinners, indeed, Pedigree, Bakers etc is organic, free range, etc?

Which particular parts of the raw diet are we talking about that are so unethical?
Tesco chicken wings from the bargain bin? Lamb kidneys? Meat by products which would be chucked or incinerated? Loads of people here are saying they get their meat from their local butcher. Hardly unethical.
 
You misread my point, I'm debating - at no point did I say my stance on it... :)

No I don't think the meat in JWB is ethically treated - BUT one thing I can say is price doesn't motivate what I feed my dogs. I wonder would the raw brigade still feed it with such gusto - should they have to pay through the nose for it?

For those that wouldn't you have to ask is the real motivator price or welfare?
 
BoolavogueDC said:
It's a really good point though guys, you think about what you are trying to achieve by feeding your dog WELL. It's abourt welfare. So why on the way to giving your dog a good standard of welfare - should you poo on another animals welfare.

I have first hand experience of how expensive it is to farm animals WELL. In order to be viable it needs to ellicit a good return. If there is high demand for cheap meats, a corner willbe cut somewhere - and where will that be?

Why demand the best for your dogs, but expect the cheapness that reflects the worst for the animal they are eating?

Just a few musings!
Click to expand...
Thank you! Glad somebody understood my point :)

Just to clear one thing - I don't care much for organic, organic is good for the soil, not necessarily for the animal raised on it :o
 
martlin said:
Thank you! Glad somebody understood my point :)

Just to clear one thing - I don't care much for organic, organic is good for the soil, not necessarily for the animal raised on it :o
Click to expand...

Me either on the organic front- amazing what they can use as pesticides because they are themselves "organic". Not everything in nature is nicey nicey LO)L
 
Welfare of course, for me personally, it would be much, much cheaper for me to feed JUST Skinners and nothing else, or indeed, Bakers :p to me price is the motivator for a lot of the NON raw 'brigade'. How many times do we see here people saying that suggested foods that might suit their dogs better in terms of allergies or intolerances or coat condition is 'too expensive'.

My older dog's food is almost £40 a sack. I have been through a lot of heartache trying to find a diet and a lifestyle for him which means he is not in discomfort or pain. I will do whatever it takes to keep that dog stable. The food I used to feed him, which has sadly been discontinued, was, reading the label, certainly not a premium food and it was cheap. But he wasn't tearing his hair out. I cannot feed him raw, merely top up his diet with it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top