Feeding raw - some questions please :)

FestiveSpirit

FestiveSpirit

Well-Known Member
Joined
20 March 2009
Messages
10,715
Visit site
I have been given permission to get a freezer :eek: so I am seriously considering changing to feeding my three raw? This is inspired by meeting Sarah-Jane at Hartpury with her greyhounds, they were in great condition and more importantly had fabulous teeth :):):)

So I have a lot of questions please :)

Where do you get your raw from? There are two local butchers and a chicken processing factory in my local town, so these might be options :)

How much do you pay? SarahJane said her raw is incredibly cheap - at the moment I pay approx £45 per month to feed mine (2 sacks of Skinners Duck and Rice per month) so would be hoping to save money if possible and definitely not pay more than that:)

Do you need to feed a variety of raw food? I am thinking that the chicken processing factory is my most likely source of cheap raw, but would they need variety in what they get?

Can I still feed kibble on occasion? I am thinking of times when I might be going away for the weekend or similar, no way would I want to be having to take raw with me, so would I be able to feed Skinners on those days? I know I cannot feed Skinners and raw on the same day though :)

How would I change over from kibble to raw - and what are the consequences? :p Do I just do it in one go, or feed raw alternatively with kibble for a while? Also are they going to get upset stomachs whilst they adapt to raw?

How much would I feed per day? The three are all roughly the same size, approx 22kgs each (Islay is slightly more, Flick is slightly less) so how much would I feed daily? Could I carry on feeding once a day?

And is there anything else I need to know? :D

Thanks in advance :):):)
 
Bearing in mind that I've only been doing this for a few months, though she's not dead yet so I can't be too far off... :o

Where do you get your raw from?
I buy chicken drumsticks and thighs from Sainsburys and also their cheap whole chickens, which I cut the breasts off for hoomin meals and then joint and split the rest. Also get tinned fish in oil, value mince and eggs from the supermarket. From the butchers I get whatever's cheapest that day - tripe, pieces of pork ribs, neck of lamb and so on. She won't often take offal but I can get hearts and lights if I ask in advance. I also get big pieces of marrowbone for free if I ask nicely, which isn't so much a food as a tooth-cleaning exercise to keep her quiet for a bit! I also buy boxes of cooked salmon mousse and kibble from Fish4Dogs.

How much do you pay?
Trays of 8 pieces of chicken are £3 BOGOF, a whole chicken is under £5, tinned fish 56p, 500g mince 96p, leftover vegetables from hoomin food negligible. A meal's worth of tripe, ribs etc. is less than £1, same for liver and kidneys. Bones are free, hurrah. Fish4Dogs mousse is less than 50p a pouch. A 15kg bag of their dry food is £49 delivered but lasts several months as she only has it for maybe every third meal or to bulk out a stuffed kong.

Do you need to feed a variety of raw food?
I do, just because I like to, but the variety needn't be every day. So long as the diet is balanced over several weeks it doesn't matter if they eat chicken carcasses for five days in a row because you've managed to score some for cheap. :D

Can I still feed kibble on occasion?
I do with no ill effects, just the usual caveat of keeping it separate from the raw meals.

How would I change over from kibble to raw - and what are the consequences? :p
After weeks and weeks of the squits it finally dawned on me what was causing it and I just stopped feeding the old kibble and put her straight on 100% raw. The only consequence was a sudden lack of diarrhoea, which was marvellous. :D If they're not used to having bones I'd probably start them on mince and fish, a rib bone might be too much to begin with, chicken bones are surprisingly soft and crunchable though.

How much would I feed per day?
On a hot day she won't eat a damn thing, on another day she'll eat a whole chicken carcass for breakfast and want a full scoop of kibble with an egg on top for tea. To give you some indication, for a 26kg (what a porker, never thought I'd see the day!) dog I consider two large chicken thighs/500g beef mince/250g kibble with a tin of oily fish/6 pork ribs a single meal.
 
I am going here on what i did in the Uk mostly and some of what i do now here in the US.

Where do you get your Raw from?
Butchers and supermarket.
I would buy any meat or fish that was in the sell of section and also the cheap chickens and also liver or chicken giblets if they were on sale.
Butchers i would try and buy some meat for me from them so they were more interested in giving me left overs. I get chicken necks and backs from him. I would also get a bag of "push" which is all the different kinds of meat mince that fall into the box under the mincer.
I would also get a bag of "off cuts" a week for about £5 i would use about 2/3 of it and the rest i would throw away.

How much do you pay
I would pay around £10 a month for one large dog.

Do you need to feed a variety
You don't need to feed a real variety in source. You could feed all chicken if you want but you need to make sure they are getting some organ meat and maybe some fish and eggs once in a while.
The majority of mine's diet is chicken and venison.

Can i still feed kibble
yes i feed one kibble meal a week just in case he goes to kennels ect.

How should you swap
I always go cold turkey (no pun intended)
Just switch but do expect some detox. That could come in the form of the runs for a few days but ore likely they get a bad coat, stinky breath and less energy. They are just getting rid of the toxins ect.

How much would i feed per day
The general rule is 2% of their body weight to maintain weight.
Once every 2 weeks i will spend an hour chopping a weighing and putting into bags so i can just take a few ready weighed bags out a couple of times a week.

Good luck!
 
Thanks so much for the replies - this has really encouraged me - keep them coming please :D I think the next steps will be talking to the butchers and chicken processing place :)
 
I buy all the cheap meat and fish in the supermarket bargain section - I got 4 steaks today reduced to a quid and regularly get whole fish for 15 - 20p:D. The bonus of having a freezer is that you can buy it when you see it and stock up a bit. I also get fresh bones from my butchers - they understand now that i will have any type of bones so always get a bagful for them.:)

I also get tins of sardines, tuna, pilchards etc for them to have (Aldi and Lidl are good as they are cheap) and fresh eggs. Mine still get Skinners some days. Mine have always had fresh bones, tinned fish, left over veg (apart from the stuff the nick!) since they were puppies but I I try and feed them more raw now. They NEVER have stinky dog breath and the vet is always impressed at Sweeps teeth - he is twelve and has never had any sort of dental treatment.:)
 
Go for it....their poo wont smell!

Sorry that was flippant! But it really doesnt smell! I have been known to throw up due to the smell of dog poo and i dont when feeding raw.

I buy from the butcher and try to give a variety over the week. I feed pilchards and tuna as well as chicken carcasses and lamb carcasses. They get eggs too but not every day.

I use the prize choice feeds as they come in handy packages so very convenient.

I keep a bag of compound feed for the days I forget to get stuff out of the freezer.

For me it is not cheaper, but I really think it is better for my dogs. Tojo has had no acne and no skin problems since feeding raw and Emma is growing well.
 
Last edited:
Hi.

I get the majority of Dylan's food from Landywoods. They deliver to my area once a month (although I usually put an order in every 2 or 3 months rather than monthly). It all comes in big bags, which I split into meal size bags on delivery day before chucking in the freezer. I get a variety of meats: chicken carcasses, turkey wings, turkey necks, meaty lamb bones, chunked organs (heart, liver, lung, tripe), marrow bones, trotters. I tend to spend about £40 pound every 3 months on this, but I chose the more expensive products & Dylan is a growing lab, so eating more per kg of body weight than an adult.

I supplement this food with fresh eggs from my chickens, whole oily fish when OH goes fishing (or supermarket if he isn't lucky) & tins of tuna in oil or water. I also recently sent 2 pigs off to slaughter & got back everything, so Dylan has his share of heads/tails/ears/bones/trotters etc. I will also be doing this with the sheep & cattle once we send any off to slaughter. I don't feed veg as such, although he occasionally gets a whole carrot out the fridge & he helps himself to black currants & gooseberries out the garden.

I swapped him straight over at about 5 months of age & haven't fed kibble since. He didn't have any side affects at all. I just mix his meals up & grab different bags from the freezer so that he gets a variety. I try to remember to feed fish & eggs once a week & organ meat once a week, but I'm not anal about it. Now that he is nearly a year old I'm feeding him 1 full meal a day, plus a marrow bone or stuffed kong at bedtime & training treats.

I have been know to forget to get his feed out of the freezer once or twice (bad girl). He is too young to have a fasting day & I have heard that feeding frozen can harm the stomach lining (don't know if this is true as people do feed frozen sometimes but as he is young I don't want to take the risk). On these occasions I end up giving him the meat I have planned for our tea (much to OH's disappointment).
 
I have 3 whippets and a lurcher (whippet x grey) - we switched to raw about a year ago and it was the best thing we ever did. The dogs have better teeth and coats, more energy, sweet smelling breath, there is MUCH less poo and it is always firm - so much easier to pick up. We feed freeflow mince from Berriewoods purely because mine are fatties and we need to weigh it out; plus lamb ribs (from our own lambs) beef knuckle bones, chicken wings (from the supermarket - whichever has the best offer) The mince is a mixture of tripe/beef/chicken/lamb plus heart chunks, poultry neck chunks. Then we add in veg (value frozen and nuked in the microwave) cheese, sardines (29p a tin from Asda) and goats milk. Once a day they have a mixer biscuit with their mince, and occasionally they have pasta or rice. We don't tend to feed kibble as well, but if we forget to get the meat out of the freezer, we pretty much always have tuna or sardines for them instead. All our dogs love it, from the 11wk old puppy upwards. You won't regret it!!
 
I have two lurchers who are about 25kg each.

Where do you get your raw from?
We buy from Landywoods mainly as it's easy and convient (we can get about two months worth in our freezer). We also get fish in oil, natural yoghurt and eggs from the supermarket.

How much do you pay? About £25 a month from Landywoods for two dogs and about £5 a month for extras

Do you need to feed a variety of raw food? We order 4 types of mince/offal/veg mixes plus various bones a month (mainly chicken wings but sometimes lamb rib/marrow bones/trotters/carcasses)

Can I still feed kibble on occasion? We don't. If we go away we usually hire a cottage that has a fridge so we just go and buy mince etc when we get there from the supermarket. We keep a tin of chappie as a emergency meal.

How would I change over from kibble to raw - and what are the consequences? Switch straight over - don't mix it.

How much would I feed per day? The lively one gets about 450g mince and the lazy one, prone to getting fat gets about 350g mince a day plus about 4 chicken wings each. If they have fish for breakfast they will get about 100g less mince. They get egg yolks regularly as i make pancakes several times a week, and whole eggs occasionally as a treat. They get natural yoghurt as a treat here and there or a bit of cheese. (By mince i mean a mix of meat, offal and/or veg which comes preprepared from landywoods).

And is there anything else I need to know? we feed chicken wings frozen, some people don't like this but it's the way ours will eat them and we've been doing it for years without problems. We started off feeding fresh but they got a bit bored and Dom started finding imaginative places to burry them - like in our bed!! We tried frozen and they get gobbled straight up.

Ladywoods sell there mince mixes in packs so we just get two out every nigth and defrost over night - makes it very easy.
 
I do think it's interesting how many long dog people feed raw-type diets. Obviously lots of other dog owners do, too, but it does seem particularly popular with Skinny Dogs. :)

Mine eat mostly prepared mince because of the convenience (I don't have a freezer so have to buy in small quantities), off cuts, bones from the butcher etc. They also get oil, eggs, some fruit/veg, brown rice (esp for the fat one), sardines etc over the course of a week or so. Their "emergency meal" is a can of Pilchards in tomato sauce.

For being away from home (sometimes needs must ;) ) I've tried some of the prepared "all meat" soft foods, which they LOVE - a fact that makes me suspicious. :D The younger one has a very sensitive stomach, can't have wheat and a few other standard ingredients, so I don't have the option of many of the commercial foods. But because I'm not perfect ;) they also do get a small meal of kibble before I go out in the morning - Orijen or similar - and then can eat that on days when meat is not an option. They seem to be surviving and I get many comments on how well they look, in fact the older one can look a bit TOO well. :)
 
Just an example.

I went to the grocery store last night at 10pm. This is what i would do in England too.

I found 8 turkey legs for $3
2 turkey quarters for $2.95
2 turkey wings for $2.50
A bag of chicken quarters that had around 10-12 in for $4.90
 
So am I right in saying a lot of what you guys are feeding as 'raw' is intensively reared/the mass produced stuff
 
I feed mainly raw tripe from berriewoods (which stinks like cow poo!!) and then chicken wings, turkey drumsticks, tinned sardines in oil, liver now and again; lamb breast is quite cheap and good for a skinny dog.

When I first started feeding my lot raw I used to weigh everything and work out weekly diets but now I just feed by eye and chuck it to them like feeding the lions at the zoo lol!!

My GSD has no hotspots or ear infections, his coat shines like a mirror and his teeth are pearly white. Same for the others too, but they didn't have the sensitive tummy of the GSD anyway.....
 
SusieT said:
So am I right in saying a lot of what you guys are feeding as 'raw' is intensively reared/the mass produced stuff
Click to expand...

At the moment, unfortunately, I do feed more intensively reared than I would like, however at least it is from human grade animals.

The pork is home reared, as are the eggs, & the fish is mainly line caught straight from the sea. By next year I aim to have most of Dylan's food (& ours) home reared (pork, lamb & beef). I just need a plan for the chicken/turkey!

However, the main reason I moved across to raw was to stop Dylan bolting his food & this has worked, hence why I only feed large chunks no minced meats.

I am home rearing for my benefit as we have the land & I wanted to keep more animals to cross graze with the horses & they need to pay for themselves. The fact that Dylan will benefit as well is just a happy bonus!
 
Last edited:
Where do you get your raw from? The Butcher mainly, the game butcher next door in season and the supermarket reduced section.

How much do you pay? about £10 per month for 2 from the butcher, freebies from the game butcher and a couple of quid now and again for the supermarket stuff

Do you need to feed a variety of raw food? Chicken carcasses and wings are my staple with a variety of other meats like lamb ribs, veg, fish (tinned pilchards in tomato sauce), free range eggs, CC's Turkey legs for a treat, tripe, hearts and offal slotted in in no particular order. Chicken is the best for the nutrients they need beef is the worst and the bones are very hard.

Can I still feed kibble on occasion? Why??? I won't let that stuff near my dogs!!! They have no dietary need for it, it's ok if you are really stuck but on holiday I'll buy them some supermarket mince or give them tinned pilchards.

How would I change over from kibble to raw - and what are the consequences? :p Have always just put mine straight onto raw as soon as I get them. The only rule is never feed kibble near raw especially bones as they travel at different speeds and you risk impaction.

How much would I feed per day? Mine are adults around 22kgs and they get a chicken carcass or equivalent each a day for maintenance.

And is there anything else I need to know? :D You can feed a little veg liquidised I give it with the pilchards and eggs or mince just a couple of spoonfuls once or twice a week. You can also add pumpkin seeds as they are good for scraping off any worms in the gut and egg shells. Oil is good to add like cod liver, animal oil is the best and cold pressed if possible.
 
KarynK said:
CC's Turkey legs for a treat
Click to expand...

Look, I'm getting a bit tired of this :mad::mad::mad:
:p:p:p

Re intensively farmed meat, yes, I am biased, my father worked on battery and factory farms for the early part of his career but hey, everybody needs to make a living (and please don't make me have to invoke Godwin's Law for that last statement :p)

As long as people want cheap meat for themselves, these places and these practises will exist and they will do so until people stop buying cheap meat.

People who feed their dogs raw are, by and large, feeding the leftovers, the by-products, the bits that people rarely, or just don't, eat or use.
If an animal has to die by human hands, because of human demand, I would rather see that every single bit of that animal had a use and a purpose rather than going in the bin or incinerator and better fed in its natural state than churned up with allsorts and put in a bag or a tin and THEN called dog food.

As Katie says, the stuff that goes into dog food is exactly the same, if not worse, you can bet your bottom dollar that food in a bag or tin off a shelf is not made from organic, free range, hand fed meat animals....

Anyhoo, I'm off for some cow head-scrapings and chicken foetus for brekkie. Er, I mean, sausages and egss :p
 
Actually I was wondering would none of the raw feeders consider raising their own chickens and culling them for eating, as they are easy and cheap to do, and would remove them from the buying cheap meat so there is a demand market.
 
SusieT said:
Actually I was wondering would none of the raw feeders consider raising their own chickens and culling them for eating, as they are easy and cheap to do, and would remove them from the buying cheap meat so there is a demand market.
Click to expand...

Because most of us don't have the space, time or inclination to!
 
Because most of us don't have the time, space or inclination to and mine go through about 5 or 6 a week and i can't get enough parts that i need from chickens at home.
 
SusieT said:
Actually I was wondering would none of the raw feeders consider raising their own chickens and culling them for eating, as they are easy and cheap to do, and would remove them from the buying cheap meat so there is a demand market.
Click to expand...

This wouldn't be practical for me. Our garden isn't big enough and i think having a constant source of teasing for my dogs would cause mayhem!!
 
SusieT said:
Actually I was wondering would none of the raw feeders consider raising their own chickens and culling them for eating, as they are easy and cheap to do, and would remove them from the buying cheap meat so there is a demand market.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't be an option for me, if I was feeding totally raw would probably use 3 chicken carcasses a day, would need a heck of a large chicken turnover to keep the dogs fed. :D
 
CaveCanem said:
PMSL :D **climbs down off high horse**

Great idea - although I am sure the dogs themselves would like to cut out the middleman and just do the job themselves from start to finish! :)
Click to expand...

Yep the boys would be up for a bit of that, though they don't like feathers much so would ask me to pluck their prize first!

To rear your own you'd need loads then you have to kill em and puck em, there would be too much meat so the dogs would get fat and two a day, no rather pay the butcher pence for free range bits that would normally be incinerated as no one wants it!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top