Raw diet - for Vegetarian owners!

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Jane_Lou

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My neighbours are very keen on switching their slightly overweight 6 year old lab and their house cats onto a raw diet but they are vegetarians and are struggling with how they will cope with it! I have offered to help in the preparation of meals etc but have never fed raw so was wondering what would be the best way to approach it? They are going to buy an extra freezer and I could organise daily meals for them but was wondering if there was any way of them buying "ready meals" as such?

Many thanks
 
See the raw sticky above. Tripe is easily portioned and chicken bits are easy to give. Cats can be very difficult to switch to raw. The dog could start on chicken wings, small and tasty.
 
Our dog is on a raw diet and I cope ok even though I'm vegetarian. I suppose it depends how squeamish your neighbours are! Ours gets a lot of chicken pieces (wings, legs), which is ok, as are bones etc. Though I have to admit if we get a whole chicken my OH is the one who takes it apart for the dog. Pets at Home also sell frozen packs of raw stuff (beef, chicken, tripe, lamb etc) which your neighbours might be ok with?

I know some vegetarians insist on feeding their dog a vegetarian diet ... but the least said about that the better ... :rolleyes:
 
I am a Brussel sprout said:
Pets at Home also sell frozen packs of raw stuff (beef, chicken, tripe, lamb etc) which your neighbours might be ok with?
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I find the prepackaged stuff really expensive-over £3 for 2lbs? My chicken mince is 33p a lb, tripe is 30p a lb.

It does depend on how icky they can tolerate: my OH does the butchering if possible: he used to work in a chicken factory as a teenager so is better at it (my excuse!)

The chicken pieces are good, but work out expensive: chicken carcasses can be bought from some butchers and are a lot cheaper than pieces from supermarkets.
 
Thanks for this - I did read the sticky thread and it gave me some ideas. I will speak to the local butchers - will chicken wings be ok for a large lab or is he likely to inhale them whole? They are quite squemish but spent some time this year volunteering at a wildlife sanctuary in Namibia where they had to prepare raw for wild cats which was when they decided that they could cope with the feeding bit but less likely the preparation bit!
 
To start switching, they could try holding a chicken wing for the lab to chew. They should always supervise raw feeding. They could convert immediately as feeding kibble and raw together is dangerous, the two being digested at very different rates.

I started with supermarket mince/pieces then sourced dog food properly locally. I would say that unless they want to spend a fortune, they should talk to some butchers first and source it properly before starting.

Chicken mince is a good start and they need to include enough bones (a balance can take a while to find: if poos are too chalky, then they should not feed as much bone). Pork ribs are good to feed, basically an bone they can stick a knife in. Avoid cow bones, they are likely to break teeth on them.

Depending on where they are, then there are delivery companies who do raw dog food. I just use my butcher who does carcasses, bones, offal as requested and a greyhound supplier who does the mince and tripe.

Google the Dog Food Company-highly recommended if you can get hold of him!

This section of another forum was the most helpful thing I found in terms of lots of people who feed raw and places to source the food as well as tons of answers to even teeny questions.

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-health-nutrition/111437-raw-feeding-everything-you-need-know.html
 
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