Raw feeding for newbies?

C

casserolecollie

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Sorry if this has been asked before, have looked at stickies at the top of the page but can't see one that answers my question, and thought this would be a good place to ask! Sorry if it's a bit longwinded...

I have a 3 year old collie cross rescue, who I have had for about 8 months. She had been fed on supermarket own brand dog food all her life (whatever cheapest!) by her old owners which didn't agree with her, and then her fosterer had her on James Wellbeloved. Now I have her on Skinners Duck and Rice with Naturediet wet food, as she leads an active life and it seems to give her more stamina than the James Wellbeloved did. I would love to try her on a raw diet after doing some research, but have a few questions! I did ask my vet when we were last in, but he basically said 'some of our clients feed their dogs raw, but to be honest I don't know anything about it'.

Is there a difference between the quality of buying 'pre-packaged' raw frozen food e.g. natures menu in pets at home, and just buying raw meat? I have read that if you prepare it yourself you have to be careful with nutrient levels? So would this ready made style be safer for a beginner, if I included maybe 2 meaty bones a week to keep her teeth in good shape? Or better nutritionally to get meat from butchers/supermarkets, and include some veg? Or online? I have a big freezer!

Also, she is out with horses/bikes/jogging at least 3 hours per day and more at weekends and I have found it hard with dry food to keep her at a good weight as she is quite a lurchery build (she is only 12kg at correct weight but drops off easily), is this something that would be more of a worry feeding raw food? She isn't fussy and will eat anything!:)

Sorry for the long first post, would be very grateful if anyone with any experience in feeding their dogs on raw food could help me out!
 
I don't think there is much difference, only in price!
We started feeding ours raw 3 years ago and would never go back to kibble or anything else. We don't stress about balancing their diets particularly, they have a good range of different meat types (we don't feed red meat due to allergy) but they get chicken/turkey, fish, pheasant, venison, rabbit etc and they get chicken carcasses/wings/necks etc. We don't feed veg particularly, they do get whole raw eggs.
Most vets are all for feeding whatever they stock and tend to have little knowledge of raw feeding or don't want to have.
One of ours struggles to keep weight on so we give her tripe to help (she is the only one who gets red meat), I think lamb and lamb ribs is good for weight gain too.
You will know to introduce one protein source at a time to check for intolerance.
You will need to feed quantity she needs to hold her weight which may or may not be within the guidelines, our skinny dog gets more like 4% of her weight, bigger dogs get 2-2.5%, it is trial and error for a while.
HTH
 
Well casserolecollie, I'm not in a position to offer feeding advice, but I can offer you some observations about raw feeding;

We now have a very well bred, and I think potentially very smart young 3/4 bred greyhound dog pup here, called Dave. He's a picture of health, and I'm accustomed to looking at growing youngsters with a critical eye. Were I to be super critical, he is perhaps still a little course in his conformation. None the less, his body score is near perfect, and he's currently standing at about 19", he's 19 weeks, and I'd guess that he'll finish at about 22", perhaps 23".

That's where the compliments end. Not wanting to overdo the protein, I took the advice of a well meaning AAD Bod (and one who I've yet to deal with!), and she suggested chicken wings. Dave has 2, every day. He has the propensity to fart, as no other dog that I've ever known, EVER. The smell is acrid and it hurts, it's not funny. It's more a case of being able to taste it, they're that bad. If it isn't the raw chicken, then something's crawled up the arse of young Dave, and died.

It can only be the chicken. Don't say that I didn't warn you.

Alec.
 
Thanks for the advice so far. Perhaps I should leave the food switchover to the new year then, when there are no relatives staying who might be offended by the smell!

It sounds like maybe it isn't such a science to get the percentages of bone/meat etc. exactly right then, as long as there is variety? It all depends on the individual dog and trial and error with quantities? I have to say she is a complete scavenger prone to picking up and eating half rotten dead things on walks, and she never seems to suffer any ill effects. Seems to have an iron stomach! Of course if it didn't suit her we would go back to her original dry and wet food diet.
 
CC I have 4 greyhounds who are fed on a raw diet - none of them have ever shown the symptoms Alec describes, and having spoken to a lot of other raw-feeding greyhound owners I can only conclude it is a problem unique to Alec's dog.


Personally I don't spend masses of time scientifically balancing the diet, I feed by eye, I would recommend that you start with feeding 3-4% bodyweight daily and adjust as necessary? I try and stick to the suggested ratio of 80:10:10 muscle:offfal:bone but this is done as an average over a few days rather than exact quantities on a daily basis. Hope this helps :)
 
Just to add, my dogs absolutely stopped trumping when we changed to raw food. If they eat an excessive amount of sheep/horse poo (which they do tend to!) they get a bit trumpetty trousers but it really is not as Alec describes!
 
Ok thanks so much for all the advice it's really reassuring. I was just a bit worried reading horror stories online about how if you get the percentage of meat/offal/bone wrong then your dog will end up nutrient deficient or with pancreatitis, but I suppose you will always read the worst possible conclusion online. And vet wasn't a huge help. Think I worry about her too much, she's a dog in a million! Will definitely do some more research and then start stocking up!
 
When I first started feeding my four raw I was a bit obsessed with weighing everything and trying to get the ratios right but now I am much more relaxed and the dogs all look really well so I can't be messing up too badly!
Raw feeding evens itself out over a couple of days so you don't have to worry about exact quantities.
As three of mine are Dalmatians I have to keep an eye on the purine levels so mine don't get very much offal but apart from that they get pretty much everything else.
I have a monthly delivery from an excellent company in Kent but also buy reduced meat from the supermarkets and mine have also had cull chickens, feathers and all!
Interestingly given what Alex said, I have a farmer friend who gives me lamb bones and lights and they make mine trump so badly you don't want to be in the same room as them!
 
I am kind of newbie too, just start it off not long ago, apparently it is not that difficult as you thought. =)
All the best.
 
Alec Swan said:
He has the propensity to fart, as no other dog that I've ever known, EVER. The smell is acrid and it hurts, it's not funny. It's more a case of being able to taste it, they're that bad. If it isn't the raw chicken, then something's crawled up the arse of young Dave, and died.

It can only be the chicken. Don't say that I didn't warn you.

Alec.
Click to expand...

Hahaha…funny you should mention….I have a 4 year old German pointer who also becomes rather good at clearing rooms after he's had chicken…..
 
You become a poo expert. When Wibble was fed kibble he'd poo 2-3 times a day. Now he's on raw, he poos once a day, and it's a tiny amount, because they can actually use the food they eat and there's hardly any waste! Also the poo doesn't smell like it would on kibble. I started off weighing everything, worrying about levels of this and that. I now do it by eye.

He has a mixture of all sorts, tripe, beef, minced chicken carcass, pheasant, venison, turkey, salmon. I'll give him a rib or a bit of veal spine once or twice a week as his dinner, instead of meat. If his poos go a bit softer, I give him another bone. If his poos become like marble nuggets that you can hear drop on the floor, then I lay off the bone!

Veg wise I have mixed veg pots (Chinese container size) that are things like pumpkin, broccoli, carrot (all finely blended) and I give a tablespoon with his dinner 2-3 times a week. All his treats are raw too. Dried lung, dried liver, dried tongue, dried kidney, dried heart, dried poultry, dried beef, dried salmon and sprats.
 
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