Raw food feeders - advice please.

[camilla4]

Can you raw food feeders help. I have an 8 year old Labrador bitch who is in excellent health but i want to do all I can to prevent the problems associated with aging. With this in mind, I am thinking of switching to a raw food diet. I know that she will have no problem with this, physically or emotionally!! but I need recommendations as to product and, particularly, quantity. Assuming I feed her a base of meat and bones - how much would she need per day of, say, beef or chicken? She is not overweight and has two hours walking per day, off the lead. Also, for convenience I would have to bulk buy and freeze most of what I give her. I was thinking of stocking up a month's worth at a time - are they any problems associated with this? I have no concerns whatsoever about bacerial infection - as dogs are natural carrion feeders this should not be an issue and in any case I have seen what she scavanges out on walks with no ill effects! All suggestions welcome...

 

[Spot_the_Risk]

Don't know if this might help you? I don't feed BARF myself, but we keep these frozen products at our shop, and have a few devotees! http://www.prizechoice.co.uk/

 

[camilla4]

Thanks for this Spot. I have looked into this stuff but, to be quite honest, it does seem quite expensive! I was thinking of using stuff from a butcher and freezing if possible.

Anyone have any suggestions - anyone?!!
xxxxxxx

 

[MarleyandDarcy]

Hi

Most articles tell you to feed 2% of bodyweight - but this is a bit technical - I feed based on how the dogs look, I know roughly the amounts by adjusting in the first few weeks. Then if they look a bit thin, give them a bit more and vice versa, less if looking fat!

I bulk buy chicken wings (think these are about 10p each - they get 2each for one meal) and carcasses (10p a carcass and I share one between 2 or 3 dogs) once a month from our butcher. They also bag up lots of lamb rib bones for us (these are free

) Also sometimes get some beef bones for extras for a good chew on a weekend!

For their 2nd meal each day Our butcher also does a pet mince for 27p a lb (much cheaper than Prize Choice/Landywoods etc). A 1lb block feeds 3 dogs. This is basically all the trimmings/left overs minced and frozen into blocks.

I also feed:
Sardines or pilchards once a week (the cheapest I can find in the supermarket - pilchards 400g tin is 65p comes in tomato sauce and the dogs go mad!!
Offal once a week - liver/kidneys/heart
And also feed wholemeal biscuits on occasions with yoghurt/eggs/cottage cheese.

There is also obviously tripe if you are feeling brave

Smells a bit!! But you can buy this in large quantities, I remember reading that someone used to get it straight from an abbatoir and cut it up into chunks and freeze - bit too hardcore for me!!

Mine all love feed time now, they used to be much too fussy for dry complete food, not to mention with 6 dogs it cost an absolute fortune!
The only storage concern I had was we had to buy a chest freezer for the dogs! As you say, none of mine have ever been ill from defrosting then feeding.

Good luck and if you have any more questions I can try and answer them for you

 

[camilla4]

Marleyanddarcey - thsi is great so thank you! Being a lab, I know mine will eat anything I put in front of her, it is really just an idea of mix and quantities I need. I'd never used dry food before I had her and am not really satisfied with it so keen to get her started on something healthier. Will need to have a chat with the butcher.

We do have a second freezer in the shed which we already use for freezing bones for her. Time to fill it with other goodies now! If I work on a basis of primarily chicken wings and mince with fish once a week and the odd egg - will that be a good start? She already has a large bone about once a week and I will continue to give her those.

 

[MarleyandDarcy]

Sounds good

Mine have pet mince each morning
Then chicken wings with some biscuits (biscuits is just my choice a lot of people feed no biscuits)/or chicken carcasses/lamb bones each evening.
With 1 day a week they have their offal in the am/fish in the pm.

The offal is quite important when feeding a raw diet, so try to get that in once a week, again we buy enough from our butcher once a month, then split it into 4 bags for one each week.
They get eggs whenever we have too many (we have chickens).

 

[camilla4]

Thank you so much MarleyandDarcey - this is just what I needed! Off to talk to the butcher now!!

 

[genie]

We feed all our dogs raw but like anything else, the change over shouldn't be total and dramatic but gradual or you may upset your dogs gut.

We feed raw chicken wings and carcasses too.....my vet is horrified at this practice and recommends a nice bag of brown biscuit stuff that they sell at the surgery.

We also buy in bulk frozen tripe....never known a dog yet to refuse it.

Tinned foods are mainly water anyway so that seems an expensive way to feed to me and I never trust a bag of processed pellets no matter whose name is on the front of it cos you just don't know what went into making it.

Feeding frozen can be a pain in winter though cos it seems to take ages to defrost.....my dogs refuse tinned meat now anyway.

 

[camilla4]

Thanks Genie,

I will change over fairly slowly. I think the best move would probably to feed her the usual meal for breakfast and then the meat dish for second meal. Her stomach is absolutely never upset by anything, and she really does get through all sorts of rubbish out on walks - any carrion lying around, fresh rabbits which she has caugh occassionally, and a fair mix of food waste on the recreation ground which we have to walk across now and again. She is already used to having meat scraps and regular bones too.

 

[KarynK]

Have been feeding raw for 11 years and I have always changed over there and then, there are two reasons for this 1, to get the dog off that stuff it has been fed as soon as is possible! 2, that there are dangers in mixing the two diets.

Any form of grain is alien to a dog and it’s digestive system, which is set up to process meat very fast, that’s why they do not get food poisoning with a healthy gut. But in order to get any nutrition out of those dry biscuits they have to travel slowly so feeding both diets together risks impaction. Really not changing diets quickly is an invention of a modern age. Years ago when my sister was encountering problems with dried processed food they actually told her to change suddenly every 3 months to stop the itching, it worked for a while on the new formula then she would have to change again. Then she found raw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! From what you say she is eating already it's not much of a change anyway.

The beauty of raw is that it allows for feeding by eye and gets away from this modern “necessity” for a dog to eat like an astronaut! Dogs don’t need a perfectly balanced meal at every sitting, we don’t suffer if we have the odd McD after all. I would start by giving what you think from what people feed here and then seeing how it goes, basically muscle meat will gain weight and bone is the dogs high fibre diet so for maintenance and those needing to loose a bit up the bone and if they need weight gain up the muscle meat.

Here is a link to the typical diet for mine, but this varies according to what’s on special offer, mine get fed once a day with additional treats like raw eggs and dried trip sticks or jerky and the occasional bicci.

But well done for giving it a go!!!!

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/4547128/an/0/page/5#4547128

 

[Happy Horse]

I am also thinking of switching our 16 week old Lab pup to RAW. He seems to have loose poos most of the time even though he is on a grain free food (Wafcol - salmon and potato) I have read such good things about RAW feeding but the thought of first giving him bones to chomp on terrifies me slightly! What sort of things are good to start a pup of this age on?

 

[camilla4]

Right - thanks so much for your help everyone. Have spoken to butcher and have put in a huge order for what should be a month's supply of chicken wings/whole carcass; rabbit and their own pet mince, which includes offal. Will pick up some fish and start her on her new diet at the weekend. Should have done it ages ago really as I've never liked dry food for dogs and our family have always fed a meat/bone based diet. Still, better late than never!

I've worked out that, as a start, she ought to be having just over half a kg per day. She's about 22kg but has a lot of walking - any comments?

 

[KarynK]

My sister has just go a GSD puppy from another breeder and it was 7 weeks, but it went straight onto raw, it had been on dried food with raw mince, but she happily ate chicken wings (supemarket ones are good as they are softer) and whole carcasses along with the softer end of a lamb rib and has thankfully stopped thinking that the gravel in the garden is all kibble!!!!

It should sort out you toilet problems quickly, I can certainly tell whn mine have sneaked some horse food!! The thing is with all non frozen commercial diets, no matter what the quality they have to have a shelf life, so they need at the very least stabalizers and of course preservatives so that they remain viable for often several months. With raw you know what you are feeding!

I don't weigh any of mine unfortunately so I really have no idea, I just look and whoever is the thinner gets the bigger portion!!! But mine keep weight really well on what is above, so I would start on what you have worked ou and see how it goes, if she is still hungry and not getting fat give more until you get to a level, it is so easy once you get into it and sometimes if I forget to defrost they get popsicles, and they don't mind at all.