Raw Meat Diet.....

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Vicstress

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So if I decide to get a Great Dane, I'm probably going to have to put it on a raw meat diet. I've been reading about 'bloat' which seems to kill loads of GD's - it didn't exist 15 years ago so wondering if it's due to all these complete diets?

Arch would probably benefit from a raw diet as he does have a sensitive stomach and it's going to make it easier if I have them both on the same (albeit bigger portions)

If you feed a raw diet, where do you source your meat? Lucky I have a big freezer! My mum used to mix with a winalot type mixer (looked like dried bread) but welcome any suggestions!

My friend feeds her spangles on raw meat diet and they do look well for it...
 
I'm a newbie to feeding raw and my pup has it 2 or 3 days a week at the moment with JWB dry food on the other days. We have so far managed quite well with meat from supermarkets, the reduced section usually has some good bargains :)

We have a tiny freezer but the dog has her own section! The cheapest way to feed raw is to find a decent friendly butcher (Which I am stuggling to do!) and flutter your eyelashes!
 
I feed my dog raw. I get lamb breast from the local butchers for the bones, frozen green tripe from the pet shop , heart, liver and kidneys from the supermarket. He also get the odd rabbit and pheasant when we are given them.

I feel he gets enough fibre at the yard(!) and don't feed veg or biscuits. It's not the cheapest way possible but I like that the meat is always fresh and comes in lumps to chew rather than mince which disapears tooooo quickly
 
Forgot to add that since adding raw to my pups diet her poops have been much more regular (in appearance and timings!) and her teeth are gleaming white, it realy helped her get rid of the last few baby teeth she had too!
 
Chicken wings and drummers from Sainsburys.

Everything else from local butcher/farm shop. I chatted up the old boy there last Saturday (in his 70's) and got 2 carrier bags stuffed full of offal, mince, lamb scraggs and livers for a fiver :)
 
You have got a few options you can try.

The majority of their diet is probably going to be chicken so you can look for a local processing plant where you can get chicken super cheap for example my mum just got around 35lbs of chicken for £5. Its messy and you have to bag everything up separately that way but its cost effective.

You can chat up your butcher, ask for a bag of off cuts, scraps, chicken necks and backs are awesome.

Then you need to be on top of the sell off section at the super market.

Chicken wings and thighs are also pretty cheap at the supermarket.

You can NOT feed a dry food along with the raw they need to be separated by at least 12 hours or they can cause blockages.
But seriously once you start you won't want to feed that rubbish anyway.

Good luck.
Any more questions just ask.

This is an awesome site.

http://preymodelraw.com/
 
I've found that it's cost effective to buy anything from the butcher that's under £3/kg - at ours that includes chicken wings, lamb's hearts, kidneys, liver, bleached tripe, pork ribs, rabbits, pheasants, partridge and breast of lamb. He gives me marrowbones for free, which I count as a food source, and knucklebones/beef ribs which are purely for recreation.

Then the supermarket is cheaper for chicken thighs and drumsticks (BOGOF at Sainsburys if they're still doing that promotion), value beef mince, whole fish and tinned fish in oil. Then the rest is hoomin leftovers, eggs, veg, cooked meat scraps and the odd bit of mashed potato (I suspect her love for this is due to the cream cheese content :o).

I do also feed Fish4Dogs salmon mousse which works out under 40p per sachet if bought in bulk, makes a good raw-friendly kong filling.

Wheat-based biscuit mixers kind of negate the point of a raw diet! I do keep a bag of Fish4Dogs kibble on hand for convenience but to be honest I am using it less and less now, and of course never in the same day as a raw meal.
 
Don't forget the bones as they are a very important part of the diet for fibre and nutrients from the marrow, breast of lamb is great from the butcher and is really cheap and the lamb ribs are relatively soft. Chicken carcasses, wings and legs are also good. If you have a game butcher nearby deer ribs and rabbit is good as well though some deer ribs can be quite hard.
 
KarynK said:
Don't forget the bones as they are a very important part of the diet for fibre and nutrients from the marrow, breast of lamb is great from the butcher and is really cheap and the lamb ribs are relatively soft. Chicken carcasses, wings and legs are also good. If you have a game butcher nearby deer ribs and rabbit is good as well though some deer ribs can be quite hard.
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I wish we could get lamb here! They don't really eat it that much and the only place i have ever seen it is in the Asian supermarket and its killer expensive.
 
That's a shame as it's really good and the soft end where it goes to cartilage is good for puppies and oldies. Do they do much goat over there? that would be similar but probably as expensive. They never did much like sheep did they, obviously it never really took off!
 
KarynK said:
That's a shame as it's really good and the soft end where it goes to cartilage is good for puppies and oldies. Do they do much goat over there? that would be similar but probably as expensive. They never did much like sheep did they, obviously it never really took off!
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They pretty much do chicken and beef and pork chops.
 
Finally found this thread! I'm a numpty using the search function so apologies to anyone who I hassled about feeding raw.

Quick query, tho, when you say bones e.g. lamb bones, should I expect them to totally demolish these bones? Gone completely? And big marrowbones, it's obviously the marrow that counts as the food source? Brig will chew down a bone and break bits off: is this OK for him to do?

Thanks, guys.
 
Sadly bloat definitely existed 15 years ago, we lost a GSD with it 21 years ago, and my mother lost a bloodhound with it in the 70s.:( However I do think commercial diets are probably a factor. When we lost our GSD our dogs were generally fed on raw tripe, with complete feed once or twice a week. He had complete the night we lost him, literally started blowing up within half an hour of being fed, but we were unable to save him.
 
cinammontoast said:
Finally found this thread! I'm a numpty using the search function so apologies to anyone who I hassled about feeding raw.

Quick query, tho, when you say bones e.g. lamb bones, should I expect them to totally demolish these bones? Gone completely? And big marrowbones, it's obviously the marrow that counts as the food source? Brig will chew down a bone and break bits off: is this OK for him to do?

Thanks, guys.
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I don't feed very hard bones to mine because they will wear the teeth of a lot of dogs and because they take time to eat unless I am on guard the little beggars will fight!

Years of feeding commercial diets have left a lot of dogs with weaker teeth and leg bones of particularly beef and deer are very hard. Mine will eat all the lamb rib bones they are given but lamb is killed quite young so their bones are much softer than older and bigger animals. So if you are talking long mature leg bones then the answer is no.

MM - yes I think that bloat can be caused by that stuff as well, if you've ever dropped a few of those biscuits into a glass of water and watched them swell OMG!!! and a dog really isn't designed to deal with swelling, it's designed to be able to gobble far too much in one meal and run off to the puppies with it , but it's natural food would not swell at all! That's why I cringe somewhat when people start free feeding that stuff!
 
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