Raw peeps - menu help please!

CorvusCorax

CorvusCorax

Deary me...
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Right, so today I went to Tesco and rescued 16 chicken legs/drumsticks and seven chicken thighs from the bargain bin for the princely sum of $5.23 (pounds, on mother's yankee laptop!!!) and on the way home the lady at our local butcher gave me a bag of beef offcuts, about the size of a small football.
All chicken skin-on.

So how should I feed these over the next few days in terms of serving sizes?
He is fed twice a day 8am and 6pm, which to be honest suits us all, the way our work schedules are at the minute and he normally gets two scoops of dry meal each time.
I have no qualms if he puts on a few pounds, he is quite leggy and rangey.
He weighed 40kgs at 20 months, he is now 27 months and I can't see a huge difference in him since then.

Any help greatly appreciated
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Sorry, can't be of any help. The only one I really know in real life that feed BARF, buys dead, only a few days old, rooster chickens, puts them in her freezer and then her dogs get one whole chicken at the time. She believes that if BARF really should mimic natural feeding, you must feed them intestines too.


I've also had a neighbour who hunted and said you could feed them raw bones until chalk began coming out of their rump, but I wouldn't take that advice to seriously. (Edited to add, I suppose that means I know two people who feed BARF, but the first one I talked about is educated in nutrition for dogs, the neighbour is more "old school" hunter.)



I hope somebody else can be of better help.
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No worries
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My mother is a bit old school and she is wigging out at the thought of chicken bones so any advice to that end or words of wisdom to calm her down would be appreciated to.
 
The first person I talked about, Lena, have said she is both for and against feeding bird meat with bones.

In Sweden they (used to?) say never feed dogs bones, or meat with bones, from animals whose name begins with F = får/sheep, fågel/birds, fläsk/pork and fisk/fish. As you see that rules out a lot and Lena have said that she has never heard neither of a wild wolf refusing to eat any of those animals/their bones or of that many wolves have been found dead after eating such bones.
Wolves are after all meant to feed from raw carcasses.



According to her, it depends on your dog. If your dog gnaws well, then there shouldn't be a problem, if he wants to swallow as big pieces as he possibly can, you shouldn't let him begin with bird bones, without bones from f.ex. cows.
As he gets more used to gnawing on natural bones, his gnawing skills might improve and then you might be able to feed bird bones in the future.



Also, as I recall, I think Karyn K have said something about that boiled bones "acts" differently than natural bones and that is why you can feed them natural bird bones but not boiled bird bones.


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Chicken bones raw are absolutely fine Cave - it's only the cooked ones that can splinter. To be safe, I never feed any cooked bones at all. Some people do maintain that dogs can choke on bones but TBH, they are no more likely to choke on bones than on any other dry food.

Not sure how much I can help with portions but here is what my Lab gets (two feeds a day)

Breakfast - a small lump of pet mince (from butcher - v cheap in 1 kg frozen blocks - ours contains a variety of meat, including offal) - not sure about the weight but about the size of a medium potato!

Dinner: either one stripped chicken carcass with the same amount of mince as at breakfast OR one chicken leg with all meat on OR five chicken wings with small lump of mince.

I add an egg twice a week; twice a week she has two tinned pilchards in tomato sauce with her dinner instead of the mince (she goes nuts for these!).

I feed no rice or grain but she has a kong toy every day which is stuffed with vegetables - these are usually our leftovers topped up with lightly cooked potato, carrot, broccoli etc - pretty much anything.

You can use pretty much any meat on the bone instead of the chicken - things like oxtail are a good ratio of meat: bone.
 
I was wary about the bones tbh CC, but my lab, collie and even my little wimpy JRT have no problems with them at all, so i cant see that your fella will struggle! Actually even my cats have been partial to a chicken wing before now.
Mine currently have rabbit carcasses on the menu at the mo as OH brings them home from work.
There are a few people that have advised me greatly that im sure will point you in the direction much better than i can!
I agree with the pilchards in tomato sauce all mine love those too. Also natural yogurt goes down well. For the veg protion i just chuck it all in the blender and put in in portions in freezer bags. The lazier option (which i have been known to take on many occasions!) is to buy the frozen blocks of meat from pet food shops, check on the label but these tend to have ground up bone in them. One of the brands also do frozen veg in blocks.
I just preach to myself - more meat if you want more meat on the dog, more bone if the dog needs not to put any more weight on.
 
Right, tonight's evening meal was a drumstick, a thigh, a few beef bits and some oily fish fillets. It doesn't seem like a lot written down but it looked a lot! Going to turn him into a porker
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Sorry been out all day watching Avatar and buying a car!! Well done you, is mummy coping?

My two portion size - they weigh around 23kg but are not tall. I would feed mine 5-6 supermarket chicken wings and probably four or five drumsticks depending on size and 1 thigh as there is quite a bit of meat on it.

The beauty of raw is that you can feed by eye without causing problems, so start off with a portion size, if they are putting weight on, either cut the portion size or up the bone content, bit like you eating 3 shredded wheat to fill you up! If they are loosing weight increase the portion size of feed more muscle meat.

Be careful with a lot of fat as sometimes they don't cope with it well when first on raw.

Finnish Lapphund is correct it's the cooking process that causes the problems with bones, it makes them hard and brittle which is bad news. Raw bones are flexible and easily destroyed by the acidity in the stomach, which has little effect on the cooked bones.

Hope that helps
 
Haha, she'll have to be, I want my boy to stop itching.

Thanks for that, shall keep an eye on him over the next few days and hope that my next forays into Tesco will be as fruitful, or should that be meatful
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Oops that portion size was each BTW just re read it and I didn't make it clear! Good old Tesco! Do you have a Morrisons there? If so they do a lamb bone stock pack that is under £1
 
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