Labradoodle & Goldendoodle Forum
Raw Feeding Journal - 2nd Installment
There were two things that caused me great concern when first starting out on the raw feeding journey: what to feed and how much to feed.
Ok as to what to feed, whole raw prey is the gold standard but who has access to that sort of thing. Short of sending my house reared terribly spoiled doodles out to the 100 acre wood behind the homestead to fend for themselves, I had to source their food for them.
I learned through my research that human grade food would do just fine for my dogs. Ok that means chicken, beef, pork, goat, lamb, venison, anything I could buy at a reasonable price. Pasture fed meat is best as it avoids all the grain that farm or factory fed animals are given to fatten them up. (I’ll deal a lot more in future posts on grains in a carnivore’s diet.) Grain fed animals produce meat that is high in omega ‘6 and this needs to be countered in a raw diet with either whole raw fish, like salmon, mackerel, or sardines, or a fish oil supplement, but I’ll discuss fish another time.
So going by the guidelines of stick with one protein for a few weeks, I stayed with chicken legs/thighs before introducing anything new. And it was a good choice as I could source the chickens locally and Bob our local butcher was able to package them in meal sized portions ready for the freezer. Now this all may sound like a lot of work, but it is not. You could easily go to your local grocery store and stock up on whole chickens or chicken parts and be away to the races. I would also suggest buying a good meat cleaver to chunk up a whole chicken into parts.
After feeding chicken for three weeks, I introduced pork. Pork shoulder roasts are plentiful and fairly cheap. One big roast can be halved and offered as is. There was concern in the past with trichinosis, also called trichinellosis, or trichiniasis, which is a parasitic disease caused by eating raw or undercooked pork. However, this parasitic disease has all but disappeared in North America. If there’s any concern over pork, freezing pork that is less than 6 inches thick for 20 days at 5 °F (−15 °C) or three days at −4 °F (−20 °C) kills larval worms. Initial information comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichinosis. I have fed fresh, raw pork for over three years with no problems at all. The old one, Mr. Jake, may get a few loose poos from too much fat but other than that, it’s a great meaty meat to feed. Since the diet is raw meaty BONES, I also give them a pork riblet to go with so much meat.
Ok just what makes up a raw meaty bones diet: a biggish chunk of meaty meat wrapped around a bit of digestible bone with some organ meat thrown in to round out the nutritional needs. That’s about it. It really is as simple as it sounds. Everything a dog requires, except water of course, can be had in raw meaty bones. When I say digestible bone, I mean the softer bones of chickens, turkey, pork, lamb, rabbits, NOT weight bearing bones such as the femurs of large ungulates. These are much too heavy and can and have caused slab fractures and broken teeth in dogs. If you want a site for “recipes” check this one out and have a laugh at the same time: http://rawfeddogs.net/Recipes.
Now how much to feed your dog. Can’t go by what’s on the package because there ain’t one. The rule of thumb is between 1 ½ to 3% of your dog’s ideal adult weight per day. Some use the formula 20% of your dog’s weight over the course of a week. Works out to be about the same.
Now Riley is a hefty 110 lbs., Molly is 58 lbs. and Jake is 38 lbs. So doing the math, Riley who is fed only 1 ½ % of his total weight gets approximately 26 oz. of food. Molly gets about 2% of her weight as she’s very thin so she gets about 19 oz. per day. And Mr. Jake gets 2% as well although he’s put on a few pounds so I think we need to scale him back a bit. He gets about 13 oz. per day.
In the early days, I weighed everything down to the ounce. I am not that fussy these days. I can pretty much eyeball what they need. And I adjust their diet as necessary. Molly really does not like liver and that’s unfortunate as it’s one of the most important organs. So I fool her a bit and top it with a bit of parmesan cheese or minced garlic to try to get her to eat. I don’t normally abide a fussy eater. If my dogs won’t eat what is put in front of them, it gets picked up within 15 minutes popped back in the fridge and offered at the next meal. A few days of that and they are finishing everything in their bowls.
Something else that gets asked quite frequently about a raw diet is: “How can it be nutritionally balanced?” As I said in the first blog, we strive for balance and variety over time. But as for the actual nutritional content of raw meaty bones, I offer data from USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory: www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search. Actually it will take a bit of searching on that site so if anyone would like the resultant spreadsheet of information that was compiled by another raw feeder, let me know by private message and I’ll be glad to send it along. There’s lots more to say about nutritional needs but that requires a journal entry all on its own.
Cheers, stay tuned for why I don’t feed veggies or supplements, others do but I don’t.
Andrea
Ok as to what to feed, whole raw prey is the gold standard but who has access to that sort of thing. Short of sending my house reared terribly spoiled doodles out to the 100 acre wood behind the homestead to fend for themselves, I had to source their food for them.
I learned through my research that human grade food would do just fine for my dogs. Ok that means chicken, beef, pork, goat, lamb, venison, anything I could buy at a reasonable price. Pasture fed meat is best as it avoids all the grain that farm or factory fed animals are given to fatten them up. (I’ll deal a lot more in future posts on grains in a carnivore’s diet.) Grain fed animals produce meat that is high in omega ‘6 and this needs to be countered in a raw diet with either whole raw fish, like salmon, mackerel, or sardines, or a fish oil supplement, but I’ll discuss fish another time.
So going by the guidelines of stick with one protein for a few weeks, I stayed with chicken legs/thighs before introducing anything new. And it was a good choice as I could source the chickens locally and Bob our local butcher was able to package them in meal sized portions ready for the freezer. Now this all may sound like a lot of work, but it is not. You could easily go to your local grocery store and stock up on whole chickens or chicken parts and be away to the races. I would also suggest buying a good meat cleaver to chunk up a whole chicken into parts.
After feeding chicken for three weeks, I introduced pork. Pork shoulder roasts are plentiful and fairly cheap. One big roast can be halved and offered as is. There was concern in the past with trichinosis, also called trichinellosis, or trichiniasis, which is a parasitic disease caused by eating raw or undercooked pork. However, this parasitic disease has all but disappeared in North America. If there’s any concern over pork, freezing pork that is less than 6 inches thick for 20 days at 5 °F (−15 °C) or three days at −4 °F (−20 °C) kills larval worms. Initial information comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichinosis. I have fed fresh, raw pork for over three years with no problems at all. The old one, Mr. Jake, may get a few loose poos from too much fat but other than that, it’s a great meaty meat to feed. Since the diet is raw meaty BONES, I also give them a pork riblet to go with so much meat.
Ok just what makes up a raw meaty bones diet: a biggish chunk of meaty meat wrapped around a bit of digestible bone with some organ meat thrown in to round out the nutritional needs. That’s about it. It really is as simple as it sounds. Everything a dog requires, except water of course, can be had in raw meaty bones. When I say digestible bone, I mean the softer bones of chickens, turkey, pork, lamb, rabbits, NOT weight bearing bones such as the femurs of large ungulates. These are much too heavy and can and have caused slab fractures and broken teeth in dogs. If you want a site for “recipes” check this one out and have a laugh at the same time: http://rawfeddogs.net/Recipes.
Now how much to feed your dog. Can’t go by what’s on the package because there ain’t one. The rule of thumb is between 1 ½ to 3% of your dog’s ideal adult weight per day. Some use the formula 20% of your dog’s weight over the course of a week. Works out to be about the same.
Now Riley is a hefty 110 lbs., Molly is 58 lbs. and Jake is 38 lbs. So doing the math, Riley who is fed only 1 ½ % of his total weight gets approximately 26 oz. of food. Molly gets about 2% of her weight as she’s very thin so she gets about 19 oz. per day. And Mr. Jake gets 2% as well although he’s put on a few pounds so I think we need to scale him back a bit. He gets about 13 oz. per day.
In the early days, I weighed everything down to the ounce. I am not that fussy these days. I can pretty much eyeball what they need. And I adjust their diet as necessary. Molly really does not like liver and that’s unfortunate as it’s one of the most important organs. So I fool her a bit and top it with a bit of parmesan cheese or minced garlic to try to get her to eat. I don’t normally abide a fussy eater. If my dogs won’t eat what is put in front of them, it gets picked up within 15 minutes popped back in the fridge and offered at the next meal. A few days of that and they are finishing everything in their bowls.
Something else that gets asked quite frequently about a raw diet is: “How can it be nutritionally balanced?” As I said in the first blog, we strive for balance and variety over time. But as for the actual nutritional content of raw meaty bones, I offer data from USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory: www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search. Actually it will take a bit of searching on that site so if anyone would like the resultant spreadsheet of information that was compiled by another raw feeder, let me know by private message and I’ll be glad to send it along. There’s lots more to say about nutritional needs but that requires a journal entry all on its own.
Cheers, stay tuned for why I don’t feed veggies or supplements, others do but I don’t.
Andrea
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Vicky & Cassidy on
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I include some vegetables, not because I am 100% convinced they are essential, but more because I feel they are beneficial. I also follow the Yahoo Raw Feeding Group and I know many over there are emphatic about raw meat being all a dog needs. I add green beans, yams, raw eggs and shells, mackeral and black beans. It somehow makes me feel better....!
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