I am switching my dogs to raw (Need people with experience)

[watchdogps]

I leave for a little bit and I miss this great post about switching to raw! I'm weird, but I LOVE hearing about people going natural for their dogs! You've gotten some great advice here. I too, do the prey model raw. Pork is NOT a problem. I have two pigs in the barn now that will be killed tomorrow and going right to the dogs.
Re: gulping her food - you can feed big stuff, just take it away after she's eaten enough. Give her a whole chicken and let her work for a while, then put it in the fridge.
Re: the growing Pyr - how old is he? Growing dogs can need a LOT more than 2%, I usually do not limit them at all.
Re: fat - chickens will also appreciate any extra!
Re: why chicken to start, meats harder to digest - generally fattier meats are harder to start with, but if your dogs have had beef and pork and are fine, no need to omit them now. Also, those bones are harder, so some dogs need time to get gut in shape to handle them

Have fun with it!

 

[Fleabuskitty]

The Pyr is almost 6 months old. I don't know his exact weight (maybe a little under 50 pounds) but since Pyrs get to about 100 pounds and so would eat 2 pounds of meat a day I've been giving him about 1 pound a day. Should I be feeding him more than that?
I'm not too worried about them being able to handle bones because they've been getting random bones (and also raw meat) as occasional treats for as long as I've had them and had no issues.

 

[naturalfeddogs]

It would be hard to feed bigger chunks, especially since she is eating 1/2 pound of meat a day divided up into two meals so bigger chunks would probably be too much, but frozen seems like a good idea, I'll do that tomorrow

You guys are really helpful, thanks! I didn't expect to learn so much about raw feeding dogs on BYC, seeing as it is a chicken forum

When I say larger chunks, I mean cuts that they can't just swallow whole. Something large enough that they are forced to chew first.

Everything I have learned has come from either the raw feeding forum at dogfoodchat.com, or preymodelraw.com. Look there, and you won't believe what you will learn!

 

[naturalfeddogs]

I leave for a little bit and I miss this great post about switching to raw! I'm weird, but I LOVE hearing about people going natural for their dogs! You've gotten some great advice here. I too, do the prey model raw. Pork is NOT a problem. I have two pigs in the barn now that will be killed tomorrow and going right to the dogs.
Re: gulping her food - you can feed big stuff, just take it away after she's eaten enough. Give her a whole chicken and let her work for a while, then put it in the fridge.
Re: the growing Pyr - how old is he? Growing dogs can need a LOT more than 2%, I usually do not limit them at all.
Re: fat - chickens will also appreciate any extra!
Re: why chicken to start, meats harder to digest - generally fattier meats are harder to start with, but if your dogs have had beef and pork and are fine, no need to omit them now. Also, those bones are harder, so some dogs need time to get gut in shape to handle them

Have fun with it!

For puppies, they should be fed about 2% of their estimated adult weight.

 

[Fleabuskitty]

Ok, I'll start giving him about 2 pounds of food, then.
Also, here is a video of Dan and Homer playing together because it's funny

 

[Jubilee1111]

Another little tidbit of info... If they have to chew the meat, the enzymes in the meat can clean their teeth better. It's really more the enzymes in the meat than the crunching of bone that gives them those puppy white chompers

I just placed a ten year old female Boxer foster dog. Her adopters called to ask when she'd had a dental done because her teeth were amazingly white. They did NOT look like that when I took her on 6 months ago.

 

[naturalfeddogs]

Of course the ripping and tearing of the meat does HELP to clean, its really the bone that does the actual cleaning. If you take a kibble fed dog with plaque build up and feed it only boneless, you won't see any difference in the teeth. Then start feeding considerable more bone you would start to see the plaque chip away. The bone even cleans extra meat out of the teeth as well, not to mention lots of nutrients in the bone.

But as far as cleaning, without bone you won't see much difference. Its really the main cleaning componant.

 

[Jubilee1111]

Naturalfed, I agree to some extent but keep in mind that enzymes are proteins that control chemical reactions. They START the chemical process that breaks down the plaque build up so the bone can knock it off.

 

[Fleabuskitty]

We will be out of town for the night and only had fish in the fridge, so I divided up the fish into meals for this evening and tomorrow morning along with a little bit of ground beef (and Homer gets a beef rib bone tomorrow morning). Since they've been eating beef for almost a week, will this be okay?

 

[naturalfeddogs]

We will be out of town for the night and only had fish in the fridge, so I divided up the fish into meals for this evening and tomorrow morning along with a little bit of ground beef (and Homer gets a beef rib bone tomorrow morning). Since they've been eating beef for almost a week, will this be okay?

If its for one night it should be fine, but I don't feed ground meat for two reasons:

1)Lack of dental benefits from tearing and ripping meat
2)The grinding process exposes the muscle fibers to air, which in turn increases the bacteria load. Normally bacteria isn't a problem, but it does increase enough that I don't feed it.