[edit] we ARE RAW!
I'm sorta nervous about this, but after 2 years of solid research about canine diets, and seeing a holistic nutritionist and charting and planning...
Tomorrow we go RAW. Actually, today we began by fasting the dogs after they finished their bag of kibble.
I have bone-in chicken and bone-in turkey and chicken liver and turkey gizzards and lamb chubs all portioned out in the freezer ready for them for the next couple weeks. Tomorrow we are feeding chicken only, bone-in. I found the best butcher who helped me out with cuts and even gave me a few chicken backs and turkey necks on the house to start!
I do have one question that I get mixed reviews on..
Treats - we have an unopened small bag on Orijen adult formula and 1/2 a small bag of wellness core left over from their kibble days. Granted everything goes well with their 'cold turkey' switch to RAW, I was considering using the kibble as a training treat. That would mean they'd get maybe 5-10 pieces of kibble max a day during training time. Would this harm the digestion process once on a RAW diet?
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Dave, did the nutritionist mention anything about Lucy potentially doing better with no kibble in her diet? the more research I did, the more I came across dogs with IBD and digestive issues that had no issues whatsoever in a RAW diet, more so the prey-model diets. Just wondering!
Tomorrow we go RAW. Actually, today we began by fasting the dogs after they finished their bag of kibble.
I have bone-in chicken and bone-in turkey and chicken liver and turkey gizzards and lamb chubs all portioned out in the freezer ready for them for the next couple weeks. Tomorrow we are feeding chicken only, bone-in. I found the best butcher who helped me out with cuts and even gave me a few chicken backs and turkey necks on the house to start!
I do have one question that I get mixed reviews on..
Treats - we have an unopened small bag on Orijen adult formula and 1/2 a small bag of wellness core left over from their kibble days. Granted everything goes well with their 'cold turkey' switch to RAW, I was considering using the kibble as a training treat. That would mean they'd get maybe 5-10 pieces of kibble max a day during training time. Would this harm the digestion process once on a RAW diet?
===
Dave, did the nutritionist mention anything about Lucy potentially doing better with no kibble in her diet? the more research I did, the more I came across dogs with IBD and digestive issues that had no issues whatsoever in a RAW diet, more so the prey-model diets. Just wondering!
Comments
Feeding a RAW diet and then giving some cooked food is not really an issue.
Be careful with the chicken backs, they can be sharp and are very bony - you may notice there pops turn a little white if you feed to much chicken backs - we had this problem. Your dogs poo is the window into their GI tract - make sure you monitor it [as I know you do] it will tell you if you are missing something from the diet.
I found that watching our Shibees shred through chicken bone and turkey bone was one of the most exciting thing I have done with my dogs. You can really create a nice bond with your pup if you hold the bony food for them and let them rip the meat off as you hold it.
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I will certainly try holding the chicken/turkey bone while they eat it. I might have my husband do this for Hachi actually, she still doesn't really trust him to the level I'd like her to be at this point. That is a great suggestion!
we go raw in 6 hours! i'm like way to excited about this..
John really enjoyed holding the RMBs for Hachi, she wasn't responding to them until he did.
It was really interesting to see *how* they went about eating the meat and bone together. It was so natural to them once they realized WHAT they were eating. I see similarities in how they play with toys, eat rawhide, and whatever they did that had them use their mouths and hands and teeth. Dogs were definitely meant for ripping and tearing! And the bones! Just crunched them right up! I'm glad I finally got the stones to do this for them.. even if there are now livers, tripe, hearts, necks, backs, gizzards and other various parts in my freezer!!
*Oh, we set up a BM chart to monitor their 'window to the GI tract' through the transition for at least the next few months while we introduce different parts and proteins
If the swallow a piece to large they will throw it back up and eat it again - its kinda gross but that's very normal. Dog's saliva actually start digesting the meat and bone as they chew on it so the act of chewing the meat and pulling it from the bone softens everything. It is really very neat to watch.
We used to just sit with them while they eat their RAW because we were a bit paranoid too about them chocking or something. Good bonding.
Our Shibas really liked Lamb Chops too - tho kinda pricey we would give them to them every now and then as a treat... over time I really started to hate the smell of RAW lamb tho. :oT
Another good one was Oxtail - the bone is rich with marrow and very soft. Our pups really liked Oxtail.
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this afternoon Hachi actually threw up a small chunk of bone from a small chicken leg and re-ate it. I had read that in my research, but John was like "what did she just do??". Its a real learning experience for the whole family!
We're giving them a bit of yogurt after they finish eating, is that a good way to do it? Or should we give them the yogurt before?
So far, all poops are normal too!
We stopped by a German world butcher this afternoon, and I was like a stinkin kid in a candy store.. albeit a very bloody and disturbing candy store.. I just wanted to know what everything was, where it originated on the animal..
we actually ended up buying calf's liver, chicken necks, beef testicles (mmm!) and a meat cleaver! I think we'll have to invest in a deep freeze how! This is a whole new level of enthusiasm for me and dog food!
And you are right, Brad, I can see how this can create new ways of bonding, too. Its awesome.
As for the yogurt - we would actually mix the yogurt with some raw veggies and give it to them as a snack in the AM then feed the meat at night. We did this because they would never want to eat the veggies when they could eat meat - so feeding it at the same time didn't work for us.
Also - you may want to buy a "Food Saver". We have one and would butcher all of the meat into dinner size portions, label them, and then freeze them. Then we could just pull out whatever protein was on the calendar for the next day the night before so it would thaw in the fridge in time for dinner.
So now do you see why we don't feed RAW any more? I mean you see how much meat you have to keep for 3 Shiba... imagine doing it for 2 Shiba, 2 Shikoku, a Kai-Ken, and 3 AKITA! The Akita alone would eat several pounds of meat a day!!! That's a lot of drumettes! LOL!!! I mean the three of your Shiba combined is probably just a little over half of Hilo!
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I can see how it would get impossibly expensive to feed all your dogs on RAW! The holisitic nutritionist has 2 - 110lb+ malamutes and when she told me how much she spends on meat and supplements - I almost lost my convictions!
I'm concerned for what our foster dog diets will be when we do sanctuary.. we're still trying to conceive a financially feasible way to try to at least incorporate RAW while keeping our three on their total RAW diets. It will be a challenge!
We have a 'meal' planned to incorporate the veggies every 3rd day with their servings of offal - but we're not doing that until next week. We're going to chunky blend some kelp, carrots and apples with the liver or heart/gizzards.
Did you ever incorporate whole raw eggs when you did feed RAW?
And now I'm going to look into a food saver (and a dremel actually)!
If anyone is considering doing this, I have a really simple Excel spreadsheet that you plug in your dogs weight and activity level and it gives you estimated measurements in lbs/oz/kg for meats and supplements for RAW to give you an idea what you'd be in for plus a slew of other awesome resources!
The only thing we had no luck with when feeding raw was raw fish, they just never liked fish.
We plan to compost our dogs poop too - we have not gotten around to ordering our composter yet.
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we have to leave it in the basement but it does a good job keeping up on 3 dogs and most other compostable materials. I think when we move, we're going to do the garbage can in the ground composter b/c the Nature Mill composter wouldn't be able to keep up with any more than what we have now!
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I don't think we would need any digestive enzyme b/c the dogs are handling the digestion of the bones and thus getting the max benefit from them, plus we do NO grains now, which is usually what a digestive enzyme is needed for, right? But I'm not an expert! I'm so new at this!
But our nutritionist said we should at least use Solid Gold's SeaMeal + any probiotic activity (we do plain yogurt/cottage cheese) and a source of omega 3, omega 6 (fish oil) and a biologically correct form of vitamin E, which she suggested is cold pressed olive oil.
Does anyone use Seameal? Or are there better vitamin/mineral combination supplements out there?
Are there any other biologically correct natural sources of vitamin E? I'm finding very little on the internet!
http://www.onlynaturalpet.com/products/Solid-Gold-SeaMeal-Powder/140027.aspx
p.s. watching the pups crack open a raw egg was so funny!!
Seameal, Fish oil, glucosamine & chondroitin, and a probiotic are what we add to our pups and what we used to add w/ RAW. We really like Seameal, it does wonders for their coat and is a good multivitamin. We have a HUGE container of it. lol
I would add at least what your nutritionist recommended to your pups RAW diet since it will just ensure that you are giving them everything they need [vitamins, minerals, etc]. Those supplements are really designed to give the base nutrition and anything added on top [like what is in the RAW diet] i a bonus.
For fish oil, we mix it w/ their food - but since you are feeding RAW that might be hard... so I would recommend a gel pill, we give them to our pups as treats... they LOVE them. You can give them the same type of fish oil pill you would take.
Hope that helps!
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thank you!
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