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This is a dedicated place for all of your questions and answers about Raw Diets. There are also some really cool groups like "Raw Fed" on the topic you can join. This forum is for people who already know they like the raw diet or sincerely want to learn more. Please remember that you are receiving advice from peers and not professionals. If you have specific health-related questions about your dog's diet, please contact your vet!
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Sergeant- Tank
Top dog - American- Bulldog! |
 | | Barked: Sat Jul 4, '09 12:51pm PST | |  | |  | | I want to feed raw, I'm just clueless about it though. I've done my research and all I can find are percentages and grams. I need cups and tsp values. lol If any of you would like to give charts like 2lbs beef or 1 chicken quarter, basically like a recipe.. I might be able to start raw. And please help, the poor boys are on kibble. Plus all the extra stuff, like where to buy some things (I saw someone write bone meal) and cups of veggies and whatever else they need. I'm not a dog health expert and would like someone to show the ropes. |  |  | |  |
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Gray Dawn- Treader
Don't Tread on- me
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 | | Barked: Sat Jul 4, '09 1:16pm PST | | | | | | To give you an idea, here is a chart I have stored on the computer that I listed Treader's amounts on:
Type of raw diet: Prey Model (PM)
Treader's ideal weight: Approx. 15 lbs
Is fed: 4% of his weight
Gets: Approx. .60 lbs a day
Gets: Approx 1.80-1.85 lbs of organ a month
Gets: Aproox. .90-.92 1/2 lbs of liver a month, same amount of other screting organ
Gets: Approx. 18 lbs of food a month
Gets: Approx. 10% organ (5% liver/5% other secreting organ)
Gets: Approx. 10% bone
Gets: Aproox. 80% meat
Variety in meat and bone: Chicken, turkey, beef, pork, and other types when possible
Variety in organ: Generally just liver (chicken, beef) and pork brains
You need to use math. To find out how many pounds he'll need a month, multiply his percentage by his weight. Divide this by 30 (the number of days in a month) to find out how how he gets of this amount every day.
Then to get the organ content amounts, multiply the amounts needed a month by 5%.
Bone content, I always take a guess at as I feel it's much more variable than organ content.Edited by author Sat Jul 4, '09 1:21pm PST
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Chamois
"that's my- favorite thing" |
| | Barked: Sat Jul 4, '09 2:20pm PST | | | | | | 1 oz. meat: size of a matchbox
3 oz. meat: size of a deck of cards or bar of soap
8 oz. meat: size of a thin paperback book
3 oz. fish: size of a checkbook
I like weighing it at least some of the time, though, because I'm not very good at estimating even with a deck of card sitting in front of me. I have a postal scale from Office Depot or OfficeMax or one of those places (they cost somewhere between 5 and 20 dollars depending on how big and/or how fancy the model).
I usually weigh the chunk (or look at the package), then either cut some off or add something to get about the right weight. I do not fine tune the amounts each feeding, if it is within 75% or so I go with it. I just keep in mind whether the last few days have been running heavy or light so that she gets close to the target amount if all the meals were averaged.
I buy almost everything from the grocery store, but it took shopping around to find some of the more unusual things like kidneys and hearts (I special order the hearts).
Other than the grocery store: the butcher (that took shopping around also, not all butcher shops save dog scraps or the more unusual organs). Also I found green tripe at a groomer who sells some dog supplies also. Tripe is the stomach of ruminant animals like cows, sheep, and deer. I've seen white tripe in the grocery store but it has almost all the nutrients bleached out of it so I don't buy that.
I do not feed vegetables or any other supplement. The only supplement I might consider would be salmon oil if I couldn't find wild caught salmon.
She doesn't need bone meal because she eats bones. | | | | |
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The Hounds- of- Bassetville- +2
Is that a- chicken- foot?!?!?!?
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| | Barked: Sat Jul 4, '09 3:04pm PST | | | | | | It would be really difficult to feed raw based on cups and tbsp. Instead you use ounces, as it would be hard to actually measure a cup of chicken leg And as far as a recipe goes, here is how our meals go, and it does vary greatly.
For Hunter who weigh 64 lbs and gets 2% of his weight
Day 1: Bone-in Chicken Quarter (About a lb and a third)
about an ounce of chicken liver
about an ounce of beef liver
Day 2: 1 lb Hunk o' pork butt (boneless)
1/3 lb Ground Beef
1 egg
Day 3: Chicken Back (1 lb)
Hunk o' pork butt (1/3 lb)
about an ounce of chicken liver
about an ounce of beef liver | | | | |
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Millie/Drake
EAT -- and be happy! |
| | Barked: Sat Jul 4, '09 8:28pm PST | | | | | | If you want to include veggies, there is a book by Pat MacKay called Reigning Cats and Dogs. It give the nutritive properties of many, many veggies, as well as a couple of "recipies" to go by. Millie and Drake get veggies a couple of times a week, now. Less often that before I became part of this forum, but there are benefits to some of them. | | | | |
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Maxwell
I'm triple- superior MAD- now! |
| | Barked: Sun Jul 5, '09 6:43am PST | | | | | | Well, give us the size of your dogs and we who have figured this out love to show off our impressive math skills. Really a scale is best in the beginning. They aren't very expensive and sure are fun toys, er, tools to have around. Some dogs get tummy aches if over fed and most dogs lie and say they are starving because they want more! Experienced raw feeders don't use them but I still need it as a crutch after a year of feeding raw. Max's 10 ounces a day isn't much food and he gets plump!
Moose has written a wonderful summary of how to start raw feeding. http://www.dogster.com/forums/Raw_Food_Diet/thread/624648/2 Print that out and study it.
Gio's thread on starting to feed raw is very long but most of it is just posts to bump it to the top of the board. It includes many links for more information.
http://www.dogster.com/forums/Raw_Food_Diet/thread/431 875
There is a very long thread on what the dogs have had for dinner and a recent one with weekly menus.
http://www.dogster.com/forums/Raw_Food_Diet/thread/410828
http:// www.dogster.com/forums/Raw_Food_Diet/thread/624951
Threads on how to buy meats more cheaply. Cannot find any at the moment but there are plenty! I mostly buy meat at supermarkets on sale and in the clearance bin. There are people that buy online and have it shipped, I have a person that delivers dog meat up and down the state and some even post on Craig's List for freezer burnt meat that was going to be thrown away!
If you feed meat, a little bone and a little organ that is it - you don't need any other stuff. If you don't feed bone you need a calcium source like bone meal. If you don't feed grass fed meats then best to include an Omega 3 source like fish or fish oil. That is it. You can feed vegetables and fruits if you like but the dogs don't need them. | | | | |
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Maxwell
I'm triple- superior MAD- now! |
| | Barked: Thu Jul 9, '09 7:28am PST | | | | | | Okay Tank is 85 pounds and you think that is his ideal weight? 2% of 85 is 1.7 pounds or 27 ounces to feed daily in one or two meals. If he gets skinny feed a little more.[3% is 2.5 pounds or 40 ounces, somewhere less than that. If he gets fat feed a little less. 1.5% is 1.2 pounds or 21 ounces.] 2% is just about 1/2 a small chicken of about 3.5-4 pounds. Grumpy gets 2% of 50 pounds which is easy, 1 pound a day fed in one or two meals. [up to 1.5 pounds if gets skinny, low as 12 ounces if gets fat] That is 1/4 of a medium sized chicken of 4-4.5 pounds. Since you aren't feeding the giblets right now the chicken can be a bit larger.
Wait for a sale on chickens. I just found a deal, $.69 a pound for whole chicken. Read and study while waiting. GET a SCALE! When you have found enough chickens at a price you are happy with buy enough for a couple weeks of food at least. That would be 7 chickens for Tank and 4 chickens for Grumpy. Takes a lot of freezer space! Put all but 3 or 4 in the freezer. Cut the smaller ones in half for Tank and the larger in quarters for Grumpy if you like before freezing to save some space. The giblets and necks can be saved for later, best way to do that is to spread out on a cookie sheet, freeze and bag but it takes a lot of freezer space.
If you find a deal on chicken quarters then defrost and count how many quarters are in the bag. A 10 pound bag generally has 10 quarters. 1 pound per quarter, perfect for Grumpy. A quarter plus a thigh would be perfect for Tank as the thighs are heavier than the legs. | | | | |
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