'Are we killing our pets?' Petfood article.

firesidemaid

the other point that no-one has mentioned re. raw meat is the small risk of food poisoning either to your animal or yourself and family.

this may be self-limiting or more serious depending on the immune status of the individual. there are plenty of documented cases of pet to human transmission in the scientific/medical literature.

rita-rabbit

robert_harper_2000 wrote: »

I prefer Orijen as it is 70%-75% real meat rather than the Burns 65% rice. After all dogs and cat are carnivores.

I find Burns the cheapest of quality dried foods, however would feed another quality food if it was similar price - that is if fatcat didn't get dandruff (she had got it with other stuff like Pets @ home ownbrand)

Fire_Fox

firesidemaid wrote: »

the other point that no-one has mentioned re. raw meat is the small risk of food poisoning either to your animal or yourself and family.

this may be self-limiting or more serious depending on the immune status of the individual. there are plenty of documented cases of pet to human transmission in the scientific/medical literature.

It's only raw meat not benzene! What is the difference between preparing and cooking meat for your family and preparing and serving raw meat to your pet? :huh: Food poisoning is relatively easily prevented with good food and personal hygeine! I bet a lot more people contract infections from changing their baby's nappy than from raw pet food and we don't scaremonger over having a baby.

tandraig

I think we treat our animals badly if we feed them exclusively on tinned or dried food. I made that mistake with some of my own animals, and thought i was doing my best for them.
then I had nicky - my HIV cat, and researching that condition, i also found some interesting sites which talked about the best nutrition for cats. so nicky had the occasional pouch - which he loved - but mostly was fed raw meat or lightly cooked meat along with whatever he fancied that we were having!
he loved chicken chow mien (but i would pick the onion out as apparently it can be poisonous - actually that reminds me - i was in asda and saw one of their brands of cat food and it was beef and onion! I picked it up and went to customer disservices and asked why they were poisoning cats now. the lady looked at me as if i was mad - so i asked to speak to manager, was told he was busy, in a meeting. good, i replied if suits are here then ask them to come as well or i am going to be on phone to press in about five minutes! sure enough - within ten minutes the service desk looked like a blues brothers convention (minus sunglasses) I again asked why they were poisoning cats! explained that cats cannot eat onion - so why include it in their tinned food? one guy said - well its fit for human consumption! ok - then you eat it - but dont feed it to your cat! another man then said 'madam - If you are right - then heads will roll'
sorry cant say whether heads rolled or that variety withdrawn - I discovered Aldis and havent shopped in Asda since!
oops digressed a bit - but to my mind if cats and dogs chose to live with man from caveman times - then the diet must have been the same - meat, fruit, veg, nuts and seeds and grain. problem is - our diet has changed!
What i can tell you is that nicky seemed to get along ok on his diet of raw meat, scraps, bit of chinese takeaway and no dairy or eggs! oh his absolute fave was the melt from frozen meat!!!!!!!!!! (suggested by the HIV cat site)

KVet

* FIV in cats

firesidemaid

Fire_Fox wrote: »

It's only raw meat not benzene! What is the difference between preparing and cooking meat for your family and preparing and serving raw meat to your pet? :huh: Food poisoning is relatively easily prevented with good food and personal hygeine! I bet a lot more people contract infections from changing their baby's nappy than from raw pet food and we don't scaremonger over having a baby.

a certain percentage of all meat contains food poisoning organisms - i'm talking mainly about salmonella, campylobacter and e coli 0157 - it's not the handling of the raw meat, it's because it is being fed to the animals (humans rarely eat raw meat, unless served rare or accidentally undercooked). pets then may or may not develop food poisoning themselves, but can still excrete/carry the organisms.

potentially then, there is a higher risk of transmission from pet to human IF meat is served raw. read the scientific/veterinary literature not the lovely, fluffy pet sites. i have dogs and cats and try to feed them the most natural, high quality diet i can alongside advice from my vets. but, as a scientist, i could not feed them raw meat due to the risks. would you consider feeding a child or a pregnant woman raw meat?

http://www.universityvet.com/content/raw-diets-and-your-pet
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC339295/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16677120/
http://www.provet.co.uk/health/diseases/campylobacter.htm

Dollardog

Has anyone fed their dog on Harrington's that Asda sell? I bought some the other day for my dog and he loved it. He also likes Purina One but can't seem to get that in many places.

Fire_Fox

firesidemaid wrote: »

a certain percentage of all meat contains food poisoning organisms - i'm talking mainly about salmonella, campylobacter and e coli 0157 - it's not the handling of the raw meat, it's because it is being fed to the animals (humans rarely eat raw meat, unless served rare or accidentally undercooked). pets then may or may not develop food poisoning themselves, but can still excrete/carry the organisms.

Campylobacter and Salmonella in fresh chicken:
http://www.food.gov.uk/science/surveillance/fsisbranch2009/fsis0409
What percentage of raw feeder households get food poisoning each year? What percentage of those have been shown to have contracted the infection from their pet, rather than directly? Aren't BBQs thought to be the most common source of infection?

Apologies this is not lifted from a more reputable website but the author claims to be suitably qualified, and the article refers to published studies one of the which you linked to:

"By Lesley New

BSc Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of Alberta

One popular study done by Joffe and Schlesinger assesses the risk of Salmonella in dogs fed a raw diet. While the study does show positive results for Salmonella in 80% of the raw food and 30% of the stools sampled from dogs fed raw diets there are aspects that are overlooked in regards to these results and the study itself (6). ... Of the 8 samples of raw food that tested positive for Salmonella only one of the three positive stool samples correlates back to the same species of Salmonella found in the food. In the remaining dogs the Salmonella was either dealt with by their system and was not present in their stool or was already in their gut microflora and was expelled in their stool. The positive results in 30% of the stool samples for dogs fed raw does not come as a surprise seeing that 36% of healthy dogs, regardless of diet, have Salmonella in their digestive tract (4). It was actually more surprising that none of the dogs fed a dry diet tested positive for Salmonella."
http://www.mountaindogfood.com/HealthCare/Salmonella.htm

firesidemaid wrote: »

potentially then, there is a higher risk of transmission from pet to human IF meat is served raw. read the scientific/veterinary literature not the lovely, fluffy pet sites. i have dogs and cats and try to feed them the most natural, high quality diet i can alongside advice from my vets. but, as a scientist, i could not feed them raw meat due to the risks. would you consider feeding a child or a pregnant woman raw meat?

Charming: I hold a degree level qualification in microbiology and have previously worked as a senior research lab technician! I wouldn't feed any human raw meat (not even sashimi or steak tartare); we don't have the anatomy to cope reliably.

The potential for transmission is not a reason to feed your animal an unnatural diet, just as evangelical raw fed sites are not a reason to feed a wholly raw diet! The research simply hasn't been undertaken hence there is a clear element of scaremongering in BOTH cases. As a scientist I strive to feed my cat a biologically appropriate diet exactly I advise my NHS clients to eat.

Veterinarians in many countries now recommend raw chicken wings to help prevent dental decay, and I'm sure you are familiar with the strong links between oral and systemic health. If your pet struggles with chronic periodontal disease it's quite possible that infection could be passed onto other members of the household.
http://www.westtoowoombavetsurgery.com/site/view/105676_AllaboutKittens.pml%3Bjsessionid=x1177phx8s
http://warbyvet.com.au/kittens.html

firesidemaid wrote: »

http://www.universityvet.com/content/raw-diets-and-your-pet
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC339295/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16677120/

Thanks for the links, bookmarked. It's unfortunate that a lot of the data on the net - whether scientific or anecdotal - is American as they have far less stringent regulations about what constitutes pet meat than we do. Perhaps why they have had scares over Salmonella, melamine and phenobarbitone in ultra-heat treated pet foods ...

firesidemaid

sorry firefox, didn't mean to offend in any way. i did try to make my original post factual and non-scaremongering.

there are many cases per annum both in practice and in the literature of pet to human transmission, but the original source of the organism is not always detected. just wanted to point out the likely increased risk of infection due to raw meat.

the main risk, as you say, is where personal hygiene in general etc is not so good.

Fire_Fox

IMO there is only limited difference between case studies in the literature and the evangelical testimonials found on the many raw fed sites. It's intuitive that - where poor hygiene is practiced or there are immuno-compromised individuals in the household - a pet could contract, and transmit, gastroenteritis from raw food.

Without tests on the food AND the pet AND the human, the chain of infection is little more than an educated guess. If the raw meat has such as a high bacterial load that it overwhelms the animal's defences then it would be easy to infect oneself during preparation. The solution surely is to source and store your meat more carefully. :huh:

There is a causal link between obesity, undernutrition and a whole host of disease states in humans. Whilst canine and feline metabolisms are very different to ours, they use nutrients from food in exactly the same way. We also know that prescription diets can be highly effective in relieving symptoms and prolonging life.

Why then do we refuse to accept that pet under- or over-nutrition is contributing to the increase in health conditions such as cancer, diabetes and renal failure? Are we so arrogant that we believe that our scientists have created the perfect 'fake' pet food when they cannot properly replicate human breast milk?

The RSPCA five freedoms includes:
"... the right type and amount of food to keep them fit [and the] freedom from pain, injury and disease [and the] freedom to behave normally ..."
For many domestic cats and dogs I would argue a raw chicken wing a couple of times a week will tick at least one of the boxes.

Disclaimer: I do not solely raw feed, I am no more convinced that we know enough about providing a complete raw diet than providing a complete cooked and processed diet.