Puppy leaving raw food

Croatoan

Puppy doing well on raw after a few days but sometimes doesn't eat the amount recommended (2-3lbs a day meat/bones). Thinking about this, he's now not far off 9 weeks old and since weaning was fed on, let's say 3/4-1lb of kibble a day, whereas now I'm expecting him to eat at least double that amount of meat. Is it usual to find pups or dogs leaving food after the change to raw, at least until they become accustomed to the large increase in volume of food taken in? I'd certainly struggle to double my intake, as would most of us.

krlyr

Which figures are you going by, some suggest 10% of puppy's current weight and some suggest 2-3% of predicted adult weight. I know there's a point where they both bring out the same kind of figure but, for example, I've found a website saying a 9 week old Bernese would weigh about 18lb and an adult up to about 100lb average. 10% would be 1.8lb a day, but 2-3% would be up to 3lb - the extra lb could make quite a difference.
I'd probably drop to 2lb max and see how he does, he'll soon pester if he's hungry, and just monitor his weight by how well you can feel his ribs/hips personally.

Beckyy

How many meals a day are you feeding and what breed of dog do you have?

Croatoan

krlyr wrote: »

Which figures are you going by, some suggest 10% of puppy's current weight and some suggest 2-3% of predicted adult weight. I know there's a point where they both bring out the same kind of figure but, for example, I've found a website saying a 9 week old Bernese would weigh about 18lb and an adult up to about 100lb average. 10% would be 1.8lb a day, but 2-3% would be up to 3lb - the extra lb could make quite a difference.
I'd probably drop to 2lb max and see how he does, he'll soon pester if he's hungry, and just monitor his weight by how well you can feel his ribs/hips personally.

I'm doing 2-3% of adult weight which seems to be the most popular from what I can find. I'm aiming to get around 2lb down him at the moment, I think 3lb, unless it's quite dense would be a struggle. Mainly chicken at the moment though have tried small amounts of heart and one raw egg and he has freeze dried liver as training treats. I was going to continue a largely chicken based diet for a week or two before introducing red meat in any amount, and probably introduce little bits of liver and organ meat shortly after that.
Still trying to source affordale "real" meat, so other than chicken wings and chunks it's still mostly minced. Stools a bit loose today so we'll keep an eye on that.

Croatoan

Beckyy wrote: »

How many meals a day are you feeding and what breed of dog do you have?

We're doing four meals a day and he's a Bernese Mountain Dog.

Beckyy

Ohh, I bet he's gorgeous!

I have a Great Dane who wae feed raw and he's the first dog I've ever fed this diet, it felt quite daunting at first but it gets much easier once you've settled into it. I find the best thing to do is to take any recommendations with a pinch of salt, and feed by eye. Each puppy's appetite varies like each humans does. As long as your dog doesn't look thin or underweght, and isn't 'off' his food, then I wouldn't worry about feeding a certain amount.

If he leaves a 1/4 of his meal, then take a 1/4 off the next meal and feed him that amount for a little while. You can then add a little more as he grows and feed him accordingly. You've also got to bear in mind that treats will reduce the amount of food that he wants, especially as if he's eating them between meals.

The loose stools might be down to the dried liver and any offal in his diet, it is very rich and can go through them quite quickly. It's a great training treat, but if you find it starts to be a problem then try using pieces of cooked chicken or smoked sausage (you just need to watch the amount of sausage because of the salt but my dog absolutely adores the stuff!)

I found that because our dane loved the meat so much he wouldn't take any notice of biscuit treats, infact he still spits them out now and looks quite insulted that he's been given something that isn't nice and meaty!

Our Dane was weaned onto part raw and part kibble so that owners could pick (although our breeder strongly recommended raw). He was having 1/3lb of meat, with a handful of kibbles 4 times a day at 8 weeks. We cut down the biscuits and increased the meat accordingly and it worked great. Thinking about the size of a Dane compared to a Bermese I would say that about 2lb of meat and treats for training is just about right, and as long he's not looking too thin I wouldn't worry at all.

PS - I still feed a majorty of minced meat, and just add boney meals in. I wouldn't worry too much about paying extra for chunks, it's essentially the same stuff and, as long as your dog is getting bone in it's diet, makes no difference if the meat is minced or chunky.

Have you found a supplier yet?

Croatoan

Thanks Beckyy
If you click on https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3585309
you'll see a couple photos and a youtube link.

Yeah, he won't even touch biscuit now, and doesn't seem that interested in normal training treats either. He's still got the chunky puppy look so can't really tell how his weights going, but he seems fine.

I'm torn with suppliers. I was looking at Landywoods which seems good value but we haven't room to store £30 worth. We'll be doing a market/butchers trawl soon and see how it goes. He prefers the mince to the chunks so may just stick with mince and chicken for the bones unless we can find a cheap supplier of red meat.

krlyr

I order from a similar supplier to Landywoods and it works well for me, but I do have two large breeds to feed. A cheap chest freezer off Ebay solved the issue of storage but I did have a summerhouse with electricity to store it in - we're moving house and having to downgrade as the freezer needs to fit in the kitchen and I'm struggling to find one that won't take over the room but will store a month's worth, found a couple of 53cm chest freezers that might just do the trick. If you look up slim chest freezer then there's some even narrower ones, about 35cm, I worked out they'll store about 75lb of meat so might do you fine for a month's worth at 2lb a day.

Croatoan

krlyr wrote: »

I order from a similar supplier to Landywoods and it works well for me, but I do have two large breeds to feed. A cheap chest freezer off Ebay solved the issue of storage but I did have a summerhouse with electricity to store it in - we're moving house and having to downgrade as the freezer needs to fit in the kitchen and I'm struggling to find one that won't take over the room but will store a month's worth, found a couple of 53cm chest freezers that might just do the trick. If you look up slim chest freezer then there's some even narrower ones, about 35cm, I worked out they'll store about 75lb of meat so might do you fine for a month's worth at 2lb a day.

It's space to fit a freezer that's the problem. We've got a fridge freezer in the kitchen and a small chest freezer in the pantry (no room for a bigger one) but there no real room in the kitchen for another seperate freezer, even a small/thin one. If we can talk any doggy friends into raw feeding then it should be a goer, but I'm not getting evangelical about it after only a few days' experience.

krlyr

You could perhaps join BritBarf or similar and see if anyone local feeds raw. I order in some for a friend as she doesn't fall within the supplier's delivery route (he doesn't like to go too near London) and she just collects when she has room. You might find someone with a large chest freezer happy for you to pick up a fortnight's worth at a time.

lisawood78

3 great danes eating raw in my house, we have a giant chest freezer in the garage and order from Berriewoods.
It really is great for them and as Beckyy says as long as you know the basics then feed by eye, you will soon know if he is gaining too much or losing weight.
More pics needed!!! :-)