Raw feeding ..... dogs

con1888

Yeah one of them only fresher looking? The bone more white and meat more red.

rising_from_the_ashes

Only pic I could find & prob a "dried" pre-packed one IYKWIM - they will look much fresher with bright red meat direct from the butchers.

con1888

Its definitely one of them she has atm. Lots of meat was still on it aswell.

krlyr

Dollardog wrote: »

My dog gets sick if he has a lot of pork, my vet said that 90% of dogs are allergic t pork, that's why you never see any pork dog food.

I think there are a few brands that do a pork variety. I always believed the reason it's not that common is because there's not much in a pig that isn't used for human consumption - what doesn't go into bacon, ham, joints and chops tends to get chucked into sausages.
Pork is also a meat that people tended to avoid feeding raw because of trichinella spirosis - a parasite found in pork meat. Nowadays, British pork is tested for it - and freezing for a few days will kill the parasite anyway. Mine don't get pork that often (my raw food supplier can't get much of it because he sources all his meat from the same places that supply human-grade stuff and there's rarely much left over to sell for pet food) but don't have any problems with it when they do. But it was introduced slowly - regardless of what meat/cut was fed, it was probably too much in one go for a dog still being introduced to raw IMO.

MatyMoo

Interesting thread Rising, I am thinking of moving my 8 month old puppy over to BARF as he really doesn't like plain kibble. I have tried tough love and served it up for 2 days with no other option and he left it, until I added in some cooked veg.

So far he has had chicken wings which he loves, some beef mince and some liver. He also loves raw carrots. Yoghurt and cottage cheese didn't go down too well though.

He loves frozen peas as a treat too!

He is currently on 50/50 kibble and nature diet and loving it. Before I can go to BARF full time I do need to get a bigger freezer and probable a food processor!

rising_from_the_ashes

MatyMoo wrote: »

I do need to get a bigger freezer and probable a food processor!

:eek: yes, you'd certainly not want to use the "household" one!:rotfl:

rising_from_the_ashes

Matymoo just as an aside .... none of ours have ever just eaten their kibble without anything in - most have had home cooked (I know:)) beef or turkey mince or chicken and various veg... batch cooked & frozen into individual portions so it's easy to just take one out the freezer.

Good luck with the raw diet - I still have concerns I would get the balance right and I must admit I'm not sure I could cope with carcasses and things in the mornings .

Will keep investigating .....:)

Dollardog

I know a lot of people on here feed raw fish, chicken wings and carcases but it would scare me to give my dog these in case he got the bones stuck. I know raw bones are better than cooked ones but it would still worry me.
I tried him the other day with one of those chunks of antler, we went through a whole box of them to see if one took his fancy, he finally decided that one looked ok, then the pet man gave him a pizzle stick, that was it, not interested in the antler at all after that. I had to swap it for some pizzle sticks and other treats.
Not all that keen on him having the pizzle sticks either, he chews them until they are soft then swallows them, heaves them up, chews a bit longer then swallows them again, this goes on 3-4 times before they stay down. He does the same with pigs ears and rawhide chews, so I don't let him have those either.

Dollardog

My dog doesn't have just dried food, he will eat it eventually but likes something with it.
I get half a pack of lean mince or a chicken portion. Put various veg - carrots, parsnip, cabbage, an apple, celery, swede etc in a processor and chop it really fine, then make a stew out of it. He has about 3-4 spoons of this on his dry food each day.
He loves natural yogurt and has that for his breakfast each morning, its good to get them used to it in case they have a poorly tummy, it settles it.

krlyr

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Good luck with the raw diet - I still have concerns I would get the balance right and I must admit I'm not sure I could cope with carcasses and things in the mornings .

Will keep investigating .....:)

Something like Natural Instinct or one of the other pre-packaged raw foods will solve both these issues, no need to give more than the odd recreational bone and already balanced for you

Dollardog wrote: »

He does the same with pigs ears and rawhide chews, so I don't let him have those either.

Have you tried holding the end of the pizzle etc. to teach him to chew them up properly? I had to do this with Kiki as she was the type to crunch things up a little then try to swallow large pieces, after a few times of holding one end (which forced her to have to chew the rest up) she got the hang of it and was safe enough to leave to her own devices.
The thing with raw feeding is that you need to pick bones appropriate to their size and eating habits - I know that chicken necks, for example, were the worst for Kiki not chewing properly, so I ditched them in favour of whole carcasses. She has no choice but to chew them up - and even when she gets down to a small piece, the shape of it means it's not as easy to swallow as a long, thin chicken neck so she continues to chew it up.