dry food or raw food for a small jack russell please?

asparagus1968

any recommendations?
he has been on hills science plan, liked the small kibble puppy one, but he is now 15 months, and doesn't seem as keen on the bigger kibble feed.
Obviously on a budget too....usually I spend around £30 ish for a 12kg bag.
thanks


ps, anybody raw feed their jack Russell? I'd be interested in hearing about this tooas in what, how much, any suppelments needed etc,cheers

krlyr

I raw-feed, though not Jack Russells (a little bit bigger!). There's no need to do anything massively different for smaller breeds, though smaller dogs may need chicken wings vs. whole chicken carcasses, and sometimes I've fed my bigger dogs a meal that would outsize a JRT!

The general rule of thumb for raw feeding is 2-3% of the ideal adult weight. So a 6kg JRT, for example, would need about 120-180g of raw food a day. This would include meat, bone and offal - just these in the ration of 8:1:1 if you follow the prey model diet, but there are several 'schools' of feeding where you'd add veggies, eggs, yoghurt, etc. - do your research and decide which kind makes most sense, and also see what suits your dog (I feed prey model mostly but do add raw eggs, the occasionally bit of veggies, sometimes a bit of fruit like a blended banana Kong and so on).

I buy from two suppliers who specifically sell raw meat for dogs. The food works out to be about £1.30-1.50ish a kilo, depending on what I get/which supplier I order from (one does free postage but meat costs a bit more, the other is cheaper but has a minimum order and a delivery charge) so for mine, it's about £50 a month, for a little JRT the cost would be teeny in comparison - you're looking as as little as £5 a month, up to about £8ish at the upper end of the scale (180g at £1.50/kg)
Raw feeding can vary in price hugely - you get premium pre-made foods with organic and/or humangrade meats like Honey's Real Dog Food and Natural Instinct, you get people who buy all their meat from supermarkets (so price varies on your stance on buying value meat or buying organic/freerange/etc.), you get the raw dog food suppliers who are usually around a similar sort of price but with different variety with different suppliers, and then you get those who have worked out great bargains/deals with local butchers, abbatoirs, hunters, farmers, etc. to get really cheap or even free meat. Plus there's some who'll take advantage of free roadkill! So it's hard to put a set price on it, you do need to explore the options (and the practicalities - for example, whether you fall in the delivery area of a supplier and whether you have the freezer space for a minimum order)

Like I said, I add the odd raw egg, some blended veg (dogs don't digest veg well so it needs to be blended, cooked or otherwise processed to break down the cell walls), I don't tend to give stuff like natural yoghurt unless I happened to have it in for a recipe and had some leftover. They get green tripe frequently, which has a lot of vitamins and minerals in from the partially digested greenery (tripe is stomach - usually from a cow - and for dog food isn't bleached, so you get a lot of goodness in it). I supplement a few bits, e.g. various oils (at present they get oily fish like sardines, coconut oil and ricebran oil), Kiki's on Devil's Claw as she's got a shoulder condition, I'll save the eggshells from their eggs to blitz up so they can absorb the nutrients from those too and so on. Some people will specifically supplement a vitamin/mineral type powder/tablet/liquid too but I haven't - I do occasionally use dried dog food (grain-free usually) as training treats though so they get the benefit of supplemented vitamins & minerals from that)

Meatwise, they get a mixed variety to provide various nutritional benefits. Like I said, they get oily fish (often fresh, though sometimes stuff like tinned tuna, pilchards, occasionally salmon), I feel that's quite important since mine are both of breeds prone to joint issues, I also feed some non-oily fish (e.g. plain white fish fillets) for variety. They get a lot of chicken, minced, whole, carcasses, etc. as well as a fair bit of tripe (minced or tripe chunks). They also get beef (chunks and mince, as well as beef heart and liver), turkey (fillets, chunks, mince), rabbit (minced and whole), duck (these have come whole, with feathers on - I've had them chopped up to feed in managable sized meals), pork (the odd pork chop or pork mince, but mostly in the form of pigs trotters, pigs heads, etc. as well as pork offal). I don't tend to feed lamb as it gives mine wind, it's OK in small amounts so they'll sometimes get a small lamb rib or other lamb bone, and they seem OK with lambs liver, but I wouldn't give a meal of lamb mince for example.

Bones wise I tend to find carcasses a good size for mine, not too small (so they don't try to swallow them whole), but for a smaller dog chicken wings or necks may suit better. Small racks of ribs might be good too, though I'm sure a little dog would try its best at something like a pigs head!

Offal, as said, is often beef liver, lamb liver, mixed pork offal (everything from lung to kidney, it comes in a mixed bag). They get the offal within the whole rabbit/duck as well, and one of my suppliers does an "economy mince" which is a mix of meat and offal too.

It suits mine well, they've been raw fed I think 3 years now, and thrive on it. It gives them lots of mental stimulation too, chewing a frozen pigs trotter can occupy them for an hour, a pigs head or whole rabbit even longer! But it's not for everyone or every dog, I'd say do some research and perhaps try it out with some supermarket meat to see how the dog likes it, before ordering a big batch of meats.

Rev

I feed raw too. Cost me between £30-£40 a month to feed two 25kg ish dogs.

I buy from either DAF or a local MVM supplier.

meritaten

I would say - shop around see which foods he likes! feed a mix of dry and raw or dry, wet and raw. its a rare dog that doesn't like a bit of variety in its diet! also it doesn't limit you to 'one' type of food - that could prove tricky if your dog goes into kennels for a time when you are on holiday for eg. just like with kids, if you teach them to be 'fussy' they will be 'fussy'.

mellymoo74

We use CSJ for our two Jacks. The male used to get the jack silly skin (allergic to everything) and he now doesn't.
Theyve been on it a year and I get lots of compliments on their coats etc.
CSJ will do samples for you if you ask.

julieb1987

We tried a few different foods for our little JRT (4.8kg). His favourite and the best for his digestive system? Aldi's dry complete food at a whopping £2.89 for a 3kg bag!

I do treat him with the odd roast dinner and sausage every now and again, and he's partial to our left overs!

asparagus1968

thanks all.
the raw feeding sounds really interesting.
will try that and continue dry feed for a while and see how he goes. I love the idea of him chomping on meat and bones etc.

he was one in june, the best thing we ever did was to get him, he is absolutely fantastic.

love and best wishes to you and your pets !