Raw feeding - hold my hand

sandollar1010

So my current pup is just a year old.  We are adopting a 3 year old dog in 2 weeks.  The new dog is fed a raw diet, and I will continue with it so he doesn't have to deal with a diet change in addition to his new home.  My current girl is on grain-free kibble, but with all of the recalls I am ready to switch her to raw too.  I really want them to have the same diet to make things easy.  Anyway, there is so much info out there about raw, I feel really overwhelmed.  I basically want to know how much/what to feed at each meal - I know 2-3% of body weight, but what does that amount to... a chicken quater, a rack of rib, etc.?  I am in MA and don't have access to a lot of diverse meat - so I need to look at cost and what is available.  It will likley be a lot of chicken, some beef and pork, canned fish (as it's cheaper than fresh), and anything that the butcher has on sale.  Pre-made raw isn't an option due to the cost.  My dog is 65lbs and the new dog is about 55lbs.  They will be eating twice a day.  I have read it's best to just switch and not to do any transition.  What can I expect from the change - loose poop, vomit, etc?  How long before she is fully acclimated?  Will they need any additional supplements?  Any info you have is much appreciated.  TIA!

Kaiene

There are lots of raw feeding groups on yahoo, and you can find suppliers through them, too.

Most of the regulars are on proboards now, but you can try paging KatelynS07 or TheLinkBride.  Both feed raw to their dogs.

I feed raw to my cats, but we use ground stuff from a supplier, so I'm not the best person to ask. 

sandollar1010

Thanks!  I just posted over on proboards too. 

foopygirl

We have 3 dogs and we feed raw diet to 2/3.  My oldest girl wasn't able to take the raw diet because of her sensitive stomach, so we've kept her on kibble.  As far as buying 'from the butcher' you will need to supplement to their diet, since dogs eat both meat and vegetables in their natural diet and those can be pretty expensive.  Even more so than pre-packaged food which tends to be balanced for a dog's nutritional needs.   Also, organ meat and bones is where dogs get their glucosamine and chondrointin which is very important for your pups, especially your bigger breeds and this isn't found in human meats, so it will have to be further supplemented.  We feed Bravo blends in 10# chubs and rotate through 4 proteins, beef/chicken/lamb/turkey, which is something you'll have to do to vary the protein and the diet to further supplement the nutrients that your pups will need.  My two pups last about 10 days/chub and I don't supplement their diet any further than what's in their food.  If they have some stomach upset, I can add a probiotic which will add additional bacteria to help settle their system.  Clean-up is pretty great in the yard, their waste dissolves in about 2-3 days and there's no additional residue in the grass.  We found a great resource in a local pet food store and they've been a great help to us.  The name of the place was Healthy Hounds, 708-922-2910.  Please don't buy butcher/grocery store meat before doing your research.  Going raw was the best thing we ever did for our dogs, but it's something that we considered and researched for a bit to make sure it was the best option for all of us. 

Good luck! 

TheLinkBride

I've fed raw for awhile and am happy with how well my dog is doing, especially his muscle tone.  I'm not a good one to give advice on amount with chicken because I don't feed chicken.  I do a lot of feeling his ribs and seeing how he is doing and adjusting the amount that I feed based on the protein.

I think it's good that you are feeding twice a day.  I would take the amount of organ slow since it can cause digestive issues and increase bone if you need to firm things up.  For the change, you dog could be totally fine or you could have some digestive upset.   I pretty much agree that I wouldn't do a slow transition because I don't like mixing raw and kibble, but you can always do some bland meals if you find that you need it to help settle the stomach.

For supplements, I give a fish oil and vitamin E (changing the fish oil for variety), prebiotics/probiotics/digestive enzymes to help him get the most out of his food, and Wholistic Pet Canine Complete Joint Mobility that has both supplements for joint and overall health.  You don't need to but I like giving these extra things but I wouldn't change a bunch at one time, I would take it slowly so if something causes a problem, you can know it because you only changed one thing.  That's the great thing about raw, you better know what is going into your dog.