Minneapolis/St. Paul Nesties
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
pattymctatty
I saw your post about feeding your dog raw food. Do you buy a commercial brand or do you do it yourself? How does that work logistically? Does your dog stick to the food bowl or wander off with it?
I'm making home cooked food for mine and I'm really happy with it but I've been considering moving to raw lately. It almost seems like it would be easier than having to plan ahead, cook everything and then weigh it into portions. At the same time, I can't imagine the logistics. My dog has a tendency to run off with big chunks of stuff. It would be fine in the summer when I could send her outside but what about the winter?
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
Re: pattymctatty
I do a mix of prey model raw and ground whole turkey from Woody's Pet Food Deli. The ground whole meat is expensive but DH doesn't get squeamish with the ground stuff.
Basically - I order 25 lbs of ground whole turkey from Woody's Pet Food Deli every 8 - 12 weeks, make it into 1/2 cup balls and thaw as needed when DH needs to feed the dog or he goes to boarding or stays with someone. It's about $60 for 25lbs of ground whole turkey, so that's why I don't order it often.
For prey model - I just take what I can get - at Costco I buy at 3 - 4 packages of drumsticks, thighs, chicken breasts, ground beef, turkey, some steaks if it's cheap, etc... whatever is on sale - I get venison from my sister, beef from neighbors, etc... I usually have anywhere from 30 - 80 lbs of meat on hand. I feed organs too, so I get beef liver, beef hearts, chicken liver, chicken innards, pork liver - all of that from Cub, Rainbow, whatever is on sale. I think I spend anywhere from $20 - $40 every two weeks when I shop sales.
I'm having a hard time finding a meat distributor that sells to the public so this spring I'm going to have to call around to local farms to see what I can get in bulk and for organs. I'm just sort of lazy for that right now. It's easier to pick up stuff when I go grocery shopping for people food and pick up organs...
Rusty doesn't run off to other parts of the house with the ground meat so it's easy to feed him in the kitchen. However, he loves to hide and chomp on the whole pieces so I just put him in the bathroom and shut the door.
For portioning it out - I spend maybe 30 - 45 minutes a week. I portion out a week's worth of meals and then thaw as needed overnight. I usually have 2 days worth of thawed food in the fridge at a time. I also purchased the Gladware with red tops so those are designated as "dog food."
Eep, that's a long answer - let me know if you have any other questions!
We also have two refrigerators. The basement fridge is for dog food and alcohol. Random but sort of funny!
I almost forgot - we also give whole fish and pork as well if I can find it for a good price. Thawing everything out to portion is kind of a pain in the rear end, but it's nice knowing that you can just grab a container and feed. I just leave the meal in the plastic container and Rusty eats out of it so I don't use his dog dish when we give the whole pieces.
That does help, thank you.
So when you put him in the bathroom, do you end up having to wash the floor or do you put something down and throw that in the washer? I know that's a stupid question but I'm vegetarian and get pretty grossed out by raw meat. Maybe I could stick her in the tub, which would be far easier to clean. I'm sure she'd love that. ha.
I spend about the same amount of time making my dog's food. I throw everything in the crock pot but then portioning it out kind of sucks. It doesn't help that my dog goes absolutely insane on cooking day. She runs around the house, howls and barks, stalks the crock pot, drools like mad, gets under my feet and generally drives me crazy.
I'm seriously considering making the switch this summer. I went to Lake Harriet for help figuring out her current recipe and supplements so I'll go back and see if the supplements need to change with raw. I give her an omega-3, multi-vitamin, calcium and 3 supplements for arthritis and 1 for another condition she has. What do you supplement with?
You may want to stop at the downtown St. Paul farmer's market this spring and check with the vendors about the organs. We talked to a bunch of them last summer to see if we could set up a regular bulk order for ground chicken. Most of them were willing but we ended up going with Callister Farm. They package it in 5 lb. increments and give us a discount. It sounds like it's more expensive than what you're currently paying, though. We spend $100 on 25 lbs. of ground chicken per month.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
I just put down a towel in the bathroom. Rusty is really good at staying on the towel (we really working on "on your bed" so that way he would know to stay in place). He mostly drools on the towel though, he has kind of a weird way of eating - he just takes the whole piece of meat and crunches it until he can swallow it. I guess dogs don't chew their food like people though - they make whatever they're eating just the right size to swallow. Yuck.
We just do fish oil and then a probiotic for supplements - I really wasn't sure exactly what to go with but I knew that if we did NOT feed organs, I would need to do more supplements. Organs have more nutritional value and bone has calcium so we don't do calcium supplements.
The only bad thing about feeding beef is that you can't feed weight-bearing bones because it might crack your dog's teeth, so when we do feed beef, I just throw either chicken feet or a drumstick into the container. Bones also help keep their poop firm. AND I've found that Rusty's poo disintegrates in about a week. WOOT for not cleaning up as much poo!
I will most definitely go to the St. Paul farmer's market! If you overhear, "Do sell meat in 50 pound increments, can I order some?" that's probably me! LOL
I think there are a few groups around that city that place large orders of raw at discounted rates and then meet in a parking lot for their order and divide it all up. Try looking up Minneapolis Raw Feeding under Yahoo groups. If I find the specific group info I'll forward it to you.
Photo taken at 16 months old
Here it is:
http://rawsforpaws.com/store/
Also, the 10# Bravo Chicken or Beef chubs at Chuck and Don's are pretty cost effective.
Photo taken at 16 months old