Re: [rawfeeding] Hello!
My recommendations for beginning raw feeding;
[snip]
5. Stay with one new meat for at least a week, maybe two. You want the dog
to be showing you that he is well adjusted to the new meat before adding in
new stuff. Take it slow; add only one new meat every week or two.
6. You can switch to a new meat by just serving it at the next meal, and
all the meals after that for a week or so, or you can add a bite or two of
the new meat in with the 'old' meat, gradually adding more new and less
'old' over several days, until you are feeding all new and no 'old'.
Pups tend to acclimate much more quickly to variety in their diet.
Whatever works for your own dog.
7. Boneless meals tend to produce loose, even runny poops. A judicious
amount of bone in a newbie dog's meal will tend to firm things up. There
will be less poop overall; raw is much more digestible and less goes to
waste. Poops will be less frequent also, for the same reason.
Bone adds bulk, so sloppy poops can be firmed up by some (don't go
overboard!) bone at each meal at first. Too much bone and your dog can get
" fossil" poops that are dry, whitish and crumbly.
8. Chicken is often recommended as the first meat to be introduced for
several reasons: its cheap, easy to obtain, has easily consumed and digested
bones, is easy to cut into different meal sized portions, is bland, you can
trim visible
fat and skin if you need to tweak, you can even take out bone if you need
to, most dogs will eat it and its pretty bland.
Read the labels on the chicken before you buy; don't get any that say
its enhanced with flavoring/seasonings, tenderizing additives or
salt/sugar/broth injected. Some dogs get itchy or vomit or get true diarrhea
from enhancements. Whole chickens are the best to start with, ime. Cut into
portion sizes with kitchen shears, as needed.
[snip]
10. Some dogs will get the Bile Vomits or Bone Bits Bile Vomits (BV or BBBV)
when new to raw simply because their schedules or routines of eating have
been changed.
When a dog adjusts to raw, his gastric 'juices' become much more acid, to
better digest the raw meat and bone. If he's expecting a meal at a certain
time, the juices start flowing in anticipation of getting a meal. When the
meal doesn't happen, the dog often will hork up the yellowish, foamyish
bile, with or without bones.
Sometimes they hork up BBBV because raw digests faster than kibble, the
tummy is empty, so it must be time to eat. NP for the dog, he's gotten rid
of the irritation. He may react as if he feels bad, just because you are
upset that he did it on your new comforter, or on the white carpet.
11. A lot of dogs don't drink as much water or as frequently when switched
to all raw, all the time. Raw has a pretty high water content and most dogs
are forced by dry as dust kibble to over drink water to compensate in order
for their bodies to process it. If only fed raw, you don't need to coax your
dog to drink more water or even broth, just offer plenty of fresh water,
he'll drink when he needs it.
12. True diarrhea is not just loose, runny or sloppy poops. It is frequent,
liquid or watery explosions of poo that a dog cannot 'hold back'.
True diarrhea is caused by disease or parasites. The occasional loose
poops, or "Cannon Butt" even over a few days, that comes from feeding a few
too many boneless meals or introing too much of a new meat or feeding too
much organ
at one whack, is not diarrhea.
13. The general rule of thumb for feeding raw is: 80% meat (muscle, fat,
skin, connective tissue and such muscular organs as heart, tongue and
gizzard) 10% EDIBLE bone (not all bone that is served must be consumed) and
10% organs (3-5% of this is liver, the rest is as much variety as you
can find and afford) This is not an immutable 'daily requirement'.
"Balance Over Time", over weeks and months is one of the raw feeding
maxims. ; ) If you feed true whole prey, that is; entire animals at a time,
then the meat to bone to organ ratios are 'perfect' for that creature.
Whatever parts your dog can eat of is right for him. In the wild, wolves
will eat off a large animal carcass for days, and each wolf gets different
parts.
If times are hard, they will consume the entire critter, including
skin, fur, less 'choice' parts and will even crack the hard long bones to
get to the marrow, even hunt small prey, like rabbits, mice or birds. If
pickin's are plentiful, they will eat the easiest and choice parts, and then
move on.
Because of variances in size, age, personality, life experiences,
structure and dental ability, a particular dog will be able to consume, or
not: all or part or some or a little bone from any particular animal. The
exception to this is most beef bones, and the weight bearing bones of large
ruminants - too dense - these are tooth breakers and can cause early wear.
If you feed 'Frankenprey', that is; a variety of protein, body parts
and organs from different animals, to simulate the whole prey experience for
your dogs, you are challenged to find enough variety in all these aspects
for optimal health.
14. Organs - don't try to add a lot of organs or organ variety at first. An
easy way to satisfy the human need to "Do it all, right now!", is to toss
the gizzards and heart you get with your whole chickens in with a bonier
meal, a little piece at a meal.
Heart and gizzards are organs, but should be fed as meatymeat. The liver
can be cut up into teensy bits, and fed a tiny bit at a time with a meal.
This will allow you to feed organs, but shouldn't cause runny stools. If it
does, stop feeding it and freeze those parts for later on down the line.
My list of organs, so I don't forget to look for variety; liver, salivary
glands, spleen, trachea, esophagus, sweetbread (thymus & pancreas),
ears, kidneys, repro organs, brain.
"Offal" - viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal often considered
inedible by humans, but great dog food! Offal can fall into either
meatymeat or organ categories.
[snip]
16. You can feed pretty much any animal or animal part that your dog will
eat and that won't break the bank. : ) Common grocery store variety suffices
for some; chicken, turkey, pork, beef, lamb, fish, rabbit. Others can obtain
at a reasonable price and feed; goat, venison, emu, ostrich, bison, beefalo,
elk, mutton, mice, rats, guinea hen, quail, bear (bear? ;) ), the list goes
on and on.
[snip]
Whole chickens, turkeys, pork shoulder roasts and fresh hams are all big
hunks 'o meat and edible and digestible bone that you should be considering
introducing into your pup's feeding plan, as well as organs.
[snip]
Let us know how it goes, 'K?
TC
Giselle
with BeaBea & Da Punk in CMCo, NJ
"You did then what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did
better."
Maya Angelou
-------
k. Danni seems to love this. I swear her teeth are already looking cleaner, but I took pictures this morning to compare later on. Her digestive system is handling this really well. There's been no vomiting or disgusting poo to speak of. Actually, they're quite solid.
