Who does it? Why, what are the benefits? What do you feed them, pre-packed raw or prepared at home?
We do with a rescue we took on about a year ago. She's really turned around in that year and some of that might well be down to the raw feeding.
Normal meals are from paleo ridge but we supplement it with chicken wings or feet, duck necks, goat necks, cow ears, beef spines etc.
Saw an interesting documentary recently that said the motivation behind dry dog food was nothing to do with dog health but more to do with reducing metal used for tins during the war.
The benefits are that you are not feeding them processed crap and should be giving a wide range of what they would be eating (offal as well as meat). Cooking the meat takes a bit away but we feed our dogs a meat and veg diet albeit with cooked meat and offal.
Big advantage is the poo. Smaller, firmer, less odour and expresses the anal glands naturally.
Is the pre-packaged frozen stuff OK? I'd like the transition to be as seamless as possible and I'm pretty sure my wife won't been keen on a fridge full of offal.
Frozen stuff is fine. We use it for most of the feeding we do.
Originally, we had to mail order in bulk but more and more independent pet shops are getting on board with it.
Here's the Netflix documentary that Onzadog referenced Pet Fooled
Like he said we feed a variety of Paleo Ridge complete minces, but give her additional raw bones a few times a week (watching her eat a raw chicken foot, talons and all, leaves you in no doubt that dogs are 100% carnivores and they are made to crush and digest bones perfectly!)
She is in great condition. Would never go back to feeding carb-rich dried kibble rubbish now.
Paleo Ridge Raw FAQ lists a lot of the benefits 🙂
We put our pup on it after a month or two as his poos were awful on the dry stuff, mr whippy style mush *blergh*. Sorted him right out and he’s been on it ever since, just the frozen stuff from pets at home. Wife reckons his coat is glossier as well, but I’m not convinced!
Chewie had massive food storage mite allergy issues until we put him on raw, within weeks he’d got a layer of fat over his ribs and his coat was much better. Poo quality much improved as well.
Ours is on a combo of high quality dry and wet proccesed food.
I've looked at raw but the prep and storage seems daunting.
Although he gets plain grilled meat a couple of times a week too.
My mutt has raw for his tea since a nasty bout of inflammatory bowel disease 2 years ago. He has been fine ever since apart from the odd small wobble. His dog eggs are always small and firm and he loves the food. 'Natural Instinct' offer a selection of flavours. My pooch seems to prefer the chicken & tripe variety.
Our working cocker is fed raw and has been since 12 weeks when we got her. We started with Honeys who do frozen complete meals. They are a good, friendly company who will give you advice over the phone wether you’re buying or not. We got the starter pack from them which comes with a good book on raw feeding. They’re not cheap but are probably the best. We use a local company now just because I can pick it up. We throw a raw egg in once a week plus chicken wings or duck neck every so often. You’ll be amazed at the different stuff you can get for them. The hardest thing is storage, with it being frozen, we had to get another freezer in the garage.
What's in these raw dog food meals that isn't just frozen raw meat? Can't you just buy stuff from the butcher, portion and freeze?
Raw includes a percentage of ground bone.
We buy bulk from Bulmers pet supplies, 5 X 30 pound boxes for around £85 which works out more cost effective than using the lps. It served with puréed vegetables.
The complete usually contains meat, bone, offal and/or green tripe.
Make sure you're aware of the hazard that raw dog food introduces into your household.
Both the food going into the dog (and what comes out) has the potential to be harbouring some nasty bacteria. Therefore precautions need to be taken, as you would with raw meat you prepare for yourself. E.g thorough cleaning of preparation surfaces. Also make sure the food bowls are kept away from children.
A vet friend told me that any raw fed dogs they take in are kept isolated, just in case they are harbouring something nasty. They also said that they have seen an increase in dogs with raw food related bacterial poisoning. They work at a vet school and probably know what they are taking about.
However, I don't know if that increase is solely due to raw diets, or them seeing the effects of badly prepared, badly stored raw food and clueless owners.
I thought the dog's digestive tract was too acidic for any bacteria to survive?
so just jumping on this , can you name a few brands or websites offering the best bang for buck?
I thought the dog’s digestive tract was too acidic for any bacteria to survive?
Dogs (and probably all animals) would not be able to digest food if their gut was void of bacteria
Dogs have a much shorter digestive tract though. Means stuff is in and out quicker.
I feed raw meat, bones, offal, fish occasionally and about 15% veg and fruit. Looking at the paleo ridge site though, it seems to suggest I should ditch the fruit and veg. I know a lot of the complete mixes (natural instincts for one) contain fruit and veg. Feeling confused now! Anybody feed only animal products?
That's a good point, but we too have both stomach acid AND gut bugs. It's why most probiotics don't actually survive to the place in the body they need to get to work - our guts! It's fascinating stuff, but I can't say I'd be any more vigilant with dog poo coming from a raw fed dog than a dried fed dog.
Our Pup was fed raw by her mum's owner.
We've transitioned her onto a really high quality dried dog food from Akela which she seems to love.
https://www.wholeprey.com/akela-80-20-dog-food.html
After doing some reading we came to the conclusion with 2 kids in the house that the risks of raw outweighed the benefits.
I'm sure raw is definitely much better than the likes of pedigree chum but based on what I read something like Akela is almost as good.
One thing I noted the Raw Feeding people are a bit like vegans only slightly more nuts.
Our two year old dog has dried food and is very settled on it-fit, good coat, sweet breath (well, not after eating sheep poo tbh)
Our previous retriever lived to within six weeks of her 17th birthday and was always fed on dried food.
A friend has a retreiver 10 days older than ours who has always been fed with raw food, and seems very settled on that. Apart from the fact he is a few kilos heavier the two seem very similar.
I guess you find what suits you and the dog and be content with that
Feed my working lab raw. Benefits are happy dog (she wasn’t keen on kibble), easy to regulate weight by feeding carefully weighed amounts. Clean shiny teeth, good coat, small hard stools, easy to pick up, evacuates anal glands well. Easy to source once you know how.
Cons: needs a separate storage (old freezer in the garage) and going away for a few days needs some logistics/planning. Oh, and green tripe stinks.
I get mine in frozen blocks from Yorkshire Raw Feed, Dewsbury. It works our about 60p a day. I also know a local abattoir where I can get as many full plucks and tripes as I can handle, but you need your own big mincer.
Feeding guide is 2% to 3% of target body weight each day, and adjust up or down if they need it. Mine has 240g twice a day for a target 26kg, plus a few flat ribs or chicken wings as a treat.
Main meats vary, beef incl offal, chicken, duck, goose, turkey, game, and any leftover venison trim. Green tripe makes up about 20%.
What's a monthly cost for feeding one 20kg dog?
Our ancient lurcher is on gucci brand high protein dry food with a spoon of lily's kitchen to cheer him up (6th of a tin). Poo is small hard and fairly low odour. Works out about £20 a month
https://honeysrealdogfood.com/order/
I’d try these if you’re trying for the first time. A few offers for first timers.
At the risk of upsetting the dog fraternity there are big human health concerns with this in addition to the bacteriological ones mentioned. Mrs Pedlad works with the leading veterinary parisitologists academics in europe. The risk of harmful parasites being ingested then passed to humans is far higher than with processed food. Reputable providers will freeze down to -20c to kill them whatever stage in the lifecycle they are. This is beyond home freezers.
I Don’t have any axe to grid but an ex colleague’s little daughter was born with massively impacted eyesight so there’s a need to be responsible.
Edit changed temp!
A study probably paid for by pedigree chum.
Or..... if you go to the academic article itself: a peer reviewed scientific paper with no conflicting interests
“Funding Parts of this study were funded by the Eijkman Foundation for Postgraduate Education and Research in Public Health, Utrecht.
Competing interests None declared.”
You do need to be careful when handling it which is why we cook it as it takes aways the problems. Guessing slow cooking the meat looses some of the benefits (not sure how much?) but we use a mix of wild rabbit, pheasant, boar, venison, heart, kidney, liver etc,. so they get a good spectrum of meat types and most importantly no dried rubbish or processed wet food (who would seriously want to live on a diet of dried processed food?)
As said above, there are some wet foods that are pretty much pure meat and veg with no additions as part of process which seem good.
We feed both our ‘new rescue’ dogs Raw.
It’s expensive and a right ball ache to store / defrost / travel with etc...
The dogs seem to enjoy it and the poos are deffo smaller/ less stinky.
They are happy with it and really enjoy dinner
We get ours from a company called PP
I feed my two cats raw and also the maltese dog.
The food is fron Natural Instinct and they do a working dog range, which I don't think is much different but is cheaper as there is no VAT.
you can't leave raw food down for long though if they don't eat it, which is one advantage of dry food.
We feed our rescue Alaskan Malamute on raw meat too from Yorkshire Raw Feed, local to me. When we first got her she was very under weight with ribs showing and I could could grip her midriff within my hand.
Put her on raw meat from day one and the weight gained by over 10kgs in around 5 months. Everyone comments on how good she looks and those who’d seen her when I first got her tohow she looks now can’t believe the difference. The raw meat, a lb twice a day, is supplemented with a little pasta and veggies with tinned sardines on Wednesday and Sunday.
As well as putting on the muscle again, her coat is lovely and glossy, teeth strong and white, no bad breath, no more stomach issues and solid stools.
Been feeding Pon now for over 3 years on Raw Food from Naturaw in York. Costs us about £24 every 14 days, would buy more but the freezer is at capacity with this amount and no space for a dedicated one, we dont buy much frozen stuff anyway so she has two drawers to herself. She seems to love it, has helped her hugely with her digestion as when she was younger and on dried food she just wouldn't settle and was actually loosing weight and had the worst sloppy poo etc