# Raw Feeding Picture Thread



## PackMomma

So, Sibe had a great idea..a raw feeding picture thread. I've seen it on other threads, wasn't sure if it was done here or not, or if it should go in the food forum or in picture forum, but I think this is a more appropriate location for it.

Please share your raw feeding pictures!


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## PackMomma

I have a few I can share - I will get some more eventually, but I got a bunny wabbit sitting in the freezer I'm gonna give to them soon so I'll be sure to get some pics of that!

Thumper and a cornish hen body - Cash got the wings and thighs









Cash enjoying a turkey neck









Thumper and some pork ribs


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## PackMomma

I've got one more,

This was just a little breakfast concoction I put together for them one morning before a long day of hiking, some turkey neck, whole sardine, egg and some ground whole elk


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## JulieK1967

Fun idea!! Here are two shots of Molly. One is her of very first raw meal, a chicken neck she wasn't exactly sure what to do with but she definitely wanted it so she tried to carried it around. The other is Molly enjoying some beef. I also have a great Youtube video of my little kitchen wolf that I'm adding a link to here as well.








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## Willowy

Where do you get whole sardines? Are they frozen or canned?


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## PackMomma

Willowy said:


> Where do you get whole sardines? Are they frozen or canned?


I buy them frozen at a local grocery store, in the seafood section. Here they come in about a bag of about a dozen I wanna say, for $6. I thaw them out slightly then feed, although lately i've been just thawing one out and cutting it up for them to share. If I feed it whole, they roll in it before they eat it for some reason lol. So they each get about half a large sardine once a week.


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## Sibe

I get whole frozen sardines at the regular grocery store. Not canned.

I have a ton of pictures.
Denali with a llama leg.









I took the bones shortly after this pic as the leg bone is much too hard ,and the toe bones are hard as well as being choking-hazard sized.









Llama neck









Pork picnic roast


















Whole feathered chickens. I only did it this way once as feathers made a mess. I skin birds now.









"Do I have something on my face?"









Beef ribs (aka bath day)









This is what is meant by letting a dog "strip the meat" off a bone before taking it away. This was a pork arm bone, a little hard for her.


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## InkedMarie

I don't feed raw but I'm always amazed at pictures of dog who eat it. I don't think I could feed anything that still has feathers or hair!


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## PackMomma

Yeah I'm not sure I could either, not that it would bother me per say, but the mess I just wouldn't want to deal with. The place I order my prey model raw from sells whole piglets and rabbits, the piglets are whole though and I think I'd have an issue feeding that so I just opt for the chickens and the rabbits, atleast they are skinned and beheaded lol. 

I have though, let Cash catch and eat a mouse once lol.

I want to feed the boys a PMR meal tomorrow morning before our camping trip, and I'm itching to try the rabbit - will be their first time eating whole rabbit, although they get ground rabbit all the time so i'll be sure to get some pics of that!


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## denise3099

I haven't given Carmen anything raw yet because of the mess. I scrambled an egg for her but couldn't imagine just putting a raw egg in her dish without getting egg all over her. Plus, I think she would take a raw bone right to the sofa to knaw on and I would lose my mind. lol. Do you give a bath after every meal? how do you keep a house and dog clean on a raw diet?


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## PackMomma

denise3099 said:


> I haven't given Carmen anything raw yet because of the mess. I scrambled an egg for her but couldn't imagine just putting a raw egg in her dish without getting egg all over her. Plus, I think she would take a raw bone right to the sofa to knaw on and I would lose my mind. lol. Do you give a bath after every meal? how do you keep a house and dog clean on a raw diet?


My dogs just lap up the raw egg out of the dish, and they don't make a mess what so ever with it. For the raw bones and such, as you can see - it goes outside, or in the back porch on the lino where its easy to clean up after. The stinky stuff like fish and tripe absolutely go outside without a doubt lol. I dont have a problem with the boys bringing raw bones in the house and on the carpet once they've cleaned the meat and blood off and they continue using it as a recreational bone for a couple days after.

I never have to bath my dogs, when I USED to feed the sardines whole, Cash would occasionally roll on them, so I'd have to wash him off quickly but since I've just started cutting the fish in medallion peices. If they get a little messy, I just take a wash cloth with some warm water with a tiny bit of doggy shampoo or soap and just wipe them down if its on a place they can't clean themselves. Luckily my dogs aren't messy eaters. It is very easy to train a dog to stay on a blanket or a towel to eat their meals if you so desire, that way you just pop it into the washing machine afterward. I can instruct my dogs to stay in one area of the kitchen on the linoleum floor to eat, and then I mop up or swiffer afterward where they ate. However, most of their PMR meals they eat outside on the deck or the grass - just easier that way.

I feed mainly a premade ground raw, which is no different than say, canned food. Its just ground up meat that is previously frozen and formed into little hamburger style patties and easy to thaw and serve - this is a great way to feed raw for people who are little weary about feeding 'whole' animal parts like PMR. My boys get a few PMR meals a week when I have ample time to either thaw it, butcher it, portion it, and of course supervise them while they eat it. Otherwise on like weekday mornings or busy days, they get premade ground raw, and when I feed that all I do is put it in a bowl and wash it out thoroughly with hot soapy water once they've finished, and wipe down the counters where I prepared it incase any blood dripped off or something.


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## InkedMarie

PackMomma, what premade raw do you feed?


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## PackMomma

InkedMarie said:


> PackMomma, what premade raw do you feed?


Carnivora/Urban Carnivore - not sure if its available in US? Its made in Sask, AB. http://www.carnivora.ca/index.cfm

Really like this food, its one of the higher quality commercial raw foods available here, and it is of course the most expensive - but its preservative, filler and additive free, and 100% fresh and organic, just whole animal product. and I get a great discount on it so that's primarily why I continue to feed it, good price, for the convenience and quality, IMO. My 6.5 yr old Shiba Inu has been eating it since he was weaned as a pup with no problems, Thumper has been on it for a year with no issues - they both love it. Great varieties, I carry 8 different proteins on a regular basis and stock up on each one monthly.


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## InkedMarie

PackMomma said:


> Carnivora/Urban Carnivore - not sure if its available in US? Its made in Sask, AB. http://www.carnivora.ca/index.cfm
> 
> Really like this food, its one of the higher quality commercial raw foods available here, and it is of course the most expensive - but its preservative, filler and additive free, and 100% fresh and organic, just whole animal product. and I get a great discount on it so that's primarily why I continue to feed it, good price, for the convenience and quality, IMO. My 6.5 yr old Shiba Inu has been eating it since he was weaned as a pup with no problems, Thumper has been on it for a year with no issues - they both love it. Great varieties, I carry 8 different proteins on a regular basis and stock up on each one monthly.


 Yeah, not available in the States but thanks for telling me about it!


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## denise3099

Thanks packmomma--I think the next egg I give her will just be a bowl of egg. Plus since the weather's good, I may toss her a bone (literally  ) in the yard.


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## PackMomma

denise3099 said:


> Thanks packmomma--I think the next egg I give her will just be a bowl of egg. Plus since the weather's good, I may toss her a bone (literally  ) in the yard.


Unless your dog has a beard, I can't see it being too messy. I also feed eggs w/ the shells too. In the picture I didn't because the meal had enough bone in it that the shell wasn't really necessary - but you could certainly feed the shells as well for a little added calcium, and depending on the size of the dog, 1 whole raw egg can easily be an entire meal. RMB's (raw meaty bone's) are a great way to supplement occasionally for both nutrition and dental health too!


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## PackMomma

InkedMarie said:


> Yeah, not available in the States but thanks for telling me about it!


Yeah I noticed, but, I'm sure there are commercial raw company's in the US that are similar.


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## Losech

I haven't ever really posted here much before (I had some SERIOUS computer issues for a long long time) and I've been feeding raw for... a year and a half? I've got quite a few good pictures of my Shiba Inu Conker eating raw meats, and the Girls (Border Collie x Labrador Retrievers, mainly kibble-fed) to share. I'll try to space them every few posts so I don't overload you all with images.
The bowls below contain any of the following: Turkey backs or necks, any part of a chicken, pork or beef meat, canned oysters or clams, sardines, beef liver, chicken hearts, eggs, turkey or chicken gizzards, ground roasted chicory root (prebiotic, food for probiotics), probiotic powder.









Conker munching on a turkey neck. I think.









Various meats for the dogs.









Chicken etc.









Conker with a beef rib.









Last thanksgiving. 









Turkey based meals.









More turkey, I think. Or chicken.









Sasha with... something.









Juneau with another something. 

(Look at those black coats reflecting the pool! The Girls may be kibble-fed, but the partial raw does make a difference.)


Okay, I think that's good for now.


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## Sibe

I have some vids too. Some are quite long as I lose track of how long I've been recording haha. I have a blog and have posted pics and vids for friends to see to help get them on the raw feeding train.. I'm not quite as obsessed as all these pics and vids are probably making me seem lol.

Pork roasts





Chicken quarters





Kaytu's first egg





Whole chicken





Beef ribs (Kaytu goes to town on these!)





Pork belly


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## Willowy

InkedMarie said:


> I don't feed raw but I'm always amazed at pictures of dog who eat it. I don't think I could feed anything that still has feathers or hair!


 Yeah, not happening here either. And that's not something I'll be "getting over". One of the main reasons I haven't gone raw yet. I'm OK with chicken quarters. . .just trying to figure out how to do this without cutting up kidneys or feeding llama heads or whatever!

I do feed the cats ground raw and some chunks. So far only pre-made ground but I'm going to order some ground meats from Hare Today soon--but that's almost pre-made; just needs some mixing. I used to think it was harder with cats bbut I'm thinking it's harder with dogs!


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## Losech

Here are some more pictures.

I did something in June of last year I called 30 days of RAW where I took a picture of everything I fed Conker. It was a lot of fun, but I am lacking a camera right now so I didn't redo it this year.








You can read more here.









Meatface









Conker's ears were huge when he was younger.


























































Conker's first raw meal at 6 months old.


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## PackMomma

Losech said:


> Here are some more pictures.
> 
> I did something in June of last year I called 30 days of RAW where I took a picture of everything I fed Conker. It was a lot of fun, but I am lacking a camera right now so I didn't redo it this year.QUOTE]
> 
> That's awesome! Looks like your doing a wonderful job with raw feeding  Beautiful Shiba BTW.
> 
> I have some major butchering to do here soon.. rabbits, chickens.. ugh. We were all talking here about not wanting to deal with feathers and what not and the chickens I have in my freezer are only lightly skinned, they still have their heads, feet everything in tact, and some feathers lol. That will be a fun job. The rabbit is also pretty large, I've never really butchered whole animals before so I can definitely say I'm not looking forward to it, i'm the person who always skipped the disecting classes in Biology because it gives me the heebie jeebies but... someone's gotta do it lol. I can't wait to share the pictures of this experience with you all! LOL


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## PackMomma

Well I got some of the butchering done lastnight.. I have a before and after lol. A whole chicken and a whole rabbit. in the plastic bag is also some duck necks, and whole ground turkey and pork. None of this is commercial food, its fresh right off a farm, from a couple who raise the critters themselves and also source from other farmers here in Alberta, to produce for raw dog food consumption. and they do all the butchering, skinning, and packaging, then freeze and deliver fresh! I am very happy with this little business, for the variety, price and quality can't really go wrong. My last order was two whole chickens, whole rabbit, 10lbs bison necks, 10lbs of duck necks, 5lbs ground whole turkey, 5lbs ground whole pork and I paid just over $60 for all of it. I put in another order yesterday for 3lbs of sheep/lamb organ mix, 5 lbs of sheep/lamb mixed bones, 5 lbs of mixed turkey organs, 1 whole duck, 3 lbs of beef heart, 3 lbs of elk tripe, and 5 lbs of beef meaty bones and that order will also come to around $60. I think now that I finally tried these guys out I can start moving off of the commercial ground raw i've been feeding, and since i'm saving a little bit of money doing the hard work of butchering, preparing/portioning everything out I'm also putting them on %100 raw. I threw the kibble in the freezer though to keep just in case I need it, and will use the commercial ground raw occasionally as well since it is so convenient lol.

Ok so anyway here's the pic. My skills aren't so great but I did the job. I used a bunch of freezer bags and labelled them 4 oz, 8 oz, and 16 oz and portioned this stuff accordingly (4 oz is half of Cash's portion/day, 8 oz is Cash's full serving/day and half of Thumpers, and 16 oz is a full serving for Thumper in a day. I did this because sometimes they might get a ground/commercial meal in the weekday mornings when I dont have time for the prey model stuff, but on weekends they will get all prey model, and weeknights they get prey model, etc. I didn't get a pic of everything portioned out, because i'll take pics of it when I serve it! In total these portioned meals included rabbit, chicken, duck, pork, turkey and whole large sardines.


Chicken and bunny before..








Chicken and bunny after.. along with some duck necks and ground meat off to the side.. lol


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## Losech

PackMomma said:


> Well I got some of the butchering done lastnight..


Nice! I've been wanting to try butchering a whole animal that's larger than a little 1 pound Coot but since I can't ever find any whole uncleaned farm animals to buy (not yet, that is) and waterfowl hunting season is not here yet, and I can't find a good rabbit or squirrel spot that doesn't restrict all hunting to bird seasons, I've got to make do with store-bought chickens and bulk meat. 
The Coots were fun to clean, though. I've always loved cleaning fish and didn't know what I'd think of a bird, but found it to be no different. Their feet are really strange looking.










And the meat is very dark reddish purple.









Tasted fine, something between a mix of beef and turkey. (They have a reputation of tasting horrid, which I found to be completly false.) Two out of three dogs loved the rest of the Coot. The Shiba wouldn't touch anything but pure muscle meat, but the two indiscriminate Girls wolfed down the frames and organs without a second thought.


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## PackMomma

Losech said:


> Nice! I've been wanting to try butchering a whole animal that's larger than a little 1 pound Coot but since I can't ever find any whole uncleaned farm animals to buy (not yet, that is) and waterfowl hunting season is not here yet, and I can't find a good rabbit or squirrel spot that doesn't restrict all hunting to bird seasons, I've got to make do with store-bought chickens and bulk meat.
> The Coots were fun to clean, though. I've always loved cleaning fish and didn't know what I'd think of a bird, but found it to be no different. Their feet are really strange looking.
> 
> Tasted fine, something between a mix of beef and turkey. (They have a reputation of tasting horrid, which I found to be completly false.) Two out of three dogs loved the rest of the Coot. The Shiba wouldn't touch anything but pure muscle meat, but the two indiscriminate Girls wolfed down the frames and organs without a second thought.


That's neat! To tell you the truth, I'm not a big fan of butchering whole uncleaned animals lol. I have anothere chicken to do, but I'm not sure I will be doing it again... but it depends on if i get a good deal on a good protein variety. Its just the insides I can't deal with, fish i'm okay with..not that I ever have to clean them, but I used to when I was younger..but with the chicken and the rabbit I just cut off everything around the stomach and insides, and left the body of the carcass as it for an entire meal itself. The rabbit body is still quite large, so I will probably let the boys both go at it and rip it apart and fend for themselves like the savages they are. The chicken body is almost exactly 16 Oz which is a whole feeding for Thumper for one day so he will get that sometime.

So here's a pic of the boy's dinner the other night, Cash's 4 oz serving consists of part of a whole sardine and some rabbit, I believe part of the shoulder. Thumpers 8 oz serving is the rabbit neck, a pork rib and a few peices of whole sardine. 










Like I mentioned before their weekday breakfasts are usually just whole ground animal, so its not really interesting stuff to take pictures of, but incase any of you are wondering why these meals look so small its because its only half their daily portion lol.

So its been a full week since Thumper has been on a complete raw diet, and about a month for Cash, and I gotta say since eliminating the kibble in their diet i'm noticing some slight differences even though they both didn't eat much kibble before. Stools are even smaller, they almost look like the size of rabbit poop and they aren't smelly what so ever and they turn into dust and basically just fertilizes my lawn lol. Both dogs havent had any eye boogies,they both would get them occasionally when on a partial kibble, no gas or bad breath.. yup I think i'm sold... %100 raw diet from here on, took me a while to get to this point but I'm glad I did it.


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## MagicRe

since feeding raw, i even look at bambi and thumper as food. sigh.

i like this one because bubba is doing his snorty noise thing and malia...well, all she wants is for me to cut the meat off the bone so she doesn't have to work.


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## PackMomma

MagicRe said:


> since feeding raw, i even look at bambi and thumper as food. sigh..


LOL me too! My neighborhood lies on the outskirts of town, and we are surrounded by little lakes and ponds and wooded areas filled with all sorts of water fowl, bunnies, etc and since there are walking trails around these ecosystems I walk the dogs frequently and always tell myself how nice it would be to be able to score myself some of these creatures. Theres a family of rabbits living underneath my front porch, and another family living under my neighbors RV. Plenty of free food around here if only I was able to actually hunt and kill them lol. If I ever do catch one of the bunnies in my backyard though, fair game IMO lol, they're tresspassing on my property. 

I was driving home from a ski trip in the mountains this past March, and some bozo ahead of us plowed down 3 big horn sheep, they were scattered all over the highway, half dead, I pulled over and turned to ask my pals in the back seat , joking of course, if they'd be willing to help me load one of those suckers into the truck before Fish & Wildlife showed up to dispose of them.. and they all were like "Why!? are you nuts?" .. "Yeah.. for dog food, duh!". Ya you shoulda seen the looks I got lol.


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## PackMomma

I am considering getting a hunting license though, I actually don't think I require one here since I have treaty status, I don't require a fishing license but I buy one anyway since I still haven't yet gotten around to getting my status card, I just have my number. Might look into it in the future though, my Dad hunted for years so upon his retirement I'm wondering if it something he may consider taking up again and taking me out with him. Aside from the experience and doing something different, I thoroughly enjoy game meat and all the extra's i'm sure the dogs would love


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## MagicRe

PackMomma said:


> I am considering getting a hunting license though, I actually don't think I require one here since I have treaty status, I don't require a fishing license but I buy one anyway since I still haven't yet gotten around to getting my status card, I just have my number. Might look into it in the future though, my Dad hunted for years so upon his retirement I'm wondering if it something he may consider taking up again and taking me out with him. Aside from the experience and doing something different, I thoroughly enjoy game meat and all the extra's i'm sure the dogs would love


i am moving next door to you. think canada would take me? 

there was a youtube video. cutest little goat kid trying to get a pug to play with it. and all i could think of was wow. what a great source of protein.

feeding raw has made me demented. LOL


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## PackMomma

MagicRe said:


> i am moving next door to you. think canada would take me?
> 
> there was a youtube video. cutest little goat kid trying to get a pug to play with it. and all i could think of was wow. what a great source of protein.
> 
> feeding raw has made me demented. LOL


Um. Yes.. they let everybody in this country, its a free for all here didn't you know? Come one come all.. lol. 

Honestly, its made me slightly demented too, and my friends and family haven't hesitated to tell me that, either. Actually a popular term thrown my way these days is "Savage". lol


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## Mizbri

Is it feasable to just raise rabbits on your property and feed them to the dogs? I mean rabbits are constantly breeding anyway, why not get a few hutches and start breeding your own food? Or would that be more of a pain than aquiring them elsewhere? Also, instead of doing the butchering...can't the dog kill it and just eat it? I don't feed raw, I do supplement with raw, but mainly simple things like eggs, chicken, steak ect...but this thought crossed my mind after reading these posts.


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## Willowy

Many people do raise rabbits for their dogs' meat. However, most dogs are not efficient killers and the poor rabbit would suffer if you let the dog take care of it . Humane slaughter is better. If you want to store the meat, you have to clean the guts and blood out or it'll spoil, but if your dog eats it right there on the spot you don't have to clean it. Assuming a whole rabbit is the proper serving size for your dog.

Also, despite rabbits' reputation for breeding like bunnies, it's not as easy as you would think to raise rabbits. If anything is off about feed quality, sanitation, etc. you won't get very many live litters.


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## Mizbri

Willowy said:


> Many people do raise rabbits for their dogs' meat. However, most dogs are not efficient killers and the poor rabbit would suffer if you let the dog take care of it . Humane slaughter is better. If you want to store the meat, you have to clean the guts and blood out or it'll spoil, but if your dog eats it right there on the spot you don't have to clean it. Assuming a whole rabbit is the proper serving size for your dog.
> 
> Also, despite rabbits' reputation for breeding like bunnies, it's not as easy as you would think to raise rabbits. If anything is off about feed quality, sanitation, etc. you won't get very many live litters.


I was a 4H kid and specialized in rabbits...I had a hard time getting them to STOP breeding lol, eventually had to get them fixed haha. Seems like a proper serving size could be anywhere from a baby to an adult, depending on the size of the dog...but a hassle still since you'd have to care for the rabbits and cleanup after them. It was just a thought...fresh, fresh, fresh lol.


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## Willowy

LOL, I knew a 4H kid who couldn't get a live litter to save his life, even with 3 does. I don't know what he was doing wrong. But that's why I said it--I've never tried to raise bunnies. But if you've had live litters before and don't have a problem with slaughtering, I'm sure you could make it work.


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## MagicRe

i might see all things as food, but i don't have the stomach to kill an animal.....Mizbri.....just the care and feeding seems too much for me. it's enough i break down hundreds of pounds of food for them...have two and a half freezers chock full of goodies....and they are, thank g'd, the healthiest dogs i've ever had....

i'll leave the growing and slaughtering and dressing to those who want to do that and make money from it. when my co op orders from hare today, i think tracy can take a vacation from what we order. i'm down with that. LOL

i know my corgi mix, if allowed, would kill rabbits. she did when she was younger, but rabbits run really fast...and she'd be gone and i wouldn't know if she were coming back....

somehow, it's not fair to me to raise a live rabbit or buy one and let it loose in a pen and then let my dog loose on the rabbit. the odds are way stacked against the rabbit, ya know?

i know it's not easy to raise rabbits, and that's why we spend so much on them....i prefer to leave the work to hare-today in PA and buy from them. keeps her in business and me in rabbit heads and rabbits...and tripe...



as to canada letting every one in, pack momma.......how's the weather? LOL


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## Little Wise Owl

Here's a meal from the other day. My mom forgot she was thawing a roast chicken for the family and it was past its expiry date so the dog's got it. The green stuff is Honest Kitchen's "Preference" mix. They get a little bit of that once or twice a week.










Our 11 year old Bichon/Poodle mix with a chicken thigh. He used to have pink feet and black eye discharge before he went onto raw.









Charlie showing off her shiny muscles while eating a chicken thigh as well.


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## DeLaGym

This is AWESOME. Can anyone point me to some articles for raw feeding. I want to read more about it.


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## MagicRe

DeLaGym said:


> This is AWESOME. Can anyone point me to some articles for raw feeding. I want to read more about it.


what kind of articles?

http://www.preymodelraw.com/gettingstarted

and if you look through that entire site, you'll see articles about raw.

also,

http://www.rawfedmyths.com/


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## Little Wise Owl

DeLaGym said:


> This is AWESOME. Can anyone point me to some articles for raw feeding. I want to read more about it.



I think www.dogaware.com is full of great information on home prepared diets (both cooked and raw).


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## JohnnyBandit

Pork Testicle Chicken necks and some ground raw veggies.









Pork Testicle









Beef Heart and Green Tripe. 









Chicken Parts and I do not remember what else.









Some Kidney and other stuff... Do not remember what all was in there.









Duck Neck, Whiting, ground veggies, etc









Ummmm Looks like Turkey hearts, chicken necks, and some other stuff.









Same stuff









Hmmmm Beef Liver, chicken parts, a hunk of whiting, and who knows what else.










Looks like beef liver, chicken and some veggies.


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## JohnnyBandit

Same stuff









Ummm This is a puree of some beef liver, mullet back bones with meat and fins (mullet is a local saltwater fish) some goats milk and collard greens.


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## Sibe

DeLaGym said:


> This is AWESOME. Can anyone point me to some articles for raw feeding. I want to read more about it.


There are a few different ways to feed raw. BARF, premade/commercial ground raw, and prey model raw (PMR). I feed PMR as it's best imitates what a wild canid like a wolf would eat and it makes the most sense to me. I don't believe in feeding plants (grains o veggies or fruit) or dairy. Mine do get fruits and veggies as a treat sometimes but it's not a part of their regular diet. Dogs get everything they need form raw as long as you provide variety.

I like this guide a LOT for giving you the basics of how to start feeding raw. http://www.kaossiberians.com/rawfeeding.html
And this site has a lot of good info and helps you with the myths like "chicken bones are bad" and "raw meat will make your dog sick" http://www.rawlearning.com/rawfaq.html
There is a thread stickied in this forum too that has a lot of helpful links.


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## Tupples

You can feed just about any prey animal that can run, swim, or fly. For examples of certain raw meaty bone "recipes", please visit Raw Fed Dogs. Here are some suggestions as well as helpful notes:
Whole Eggs
Beef (any parts, except dense weight-bearing bones)
Liver (any species)
Kidney (any species)
Green tripe
Heart (any species)
Spleen (any species)
Sweetbreads (any species)
Lung (any species)
Whole rabbits (or parts)
Chicken (whole or parts)
Turkey (whole or parts)
Quail
Pheasant
Duck
Goose
Pork
Lamb
Goat
Deer
Elk
Bison
Pronghorn antelope
Ostrich
Kangaroo
Emu
Whole fish (avoid fresh salmon)
Canned fish (use sparingly)
Rats
Squirrels
Mice
Moose

Here are some other helpful notes:


If you are feeding wild game, it is recommended that you check it thoroughly for shot and that you freeze it for at least 24 hours prior to feeding to kill any parasites. If you know your source, however, the freezing is not always necessary. It is just recommended. Be aware that upland game birds (quail, pheasant, dove, etc.) are all shot with lead shot. If a dog or cat ingests the lead pellets, lead poisoning can occur. So if you feed these animals, check them thoroughly for lead pellets. Wild game is a wonderful addition to any carnivore's diet.

Pacific salmonids carry a toxic parasite that can make dogs very sick. Freeze fresh raw salmon, steelhead, trout, and other salmonids for at least 24 hours before feeding to your dog; this thoroughly kills the parasite. Cooked salmon (or canned) is perfectly okay to feed. Fish is the only food that can also be fed cooked, as the bones remain soft and the meat keeps much of its integrity. When feeding whole fresh fish (especially fish that you just caught from a lake!), it might be worthwhile to cut open the belly and check for hooks swallowed into the stomach as well as hooks in the throat or mouth. If the fish has any sharp spines (like catfish or the dorsal fin on bass), you should cut them off before feeding the fish to the dog. Avoid feeding too much carp, smelt, herring, and catfish, since these fish contain an enzyme that binds Thiamin, or Vitamin B1. They make an excellent addition to any raw diet as long as they aren't the bulk of the diet (i.e. do not feed it every day!).

Wild rodents (squirrels, rats, mice, etc.) and lagomorphs (rabbits) can contain numerous parasites and diseases, including tapeworms and the plague (which affects you, not the dog). If you want to feed your pet wild rodents, freeze the rodents for one month or more before feeding. You can get good quality frozen rats and mice from reptile suppliers and other sources. Frozen rabbits can also be shipped from suppliers (check the internet for suppliers).

Avoid feeding the weight-bearing bones of large herbivores—femurs, knuckle bones, etc. These bones can easily break a dog's teeth. These, among chicken necks and wings, are the most complained about bones.

Also avoid feeding those small bony pieces as a stand-alone. This means wings, chicken backs, chicken carcasses that have all the meat removed, etc. The idea is to feed BIG raw meaty bones that provide a good workout and force the dog to chew thoroughly. And the other key word is "meaty". Think of lots of meat wrapped around some bone. If you feed a bony meal, make sure to add some supplementary meaty-meat to prevent constipation.

Do not overdo the organ meat! Organs are incredibly nutrient rich and are a necessary component of an appropriate raw diet, since these are a vital source of vitamins and minerals for your pets. Too much organ meat can lead to loose stools and a bout with diarrhea (which clears up quickly when the next meal comes through).


----------



## HollowHeaven

Mizbri said:


> Is it feasable to just raise rabbits on your property and feed them to the dogs? I mean rabbits are constantly breeding anyway, why not get a few hutches and start breeding your own food? Or would that be more of a pain than aquiring them elsewhere? Also, instead of doing the butchering...can't the dog kill it and just eat it? I don't feed raw, I do supplement with raw, but mainly simple things like eggs, chicken, steak ect...but this thought crossed my mind after reading these posts.


In regards to this, if you have the space, time and money to devote to giving the animals proper care then in my opinion it would probably be cheaper and safer for your dogs to do this.
Growing up, we would raise our own meat, from beef to poultry to pork, etc. It not only tastes better than packaged meat from the store, but our animals had considerably decent lives and were killed as humanely as we could manage. Compared to what commercial stock goes through before it gets to our table (or our dogs' bowls) I'd say that's a big step up. 
If you raise your own stock, whether it's for yourself or your pets, you know where your meat is coming from, know it's living conditions and what it's been fed, etc. I'm not sure if there's any real scientific backing to this, but I've always thought that the less stock is stressed out, the better of a life they have, the better their meat or milk will be. 

But as for the dog being allowed to kill small stock like rabbits, I'd call that inhumane. Better to do it yourself, properly to ensure a quick passing.


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## PackMomma

Well I went fishing over the weekend and I got a small trout that swallowed the hook pretty good and tore it up real bad so unfortunately it became the dogs lunch.


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## Little Wise Owl

Chicken quarters/halves, sardines, an egg and a multivitamin.


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## PackMomma

chicken head, peice of rabbit meat, pork rib, half an egg, chicken liver & heart








chicken leg, heart, liver and half egg








Nom nom nom..


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## MagicRe

love these pics.


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## MagicRe

chicken foot
sardine
beef heart


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## PackMomma

MagicRe said:


> chicken foot
> sardine
> beef heart


Hehe you cut up the sardines same way I do! It works perfect this way I can share a sardine between the two of them, and its easier for them to eat.

I can't wait to try beef heart, I've ordered some!


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## MagicRe

if i don't cut up the sardines, malia won't eat them. LOL

so this is my compromise. 

they get enough of a dental work out with lamb necks.... and beef ribs.

beef heart as with any heart has lots of blood vessels to enrich it...even though the blood is mostly drained out.....heart is that one muscle meat that sometimes needs accompanying bone....especially in the beginning.

my old girl cannot eat an entire meal of heart....and i'm okay with that...so i just feed multiple proteins..

last night they had rabbit heads with eyes and brain, beef tripe with trachea, and elk.


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## PackMomma

MagicRe said:


> if i don't cut up the sardines, malia won't eat them. LOL
> 
> so this is my compromise.
> 
> they get enough of a dental work out with lamb necks.... and beef ribs.
> 
> beef heart as with any heart has lots of blood vessels to enrich it...even though the blood is mostly drained out.....heart is that one muscle meat that sometimes needs accompanying bone....especially in the beginning.
> 
> my old girl cannot eat an entire meal of heart....and i'm okay with that...so i just feed multiple proteins..
> 
> last night they had rabbit heads with eyes and brain, beef tripe with trachea, and elk.


I currently have bison necks and pork ribs, haven't tried beef ribs yet either, but I have ordered misc beef meaty bones which says contains mostly beef ribs, so we shall receive some of those when we get the beef heart as well. I of course plan to introduce the heart in small doses, and mixed with other proteins like I normally do. I also have sheep/lamb trachea, organs and meaty bones that will be new for the first time as well...same goes with turkey organs and elk tripe! Trying to order new things each month for variety.. but until 1st week of july they're still getting mostly duck necks, pork ribs, whole chicken parts, whole rabbit parts, beef tripe, chicken livers, hearts, bison necks and the occasional peice of sardine and raw egg, and then of course all their ground meat as well. 

Yikes.. I can't imagine what the rabbit head meal looks like lol, although Thumper did eat a whole chicken head lastnight.. but I did not watch, but it sure sounded crunchy! The rabbit I just butchered for the boys this month had the head removed, dunno why cuz it had everything else lol.


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## Losech

Those whole chicken legs are awesome!

Here's what the dogs got today.








Chicken backs, turkey back chunks, ground beef heart, turkey liver and gizzard, beef thymus, eggs (not in the picture).
In the smaller bowl there is also some tripe and ground pork.


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## MagicRe

my dogs cannot power through beef ribs, so it's a great way for them to work their teeth. nor can they ingest a whole lamb neck.

pork ribs, they can both eat, so i don't count them as much...same with rabbit heads....

be careful though.......the weight bearing bones from a cow are too hard for dogs. we call them 'wrecking bones' for a reason...

if the bison necks have enough meat on them, they're great until you hear them start to crunch. then i'd remove them, although bison necks don't carry the weight that their legs do....so not as much of a concern.

but if you are getting knuckle bones or leg bones...if there is meat on them, i'd cut the meat off.

we have beef scrap from all different parts of the cow....we just look to see which bones they are and then feed accordingly.

well, it looks like a chicken head only it's a rabbit head LOL. and crunches about the same. the brains are a delicacy.....organ for them.

i've gotten to the point where it all looks like dog food to me. LOL


----------



## Kayota

After reading how good raw bones are for dogs' teeth I decided to try it... Just as a supplemental thing. I had no idea how much to give my dog so I just threw the whole chicken thigh in, sounds like about half of it per day would be good though if it were all I fed so I'll probably just take it up when she's partly (about a quarter) through it next time if she ever gets past licking it and nibbling it LOL. I'll probably only give raw about once or twice a week. Does that sound okay?










She really had no idea what to do... But she LOOKS like she's eating it here so it's my favorite picture.

ETA: I spent $5.55 on my dog's chicken today and I realized that if I keep buying raw food alone I'll be spending less than I currently am, or about the same... Something to think about for sure! It seems pretty simple really, except that I have NO idea where to get organ meat and the like in my area. I LOVE meal times with my dog... So I think I'd love making up great meals and getting creative, too, if I could find the resources.

ETA again: A quick google brought up a number of butchers in my area... Now I'm REALLY excited LOL! I'll have to start calculating costs and such and see if I want to jump in!


----------



## Sibe

Kayota, the starting guideline is to feed 2% of your dog's ideal adult weight per day. That is just a start point though, little dogs in particular tend to need a bit more as they use more energy than big ones. I posted this link earlier in this thread, it's a *great *guide for how to start and covers a lot of the basics. http://www.kaossiberians.com/rawfeeding.html

You can feed both raw and kibble/canned/other. Some dogs do fine with it, but some do have digestive upset out either end. I wouldn't feed both in the same meal. Give at least 12 hours in between to start.


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## Kayota

Okay thanks  Maybe on the day/s I feed raw I'll just give raw alone as a meal and give kibble in the morning. I did see that link and read through it the other night  Thank you!


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## georgiapeach

Any pictures from owners with small dogs? My two dogs are both under 13 pounds each. The meals I've seen on this thread are huge!


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## Rayneiac

A quick question about the fish. I love fishing, but I usually toss back what I catch because I'm not a big fish person.

Anyway, any issues with feeding the fresh caught fish? Such as is it best to cut off the heads? Filet them to remove the bones? (fish bones and people...choking ya know) And any issues with the scales?

My two dogs would likely love to be tossed a fresh caught fish when they join me fishing, but I want to play it safe.


----------



## PackMomma

Kayota - I am happy that you have decided to even try raw as a supplemental thing, pretty soon.. you will be hooked lol. It does take a lot of getting used to, research and sourcing to find deals on good cuts of meat, etc, knowing how to balance it etc. But, this is why I wanted to create this thread - so people can get some info and visual learning about feeding raw, and to encourage people to ask questions. I also started an album on Facebook where I do the same thing, I post the raw meals and what not, and I am getting people very interested in it. I am by no means an expert at this, Its a learn as you go thing, but I'm pretty confident in it enough now that I can't see myself going back to kibble or other processed foods. My dogs were previously on a partial kibble and raw diet and I just wasn't seeing enough of the benefits of raw this way, and it seemed to throw their digestive tracts off. Currently I am feeding about %50 commercial fresh frozen ground whole animal - which I get a discount on, and it is convenient for morning meals or when I'm in a rush, and then other %50 is 'prey model' stuff that I either get from grocery stores, butchers, or I am fortunate enough that there is a small family run farm here in Alberta that grows/sources, butchers and packages a large variety of prey model stuff and delivers to the big cities once a month. Since I"ve switched to full raw, I haven't got an exact figure of what I'm spending monthly, I stocked up in may with commercial raw, a $120 worth, and I'm probably about half way through it.. and I spent $60 so far in June for prey model stuff that I ordered from the little raw dog food business. I won't need to spend any more money this month, in July I have another approx $60 order coming in of random prey model selections, and I will still have plenty of things left over from last months delivery to see me through July as well (duck necks and another whole chicken). In July I will stock up on more commercial raw, which I'm estimating will last me almost 2 months with the amount I feed... so I'm estimating roughly about $120/month for both dogs, whom are 20lbs and 45ish lbs.. not bad.

Georgiapeach - My Shiba Inu is 20lbs, a bit heavier than yours, but just because some of these portions look big, you can feed smaller stuff that is suitable for smaller dogs, or just portion it out smaller. A 13lb dog would need *approx* 4 ounces of food/day. My Shiba eats 8oz, I have a little scale and I just weigh stuff out accordingly. I package most of his food in 4 oz servings, he gets 4 oz in the morning and 4 oz in the evening. a duck or chicken neck, for example, is roughly about 4oz on its own.. that is an entire meal for your dog for one day. A chicken wing paired with some organ meat of some kind, maybe a chunk of liver or heart, amounting to 4 ounces.. etc 

That entire chicken leg I posted above is about 4 oz, I added in some heart and liver and an egg but he didn't eat all his breakfast that day so I added more at dinner time..


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## MagicRe

my pug is 21 lbs. he eats under 5 ounces per day. gets 2 mile walks.


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## deege39

I'm curious as well to see who else here has small dogs that feed raw and what their diets look like.


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## PackMomma

MagicRe said:


> my pug is 21 lbs. he eats under 5 ounces per day. gets 2 mile walks.


Yeah, I'm feeding Cash between 6-8 oz/ day for now, whilst trying to increase his activity a bit and see if he can slim down a bit, and then just guage it and take it from there if I need to decrease to 5-6oz/day.He has slimmed down a bit since coming off kibble but he doesn't get walked every day so I need to be more diligent with getting a walk in with him more regularily. Its tough though, because he's a bit older and can't run or jog for long periods like he used to, and I like to go for 5 km runs and bring Thumper, and Cash stays at home. Although this week, I've been pretty good at doing my 5 km run with Thumper, then I take them both for a half hour stroll before bed time, plus they get in 1 hr + walks/hikes on the weekends at the dog parks and what not.

If he still has a bit of pudginess after a while though with increased activity I will take him down to 5-6 oz a day as well, but he was normally getting about 10 oz a day , with daily walks and he stayed quite lean but he was younger too.. I guess like humans, metabolisms change lol. Cash isn't overweight or fat by any means, but he's got a bit of a thick layer around the ribs and I can't feel them that well, never really could with his thick coat but I think he could still lose a few.


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## Sibe

Stealing pictures from around the internet of small dogs.. Don't cut the small dogs off with tiny meals! They are perfectly capable of tackling larger things. When they've eaten enough, trade up by offering delicious treats as you remove the meat.

A bichon


















This dog is 12 weeks old and weighs barely over 1 lb









a chihuahua









yorkies









frenchie









chi puppy










You get the idea


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## Sibe

Rayneiac said:


> A quick question about the fish. I love fishing, but I usually toss back what I catch because I'm not a big fish person.
> 
> Anyway, any issues with feeding the fresh caught fish? Such as is it best to cut off the heads? Filet them to remove the bones? (fish bones and people...choking ya know) And any issues with the scales?
> 
> My two dogs would likely love to be tossed a fresh caught fish when they join me fishing, but I want to play it safe.


Most fish are fine. Ideal fish are the oily ones like mackerel, sardines, smelt, anchovies, and salmon and trout are good too. Skip tilapia, from my understanding it's a "blah" fish that is really nothing special to feed. Feed fish from head to tail, completely whole and ungutted. Some dogs, especially those new to raw, may not understand what it is or how to eat it. If that's the case then cut it in half and make deep gashes into the fish to get them started. The bones and scales are fine. If the fish has sharp barbs/fins then you should probably remove them. I tried tilapia once, and I did remove the fins as those suckers are sharp. But as I said, tilapia is no special fish. Dog didn't like it anyway.

VERY IMPORTANT: Wild-caught salmonids in the Pacific Northwest of the United States/Canada can carry the parasite known to cause salmon poisoning. "Salmonids" includes salmon of course (see pic) but also trout, whitefish, grayling, and char. These specific fish in this specific location from southern Alaska to mid California are the only ones to worry about. Freezing the fish solid will kill the parasite. One week of freezing is surely enough, but 2 weeks is what I would personally do. Farmed salmon and Atlantic salmon is not a concern for salmon poisoning, but it's very high in mercury so I would avoid it. Wild-caught salmon is the way to go, just freeze it if it's from that area.
Types of salmon









Mercury levels in fish


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## Kayota

georgiapeach said:


> Any pictures from owners with small dogs? My two dogs are both under 13 pounds each. The meals I've seen on this thread are huge!


Mine is 12 lbs and what she is eating above would be about four times as much as I would feed in one meal after I weighed it LOL! She gets two meals a day. She didn't even really take a bite of that chicken thigh, just a lot of curious nibbles.

Those small dog pics are so cool! I think the best thing about raw for me is seeing a dog eating its NATURAL meal with NATURAL behavior... Yanno? There is nothing natural about processed food!

Is there anywhere I can buy whole fish? I don't fish and wouldn't know how but I'd love to feed her whole fresh fish.


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## PackMomma

Kayota said:


> Mine is 12 lbs and what she is eating above would be about four times as much as I would feed in one meal after I weighed it LOL! She gets two meals a day. She didn't even really take a bite of that chicken thigh, just a lot of curious nibbles.
> 
> Those small dog pics are so cool! I think the best thing about raw for me is seeing a dog eating its NATURAL meal with NATURAL behavior... Yanno? There is nothing natural about processed food!
> 
> Is there anywhere I can buy whole fish? I don't fish and wouldn't know how but I'd love to feed her whole fresh fish.


I am able to find frozen whole sardines, smelt, mackerel and occasionally herring at my local grocery store, the sardines are great because theyre a perfect size for them to share one, and they come in a bag of about 10 sardines for 5 bucks. I would start with your local grocery stores, if not, try asian markets, and some pet food stores will carry frozen fish as well, but sometimes a lot more expensive.


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## MagicRe

excellent info, sibe.


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## MagicRe

kayota, because my pug only gets 4 3/4 to 5 ounces per day, i put him on once a day feeding, so i could give more food.....

but he is a gulper...contrary to every right piece of advice i've been given and tried, feeding bigger for him just meant he ate faster....

quite by accident, i discovered, that if i cut his food into smaller pieces, he actually stopped trying to swallow things whole.

when i want teeth cleaning, i feed things like whole lamb necks and beef ribs.....


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## Kayota

PackMomma said:


> I am able to find frozen whole sardines, smelt, mackerel and occasionally herring at my local grocery store, the sardines are great because theyre a perfect size for them to share one, and they come in a bag of about 10 sardines for 5 bucks. I would start with your local grocery stores, if not, try asian markets, and some pet food stores will carry frozen fish as well, but sometimes a lot more expensive.


Oh my gosh the Asian market is a great idea! I went to like the only butcher in my area today and they said I'd have to special order organs but that's okay. Thank you  Got her to eat a little more of that chicken today too. But just a couple bites.


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## MagicRe

Kayota said:


> Oh my gosh the Asian market is a great idea! I went to like the only butcher in my area today and they said I'd have to special order organs but that's okay. Thank you  Got her to eat a little more of that chicken today too. But just a couple bites.



since your girl is only twelve pounds, have you offered her a smashed chicken neck? and let her figure it out?


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## georgiapeach

Thanks for the responses about small dogs! I still have reservations about the cleanliness aspect - not for the dog, but for us humans after they eat. They seem to get it all over their feet in some of the pictures I've seen, then track it everywhere - yuk! I guess you have to wash their feet after every meal if they do use their feet. One of my dogs has a mustache and beard and one has fluffy ears. That concerns me, too.


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## Sibe

If mine get it on their feet I stick them straight into the tub (I carry them) to wash their feet. Typical meals they don't use their feet, just with meals they have to handle and manipulate more like ribs or really big pieces of meat.

For the ears, a snood works great. You can also see in this pic that the mustache fur has been rolled up with tin foil to keep it out of the way.


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## Rayneiac

Thank you Sibe. It would be mainly bass, and some other assorted types commonly found in freshwater in Louisiana. Maybe crawfish, crabs, perch etc. But I really appreciate the info! It's nice to know I don't have to worry about the scales and bones. Next time we go fishing the dogs get the ones too torn up to be released.


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## MagicRe

georgiapeach said:


> Thanks for the responses about small dogs! I still have reservations about the cleanliness aspect - not for the dog, but for us humans after they eat. They seem to get it all over their feet in some of the pictures I've seen, then track it everywhere - yuk! I guess you have to wash their feet after every meal if they do use their feet. One of my dogs has a mustache and beard and one has fluffy ears. That concerns me, too.




that pic that sibe showed......funny but effective...

not all dogs get dirty. i don't have poodles or westipoos, but when they get it on their feet, they spend the next half hour licking it off.

i'd say my kids are pretty neat, in that they are trained to stay on the towel in the kitchen and when they are done, they do not drag things all over the house.


----------



## Cindy23323

Selene eatting chicken quarters



















Loki with an entire cornish hen in his mouth










Loki and chicken quarter










Loki and duck, lmao


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## Losech

Cindy23323 said:


> Loki and duck, lmao


Haha! That's pretty awesome right there.


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## Cindy23323

Lol both got duckies for easter, unfortunately they didn't last to long.


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## Kayota

MagicRe said:


> since your girl is only twelve pounds, have you offered her a smashed chicken neck? and let her figure it out?


I don't have anywhere to acquire chicken necks unfortunately... I shopped around and I couldn't find anywhere that had organs or other scraps without special ordering.


----------



## Little Wise Owl

Sometimes I get lazy and the dogs get whatever I find in the fridge (today is leftovers!). Even if it is nutritionally useless, haha.

Pork shoulder, green beans, corn, carrots, peas, strawberries and eggs.


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## Losech

Little Wise Owl said:


> Sometimes I get lazy and the dogs get whatever I find in the fridge (today is leftovers!). Even if it is nutritionally useless, haha.


LOL Nutritionally useless. My dogs get all sorts of stuff like that. One of them just LOVES food, no matter what it is, so she gets leftovers almost every day. The other one is a bit more choosy as to what leftovers she will eat. But man, do they love waffles and pancakes! If I'm making some, they will wait, and wait, and wait, for their share. The Shiba can't have any, though. He's got a wheat problem that causes oh-so-uncool things to happen.


----------



## PackMomma

Haha I gave my dogs the exact same thing the other day, left over frozen veggie mix consisting of green beans, corn, peas and carrots lol. My Shiba absolutely will not touch vegetables or fruit unless they are not evidently visible. I have to mix them well into the food. He is obsessed with cheese, though. Goes absolutely ballistic over cheese, oh and ice cream or frozen yogurt. I give him a taste every once in a while and he's hooked now. He's a dairy dog for sure, he knows the sound of me pulling out a block of cheese and unwrapping it, it could be something else that sounds similar, but he could be upstiars in the bedroom and I could be all the way in the basement unwrapping a block of cheese and he''ll be there in a matter of seconds. He hounds me every morning for a peice of cheese, when i'm packing my lunch and feeding the dogs he could care less about raw food at that point, if he catches a wiff or see's the cheese in the fridge, he won't leave me alone until he gets some.

Same goes for the ice cream containers, knows perfectly well the sound of the ice cream container being pulled out of the freezer. Goes bezerk until he gets his taste.. silly dog.


----------



## melundie

Wow, this is so interesting. Our family friends had a lab that lived to be 18. He lived outside (except when the weather was terrible) and ate nothing but leftovers. 

We gave our dogs a lamb shank not that long ago and they LOVED it. We just feed them TOTW, so it was a first for both of them. Ace carried his around the kitchen and kept shaking it. FI and I kept laughing and mimicking his voice, "This is so primal!!!" My question for those of you who do feed raw: don't you have to add supplements and stuff to their food? I recall reading about raw feeding for the cat and there was a bunch of vitamins and minerals that had to be added (taurine, etc.) to make the food nutritionally sound, so I'm curious if it's the same for dogs.


----------



## Losech

melundie said:


> My question for those of you who do feed raw: don't you have to add supplements and stuff to their food? I recall reading about raw feeding for the cat and there was a bunch of vitamins and minerals that had to be added (taurine, etc.) to make the food nutritionally sound, so I'm curious if it's the same for dogs.


No. I do add in salmon oil and vitamin E (omegas deplete E in the body, good to supplement that if you use them) but that's it. I have plotted out every meal my Shiba gets on Nutritiondata.com using the 2006 NRC nutrient recommendations for a dog his size, activity level, and age, and he gets everything he needs from his food. That's a bit more work than most rawfeeders do, but I am very OCD about this sort of stuff.
Same goes for cats. You only need to add taruine in, if you don't feed heart. If you're having to supplement a million different things, you are probably doing something wrong.

I've gotten the full nutrient analysis for some kibbles and compared them to what I feed. Many of them are not as "balanced" as they claim to be. What I feed is pretty spot-on for the NRC recommendations, which I find to be far superior to AAFCO.


----------



## PackMomma

My understanding is that if your feeding raw properly and balanced, you shouldn't really need to supplement anything. Think about the wild canids (wolves, coyotes, fox, etc) ... you don't see anyone running around ensuring theyre meals are supplemented, and I'd be willing to bet those animals are a lot healthier than some domestic dogs, in fact.. I'm pretty sure these animals rarely require veterinary attention, either, and get along in life just fine.

It is common for raw feeders to supplement the salmon/fish oils and vitamen E like Losech does, however I haven't yet seen a reason to supplement my dogs diets. They do get a fairly adequate amount of oily fish, however, I dunno about the vitamen E part but until its broken I don't fix it.

Cats (from what I understand) are complete carnivores, they need meat, meat and meat, and nothing else but meat. Balanced, of course. I'm not sure about cats, but for dogs I think the general rule of thumb of balanced portions is something like %80 muscle meats, %10 organ and %10 bone, from variety of proteins (poultry + eggs, red meats & fish) and this would, balance overtime and provide all the nutrional requirements. The cats would indeed get sufficient amount of taurine from eating heart, which I believe is considered muscle meat... not sure if its considered organ or not?


----------



## Losech

PackMomma said:


> The cats would indeed get sufficient amount of taurine from eating heart, which I believe is considered muscle meat... not sure if its considered organ or not?


Heart is meat. Tasty meat. Goes good in meatloaf.
If it doesn't secrete, then it's a meat!



PackMomma said:


> It is common for raw feeders to supplement the salmon/fish oils and vitamen E like Losech does, however I haven't yet seen a reason to supplement my dogs diets. They do get a fairly adequate amount of oily fish, however, I dunno about the vitamen E part but until its broken I don't fix it.


I supplement salmon oil because the Shiba's got a dry coat and the fish oils help keep it in good shape. Also because grocery meat (non grass-fed, actually) tends to be higher in omega 6's than 3's, and there's plenty of science to back that the closer the ratio of 6's to 3's is, the better the overall health of the dog (or cat or human) tends to be.
If you feed oily fish then you don't need the oil, but I can hardly get fish here for a good price.

Vitamin E is also good for a lot of things, but is generally not needed unless large amounts of omega's are being added in, like I do. A lot of omegas will start to deplete vitamin E stores in the body if there is not enough of it in the diet, which will result in muscle weakness, digestive problems, retinal degeneration, etc.


----------



## PackMomma

Losech said:


> Heart is meat. Tasty meat. Goes good in meatloaf.
> If it doesn't secrete, then it's a meat!
> 
> 
> 
> I supplement salmon oil because the Shiba's got a dry coat and the fish oils help keep it in good shape. Also because grocery meat (non grass-fed, actually) tends to be higher in omega 6's than 3's, and there's plenty of science to back that the closer the ratio of 6's to 3's is, the better the overall health of the dog (or cat or human) tends to be.
> If you feed oily fish then you don't need the oil, but I can hardly get fish here for a good price.
> 
> Vitamin E is also good for a lot of things, but is generally not needed unless large amounts of omega's are being added in, like I do. A lot of omegas will start to deplete vitamin E stores in the body if there is not enough of it in the diet, which will result in muscle weakness, digestive problems, retinal degeneration, etc.



Ahhh good to know, and I figured about the heart, I've always considered it muscle meat anyway, rather than organ.

I haven't done enough research on the omega's vs Vitamin E obviously so that is interesting - My dogs don't eat a ton of grocery meat, occasionally turkey, chicken and pork or whatever I happen to notice that is cheap or on sale because its reaching expiry, but I've always tried to avoid it for the most part due to the fear of it being hormonally and sodium enhanced, etc. Although, I really have no idea what kind of feed is used for the animals they do eat on regular basis. This might be worth looking into a bit. Other then the grocery store, their food comes from a commercial raw company (Carnivora) and a small privately run mom and pop farm fresh raw food company, that raise and butcher their own animals, or source animals from other local farms. Now i'm curious lol.


----------



## melundie

Losech said:


> No. I do add in salmon oil and vitamin E (omegas deplete E in the body, good to supplement that if you use them) but that's it. I have plotted out every meal my Shiba gets on Nutritiondata.com using the 2006 NRC nutrient recommendations for a dog his size, activity level, and age, and he gets everything he needs from his food. That's a bit more work than most rawfeeders do, but I am very OCD about this sort of stuff.
> Same goes for cats. You only need to add taruine in, if you don't feed heart. If you're having to supplement a million different things, you are probably doing something wrong.
> 
> I've gotten the full nutrient analysis for some kibbles and compared them to what I feed. Many of them are not as "balanced" as they claim to be. What I feed is pretty spot-on for the NRC recommendations, which I find to be far superior to AAFCO.


Good to know. In my research, I found that the taurine oxidizes when exposed to air and decreases the overall level in the meat. Not a big deal for dogs since they have the ability to create it from methionine and cysteine, but can be a problem with cats. I guess it's besides the point since this is a dog forum. 

I'd love to do raw for our dogs. I probably shouldn't have even looked at this thread because I'm going to get the urge to do it. XD Our vet isn't a huge supporter (she's not against it, just doesn't think it's for every dog) and we've finally gotten Colby's GI issues under control, so I'd be extremely hesitant to switch her over at this point. Besides, I don't eat red meat or pork (not for moral reasons, I just don't like the taste) and I wouldn't even know where to begin choosing those meats for the dogs. Not to mention the cost... isn't it pretty expensive?


----------



## Losech

melundie said:


> Not to mention the cost... isn't it pretty expensive?


That's entirely up to you and where you live. If you just walk into the grocery store and buy the first piece of steak you set your eyes upon, it'll cost you TONS to feed raw. If you shop around, wait for sales, buy from the manager's/markdown bin, or in bulk, you can really cut the costs down. Some people get raw foods through co-ops (I don't, there are none in my area) or buy whole/half carcasses direct from farmers, which is usually a pretty good deal but you need to have the freezer space for that. A good portion of rawfeeders have a dedicated freezer for their dog's meat.

I generally follow this guideline, no more than:
Chicken: $0.69 per pound
Beef: $2.29 per pound (recently went up from $1.99)
Pork: $1.69 per pound
Turkey: $0.89 per pound
Liver: $1.99 per pound
Heart: $1.69 per pound
Other meats like lamb, fishes, or organs I can't normally get I will spend up to $3.99 a pound, but that's rare, and I'll only feed a small bit at a time to make it last.
That's for my area. You'd have to do a little shopping in various stores to see what your lowest prices are. And don't be afraid to go into places like ethnic markets, they usually have some fun stuff for good prices. People sometimes ask for/advertise free meat on craigslist too. Some people have unwanted freezer burnt or old meat that is perfectly fine to feed for a dog that they want to get rid of but don't want to just pitch it.

Currently, a typical raw meal for my Shiba costs me about $1.30. Fromm costs per meal around $1.50, and the cost for other higher-end kibbles only goes up from there. I do buy things like canned fish (omega 3, vitamin D), oysters (zinc, copper), and clams (iron) every now and then. I also feed a couple other things that are not typical of rawfeeding, due to necessity for my particular dog, which adds a bit to the cost. Even then, for me, raw is cheaper than kibble.


----------



## Willowy

Those are some crazy low prices. . .I can't find those kinds of prices anywhere (well, I guess the chicken quarters at $6.99 for 10 pounds qualify. But nothing else). And how do you get in on short dated meat? Sometimes I'll be lucky enough to wander in at just the right time to get marked-down meats, but it's rare, and there doesn't seem to be any schedule to it.


----------



## Sibe

It is VERY expensive if you do premade/commercial raw, or if you feed sirloin steaks. I feed two dogs (40 lbs each) and 2 cats for about $60/month. I get chicken leg quarters or whole chicken for about $0.79/lb. Beef heart is usually around $1.20-1.30/lb but recently has dropped to $0.98/lb. I get pork shoulder roasts (picnic roast, boston butt, whatever is cheapest) for about $1.20/lb. For the cats I like packages of chicken hearts & gizzards which are $1.04/lb. I get liver and kidney for $1/lb. Those are the main things I feed. I sometimes get beef ribs or turkey necks which are about $1.50/lb but that's really pushing it for me lol. I also have been getting pork belly to add more fat, at $1.60/lb. I also get whole frozen sardines for $2/lb but because those are soooo expensive I don't feed them but once a week. I recently got chicken thigh filet for the cats (darker meat is higher in taurine) which was just over $2/lb. The big budget buster is getting whole mice for the cats. Each mouse is $1.50.. I could get a lb and a half of meat for that much! Only one of the cats likes them, so he gets one a week.

I also have an ad on Craigslist and I have gotten quite a bit of free meat that way. Recently got 55+ lbs of moose and elk!

ETA: I also add fish oil. (NOT cod liver oil). I only starting adding in a couple months ago. One of my dog's front paw pads are peeling so I upped the fat in her diet and added the fish oil, as well as having her mush in booties now. Working dogs often need more fat.


----------



## PackMomma

I'm having a tough time calculating approximately what it costs me to feed the dogs per month, its too hard to keep track because a lot of what I purchase in one month will last and carry over into the following months, plus I buy more on top of that so I'm not sure. But I buy a variety of whatever is cheap and available at the grocery store, a little bit of commercial raw which includes 8-9 different whole animal proteins, plus I get a discount on it so its a bit more affordable, and then I also order food monthly from a privately owned and operated raw food business that just consists of a family who raise/source and butcher animals and pre package items separately then freeze and deliver monthly, huge variety and excellent prices. Currently i'm placing orders of about $70/month through them, again some of the items last well over 2 months. My last commercial raw purchase was back in May sometime, I spent $120 and i'm just over half way through it all. Will have to stock up again in about mid July. On top of that, I've purchased about $25 worth of grocery store finds in the last 2 months.. some still unused.

This fall I will be scoring free leftover moose, elk and deer from hunters in the family, and since my Dad has about 3 large freezers he will be storing it all or most of it for me.

Anyway here's a pic.. Thumpers breakfast this morning.. some ground whole turkey, chicken hearts, beef liver, beef tripe and half a duck neck


----------



## melundie

Sibe said:


> It is VERY expensive if you do premade/commercial raw, or if you feed sirloin steaks. I feed two dogs (40 lbs each) and 2 cats for about $60/month.


Wow! That seems extremely cheap. Aside from the privately owned farm PackMomma mentioned and Craigslist (I don't think I could rely on that), where do you guys go to buy the meat? Grocery store? Butcher?


----------



## PackMomma

I find quite a bit at grocery stores actually, I mean, I get a bulk of the stuff from that little farm here that produces/sells custom raw foods, but each time I go grocery shopping I am able to find a variety of cheap stuff. Butchers would be good too, I know here, some butcher shops even save scraps and prepackage them and call them "doggie bags", and they sell them in like 20lb bags or something of variety of stuff.

I do get my whole frozen sardines and other oily fish at the grocery store for about $6 per bag, each bag consists of about 10 fish? I also find that turkey wings, thighs and necks are fairly cheap at my local grocery store, usually between $4-6 each for 2 turkey wings, 2 turkey thighs and 3 turkey necks (and I cut each neck into 3 peices).Cornish hens when they go on sale at my grocery store go down to about $4 per bird. Pork side ribs I can usually get two sides for $6, a fairly decent sized package of chicken livers, chicken hearts and chicken gizzards will cost about $5 each, beef oxtail, pork hocks, etc all about the same price around $5-7 per package. Keep in mind, everything is a lot more expensive up here compared to the US...but to me, that's pretty cheap.

If you have access to asian markets in your area as well they always have good stuff for cheap, and better yet, if you can find a raw feeding co-op in your area that would be worth checking out as well.

So you have a place to start... grocery stores, butcher shops, asian markets, craigslist, co-ops...etc, good luck!


----------



## Gally

We get most of our stuff from Asian markets. They have the best variety of proteins, cuts and organs for decent prices. I usually wait for a sale and stock up. We get our turkey from a local farm and then we get some free meat from our CL ad. Got free beef so far and will be getting moose and elk in the fall.

Raw costs about 30$ a month for us right now for one 25lb dog. We just started though and I expect as we go along we will get better at finding good deals and get more raw contacts for free/cheap meat.


----------



## ChaosIsAWeim

I don't feed raw, but wanted to say that in addition to chain grocery stores, if you have a small town mom and pop like grocery store, you can find cheap really good meat at those types of stores. And you are likely to find other meats than those at chains. 

I know at the one near me, you can get a bunch of frozen frog legs real cheap, oxtail, rabbit, and a bunch of other meats. If you go out more in western VA you may actually be able to get some buffalo/bison meat as I believe there are quite a few farms that raise them.


----------



## Losech

Grocery store, mainly. The butcher's only got really expensive stuff and isn't fond of letting me have the odd bits for cheap. Or at all. There are no ethnic markets here, so I just gotta watch the sales at the grocery and stock up when stuff's cheap. (I live in a small town, so not much to choose from.)


----------



## CptJack

Raw Puppy:



















We're still working on getting her to eat ON something, so for now there's just lots of mopping.


----------



## Sibe

melundie said:


> Wow! That seems extremely cheap. Aside from the privately owned farm PackMomma mentioned and Craigslist (I don't think I could rely on that), where do you guys go to buy the meat? Grocery store? Butcher?


I get most of my meat at the commissary on the Naval base. They only increase price 5% from what they pay for it so it's often the cheapest. They also have great variety. You do however need a military ID to get onto a base. I get beef heart, chicken, and pork roast there, along with the organs, fish, pork belly, and other random things I find.


----------



## CptJack

melundie said:


> Wow! That seems extremely cheap. Aside from the privately owned farm PackMomma mentioned and Craigslist (I don't think I could rely on that), where do you guys go to buy the meat? Grocery store? Butcher?


I buy food for about those prices in the grocery store. It's really, really not that expensive at all. In fact, it seems a lot cheaper than high quality kibble. My dogs are small (Jack's 23 lbs, and I expect Kylie to top out about the same). So, I'm feeding them both for about a buck a day.

My cats won't touch raw. The brats.


----------



## MagicRe

Kayota said:


> I don't have anywhere to acquire chicken necks unfortunately... I shopped around and I couldn't find anywhere that had organs or other scraps without special ordering.


can you buy whole chickens? because you can cut them up and feed the neck, the back, the carcass....and you eat the breast


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## PackMomma

Scored some free deer trim this weekend while we were camping, friend of ours brought some out to BBQ/smoke for a big feast, trimmed up some deer legs and I got a bag full of the scraps

Deer trim, egg, beef liver, chicken heart








Thumper taking his turn on a remaining chicken carcass...legs, wings, neck and head I had previously dismembered for separate meals.. but I was too lazy to gut the thing so they each took a turn at this yesterday for breakfast.


----------



## PackMomma

Chicken wing, half duck neck, beef kidney


----------



## PackMomma

Rabbit meat, deer meat and sardine


----------



## JohnnyBandit

I just scored a retired brood Ewe...... I just have to go dispatch her and dress her out. Should yield a bunch of grass fed mutton.


----------



## kafkabeetle

I was going to post a video today, but I tried to upload it over night and when I got up today it said the upload failed. :/ But anyway, she ate the majority of a leftover raw steak by herself. I've had a tough time getting her to eat raw without assistance, either by holding it (which sucks because it takes forever for her to eat and I just have to sit there the whole time) or by chopping it up into small bits for her to eat like kibble. I'm sure it will take time, but it was good progress. I was also surprised that she didn't try to use her paws at all, which shows how clean raw feeding can be. If I was especially concerned about germs I would really only have to wash her mouth, but even then she didn't "look" messy at all. Pretty interesting.


----------



## pawsplus

I need to get some pix of mine eating! I have a number of pix and videos of the cats noshing on raw, but the dogs eat in their crates (bedding removed) so I've not gotten pix of them. One of these days I'll let someone eat on the back porch and get some. Great pix on this thread of very happy dogs!


----------



## PackMomma

kafkabeetle said:


> I was going to post a video today, but I tried to upload it over night and when I got up today it said the upload failed. :/ But anyway, she ate the majority of a leftover raw steak by herself. I've had a tough time getting her to eat raw without assistance, either by holding it (which sucks because it takes forever for her to eat and I just have to sit there the whole time) or by chopping it up into small bits for her to eat like kibble. I'm sure it will take time, but it was good progress. I was also surprised that she didn't try to use her paws at all, which shows how clean raw feeding can be. If I was especially concerned about germs I would really only have to wash her mouth, but even then she didn't "look" messy at all. Pretty interesting.


Honestly, my dogs rarely ever use their paws. Thumper never does, but he's got a big enough of a gape on him that he can use just his mouth.. Cash sometimes uses his paws, but he hates it.. he's a very 'clean' dog, and when he tries to use his paw to hold meat down and strip meat off or something, he very gently puts his paw down, and as soon as he touches the raw meat he takes his paw off and shakes it lol. Then he has to stop and lick his paw clean before he starts eating again - funny dog. Anyway, I never have to clean the dogs up after their raw meals.. even if Cash does use his paws, he's pretty good and cleaning himself up. The only time I've ever had to bathe is when I'm not watching them if i'm feeding sardines, they sometimes like to roll on them.. GROSS! They won't roll on anything else but the fish, so I have to supervise when they eat it. I've given them heck a few times, plus they've learned that if they roll in it they get a bath so they've stopped doing it.

I dunno, I'm not the kind of person that worries about germs as much as some people, I may be niave in believing we've just become 'immune' to it.. around here it seems the germophobes are always the ones getting sick. My hubby and I haven't been sick other than a slight cold once a year or seasonal allergies, and we've been feeding raw since we had Cash for 5 years now, and now we have two raw fed dogs, and Thumper is always licking our faces, he always has toys in his mouth that we touch on a regular basis , I give raw bones in the house, I dont wipe their feet after they eat, but I do feed them the prey model stuff outside. I do thoroughly wipe down the counters where I prepare any raw meals wether for ourselves or the dogs, as well as I always wash their food bowls with hot soapy water after each meal, etc. I know with children or people with weaker immune systems its something to be very cautious about, and if we do decide to have children one day we definitely will have to be a bit more careful that way.

Anyway, glad Sydney is slowly taking to the raw, its weird how some dogs take to it naturally and some need the assistance/coaxing.


----------



## MagicRe

kafkabeetle said:


> I was going to post a video today, but I tried to upload it over night and when I got up today it said the upload failed. :/ But anyway, she ate the majority of a leftover raw steak by herself. I've had a tough time getting her to eat raw without assistance, either by holding it (which sucks because it takes forever for her to eat and I just have to sit there the whole time) or by chopping it up into small bits for her to eat like kibble. I'm sure it will take time, but it was good progress. I was also surprised that she didn't try to use her paws at all, which shows how clean raw feeding can be. If I was especially concerned about germs I would really only have to wash her mouth, but even then she didn't "look" messy at all. Pretty interesting.


every time you hold the food or cut into little pieces, she is laughing at you.  i say that with kindness but you are enabling her.

put the food down. stand up and watch out of the corner of your eye, without 'eyeballing' which can make her nervous.

if she hasn't eaten in 20 minutes or so, pick the food up and put it away. she'll get the idea soon enough.

my older girl, malia did this..and now eats all by herself. 

as to germs.....they are everywhere.....i am severely immuno compromised. never got sick from feeding raw.

i don't wipe their paws. they lick them clean. i've been 'french kissed' more than once --- timing is always impeccable for dogs and humans....

dogs don't give us illness.....or we'd all be dead.

kibble carries more salmonella and other bacteria once the bag is exposed to air than raw ever could....

feed with love and try not to worry. pretty soon, this germy thing passes with the pure joy of seeing your dog finer than ever.

i just re read your post...and i thought you were having a problem with germs. i think i was wrong.


----------



## PackMomma

MagicRe said:


> every time you hold the food or cut into little pieces, she is laughing at you.  i say that with kindness but you are enabling her.
> 
> put the food down. stand up and watch out of the corner of your eye, without 'eyeballing' which can make her nervous.
> 
> if she hasn't eaten in 20 minutes or so, pick the food up and put it away. she'll get the idea soon enough.
> 
> my older girl, malia did this..and now eats all by herself.
> 
> as to germs.....they are everywhere.....i am severely immuno compromised. never got sick from feeding raw.
> 
> i don't wipe their paws. they lick them clean. i've been 'french kissed' more than once --- timing is always impeccable for dogs and humans....
> 
> dogs don't give us illness.....or we'd all be dead.
> 
> kibble carries more salmonella and other bacteria once the bag is exposed to air than raw ever could....
> 
> feed with love and try not to worry. pretty soon, this germy thing passes with the pure joy of seeing your dog finer than ever.
> 
> i just re read your post...and i thought you were having a problem with germs. i think i was wrong.


Yup, this lol


----------



## kafkabeetle

MagicRe said:


> every time you hold the food or cut into little pieces, she is laughing at you.  i say that with kindness but you are enabling her.


lol, probably. When I do chop it up sometimes I'll give her a piece that she deems too large and she'll drop it and just stare at me like, "Make it smaller, servant lady." ;p She definitely has me trained. I'll have to start giving her some more tough love and make her do the work for herself. It's good for her teeth anyway.

And I'm not really too concerned about germs, but it's good to have the info out there anyway for other people who are silently reading this thread.


----------



## PackMomma

kafkabeetle said:


> lol, probably. When I do chop it up sometimes I'll give her a piece that she deems too large and she'll drop it and just stare at me like, "Make it smaller, servant lady." ;p She definitely has me trained. I'll have to start giving her some more tough love and make her do the work for herself. It's good for her teeth anyway.
> 
> And I'm not really too concerned about germs, but it's good to have the info out there anyway for other people who are silently reading this thread.


Precisely why I wanted to start this thread in the first place - so people can gain a bit more knowledge from various raw feeders personal experiences. People seem to frequently only hear the 'negative' about raw, and seldomly ever actually see the positve for themselves. I've noticed since starting this thread there are a few, including yourself it seems, that are interested in trying or starting a raw or at the very least a partial/supplemental raw diet and that's excellent. Hopefully this thread continues to blossom that way and help more individuals, even those of us who are well experienced or slightly experienced in the raw feeding continue to learn and grow  

I decided to do a similar thing on Facebook recently, I got bored one day I started a "Raw Feeding" album on my profile. I thought I would get deleted in a hurry by many people but actually i've sparked a lot of interest. I got people thinking and asking questions about it, and really, even just making people realize what I do isn't so weird and gross afterall, puts a smile on my face lol


----------



## kafkabeetle

PackMomma said:


> Precisely why I wanted to start this thread in the first place - so people can gain a bit more knowledge from various raw feeders personal experiences. People seem to frequently only hear the 'negative' about raw, and seldomly ever actually see the positve for themselves. I've noticed since starting this thread there are a few, including yourself it seems, that are interested in trying or starting a raw or at the very least a partial/supplemental raw diet and that's excellent. Hopefully this thread continues to blossom that way and help more individuals, even those of us who are well experienced or slightly experienced in the raw feeding continue to learn and grow
> 
> I decided to do a similar thing on Facebook recently, I got bored one day I started a "Raw Feeding" album on my profile. I thought I would get deleted in a hurry by many people but actually i've sparked a lot of interest. I got people thinking and asking questions about it, and really, even just making people realize what I do isn't so weird and gross afterall, puts a smile on my face lol


Yeah, I've been very slowly building up to it over the past few years. And now that I'm no longer in school and will be living back at home for a while to pay off some student debt, I'm going to have a much more flexible budget and best of all a fenced in yard.  So everything is finally falling into place to start putting all my research to use. I'm sure I'll have a whole bunch of questions once I'm settled and start looking into what is available to me locally.


----------



## Kayota

I am still not entirely sure if I want to switch to raw yet or not, but Roxie is definitely enjoying her chicken more this try. I cut a few pieces off this time and that really seemed to help her get the hang of it. She tried to take it under the bed when I had my back turned, though...


----------



## Losech

Here's a raw meal from today.









Big bowls: Chicken backs, ground beef heart, green tripe, lamb liver, beef thymus, pork fat. 
Little bowl: Chicken back, ground pork, ground beef heart, green tripe, lamb liver, canned fishes. 

Conker did not eat his raw food (as usual) so that got put back into the freezer for a later day.


----------



## kafkabeetle

Well, I wasn't intending to get into this quite yet, but I bought a whole chicken today. I have to say I was not prepared by how disgusted I would be while cutting it up. I hadn't really thought about the necessity of breaking bones and I didn't really have any clue how to butcher a chicken. So I mostly just hacked away in the most logical way I could figure, trying to get eight relatively even cuts (she'll be getting half a pound a day and the chicken was four pounds). Anyway, I think I got through it pretty well for my first time. ;p

Anyway, can anyone tell me what the organs there are here? I'm thinking the thing the far left is actually the neck, right? Then the blob is probably the liver, and the two roundish ones are kidneys? Hearts? Something else?


----------



## Losech

Yes, far left is neck, blobish thing is liver. Round things are gizzard pieces. Sometimes you get a heart, other times not. I've gotten six livers in one chicken before. Kidneys are much smaller than that and typically not included. If they are, they'll be attached to the inside of the back, or a little bit of them would be. I've gotten kidneys, trachea, and lung that way. Not really supposed to be there in a commercial chicken, but it happens.

This is how I cut up a chicken (that's not me in the vid, btw)




Except I don't cut the wings up and I keep the back. I just do the five big pieces and go from there if I need to.
If I need smaller pieces than that, then I'll take a big ol' meat cleaver and just SLAM down through the meat and bone. I don't bother trying to saw at it, since chicken bones are quite soft and easy to cut through, a single swing is usually good enough. (I can get a video of that if you are curious.) 
I usually use an 8 inch blade kitchen knife to deconstruct my chickens, nothing special really. 

I don't like how slimy raw chicken is, but the more you handle and deconstruct it, the better you get at it and don't mind the ick so much. I find it easier to cut through slightly frozen meat that fully thawed meat, which also helps cut down on the gross.


----------



## kafkabeetle

Ooh, thanks for posting that video. I did essentially that, but in a much more convoluted way because I didn't know what I was doing and my knife wasn't really appropriate for cutting through bone. I hacked off the limbs first then sort of separated the rest by paths of least resistance, bone wise. Quite the experience, lol.

Ohmygosh, I can't believe I didn't mention this earlier: I had no idea that the giblets would be pre-packaged inside so I spent a good while trying to figure out what this mysterious clear membrane encasing all the organs could be. I was seriously questioning my knowledge of anatomy and was really perplexed. Then I discovered that it pulled out easily, and was in fact a sealed plastic bag and not actually and part of the chicken itself. I felt so silly. xD


----------



## MagicRe

first time is always icky.

as time goes by, though, not only do you get the hang of it, the cleaver, mallet, and carving knife will sing in your hands....

i know, for my dogs, going to a raw fed diet was a challenge at best, frustrating to the hilt. if anyone could have done things wrong, including being servant to my masters, i did it.

fortunately, it got old very quickly and i learned the tough love thing.....and i learned to stop humanising my dogs when it came to food. 

i think packmomma, i need to see your facebook page.  can you pm me your facebook name? i have a bunch of raw feeders as friends and we are constantly looking at pics...

plus there are a few facebook forums that can be quite helpful to the new or the interested person who thinks they might want to go this route.


----------



## MagicRe

Losech said:


> Here's a raw meal from today.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Big bowls: Chicken backs, ground beef heart, green tripe, lamb liver, beef thymus, pork fat.
> Little bowl: Chicken back, ground pork, ground beef heart, green tripe, lamb liver, canned fishes.
> 
> Conker did not eat his raw food (as usual) so that got put back into the freezer for a later day.


conker is a problem child with raw?

we have an oregon washington co op.....if you want, i'll post it or i'll pm it to you. we buy in bulk ...although you do have willamette valley meats and probably a gadzillion organic farmers around...

may i ask why you serve heart ground?


----------



## kafkabeetle

Well, I put down a tarp next to my desk so I can keep an eye on her while working. She's been gingerly working at a wing and some other miscellaneous bits of meat and bone for about an hour. The wing is all that's left and it certainly seems puzzling to her. When she gives up I guess I'll save it for later today.


----------



## MagicRe

kafkabeetle said:


> Well, I put down a tarp next to my desk so I can keep an eye on her while working. She's been gingerly working at a wing and some other miscellaneous bits of meat and bone for about an hour. The wing is all that's left and it certainly seems puzzling to her. When she gives up I guess I'll save it for later today.


she doesn't get the choice. she gets 20 minutes. if she doesn't eat, pick it up. serve it at the next meal.

she won't starve. hungry dogs don't starve. if you cater to her now, she will rule you for the rest of her life. i can promise you that.

as long as she is hydrated, she can go for days without eating. it sounds horrid, i know...and it was a nail biter for sure, but i'm glad i listened to my mentor for my dogs eat what i give them.


----------



## kafkabeetle

MagicRe said:


> she doesn't get the choice. she gets 20 minutes. if she doesn't eat, pick it up. serve it at the next meal.
> 
> she won't starve. hungry dogs don't starve. if you cater to her now, she will rule you for the rest of her life. i can promise you that.
> 
> as long as she is hydrated, she can go for days without eating. it sounds horrid, i know...and it was a nail biter for sure, but i'm glad i listened to my mentor for my dogs eat what i give them.


Point taken. Say goodbye to your chicken wing Sydney. ;p


----------



## Little Wise Owl

Turkey neck, half a pig foot, cow heart, chicken gizzards and hearts, cow kidney, turkey wing tip and salmon oil


----------



## Losech

MagicRe said:


> conker is a problem child with raw?
> 
> we have an oregon washington co op.....if you want, i'll post it or i'll pm it to you. we buy in bulk ...although you do have willamette valley meats and probably a gadzillion organic farmers around...
> 
> may i ask why you serve heart ground?


Conker is a problem with any food right now. He was uber picky as a puppy, then decided all food was amazing and worthy of being eaten for a while, and now he's back to being picky again (this started before it got hot, so heat is not to blame). Most of the time he will not eat a full raw meal, only bits or will outright refuse it altogether. I have no issue feeding him kibble short-term (the other two eat kibble the vast majority of the time), I'd prefer not to, but at this point, he gets what he'll eat. I can't do the "tough love" thing with him since he WILL refuse to eat food for longer than a week, and if he goes five days without food he begins to lose weight. Every time. At this point, I do not care about making him eat the raw food, I care about him keeping weight on so he gets the dang kibbles. 
(Don't bother trying to convince me to try tough love again right now. I ain't a fan of abusing my skinny dog.)

Conker goes through phases where he will or won't eat something in a certain form. Right now, any chunked meat other than steak (marinated, lightly grilled, almost raw, is how I like my steaks) is a no no with him, so everything except bone-in items gets ground. I am fully aware that grinding heart can deplete the taurine, I also know that it takes way the mental benefit of chewing up meat, but I really don't care and that is not why I feed raw. I do it since I think it's the best diet for my dogs that I can offer, even if it's only part-time for the other two. My other two dogs don't even chew their stuff anyways, just a quick crunch or two and it's gone, no matter how big is it, so serving raw whole, ground, or chunked, is no different with them.

Thanks for the offer on the co-op. I am in like, way southern Oregon, and unfortunately don't have a big freezer. If I did, I'd take you up on that, but I've got no more room for meat right now. My little fridgetop freezer is packed.

BTW, if I seem a bit defensive, I'm not. That's just my writing style and sometimes it can come off as a bit blunt/harsh.


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## kafkabeetle

Well I tried again outside and she ate the wing right away. So I think she was more confused by the whole tarp situation (I kept moving it when you took it off of the tarp) than actually resistance towards eating it. I'm actually surprised how quickly she's picking up on it. 

As for the tarp, I think I'm going to buy a bunch of fleece to have her eat on inside instead once I move and have a washer/dryer so I can keep it sanitary. She is not a fan of the crinkly sound the tarp makes. Until it's too cold out she can probably just eat outside. I'm also looking at getting a used chest freezer. I've found several relatively cheap on craigslist, but I have to make sure they will fit in the basement first. Then I can start accumulating things in bulk/on sale.


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## Kayota

Roxie is now up to eating it like there's no tomorrow as long as I hold it, which is really super exciting to me! /grins I found a place where I can get whole fish frozen so I don't have to worry about organ meat as much either if I can get her to eat the fish, if I decide I want to do all raw.


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## PackMomma

kafkabeetle said:


> Well, I wasn't intending to get into this quite yet, but I bought a whole chicken today. I have to say I was not prepared by how disgusted I would be while cutting it up. I hadn't really thought about the necessity of breaking bones and I didn't really have any clue how to butcher a chicken. So I mostly just hacked away in the most logical way I could figure, trying to get eight relatively even cuts (she'll be getting half a pound a day and the chicken was four pounds). Anyway, I think I got through it pretty well for my first time. ;p
> 
> Anyway, can anyone tell me what the organs there are here? I'm thinking the thing the far left is actually the neck, right? Then the blob is probably the liver, and the two roundish ones are kidneys? Hearts? Something else?


Haha, honestly, I was the exact same way the first time i Had to butcher a whole a chicken...and then I had to do a rabbit.. I honestly had no clue what I was doing, but I just dove in and chopped those babies up to the best of my ability, and portioned it out accordingly.. it does get easier with time. What I ended up doing though, is carving out everything but the 'body' of the carcass, I cut the necks, legs, and most of the 'meat' off the carcass and left the 'internals' as is, then I bagged the bodies separately, and fed them as a meal on their own, I put the remaining carcass outside, let Thumper go at it for a bit, then let Cash have a few nibbles, until they've had thier fill of it, or finished it. It was just easier that way than me trying to gut the animals. Way to go though! You are definitely making some progress, good for you!

So new dog food order came in on Sunday.. I found myself in a bit of a pickle..I was a little surprised when my order was $110 as opposed to the $75 I thought it was going to be. Well, I thought I had ordered only ONE duck, but turns out they percieved it to be one BAG of ducks.. so I got 6. I have to spend my evening butchering a few of these up as they will not all fit in my little apartment sized freezer with the rest of the dog food LOL. needless to say, My dogs are going to be eating a lot of duck for the remainder of the summer. These are BIG ducks too.. much, much bigger than chickens. Along with duck carcasses, I also still have a gazillion duck necks in the freezer still, and with the new order dogs will be also eating a lot of turkey organs/gizzards/hearts, sheep/lamb organs, including the throats, beef heart, beef kidney and bison tripe (I ordered elk tripe, but unfortunately they ran out by the time they filled my order)













MagicRe said:


> first time is always icky.
> 
> as time goes by, though, not only do you get the hang of it, the cleaver, mallet, and carving knife will sing in your hands....
> 
> i know, for my dogs, going to a raw fed diet was a challenge at best, frustrating to the hilt. if anyone could have done things wrong, including being servant to my masters, i did it.
> 
> fortunately, it got old very quickly and i learned the tough love thing.....and i learned to stop humanising my dogs when it came to food.
> 
> i think packmomma, i need to see your facebook page.  can you pm me your facebook name? i have a bunch of raw feeders as friends and we are constantly looking at pics...
> 
> plus there are a few facebook forums that can be quite helpful to the new or the interested person who thinks they might want to go this route.


Yep I'll PM ya. Its nothing crazy, I just started teh album recently, I dont know any other raw feeders so I'm alone with this as far as my FB world goes so I have no body else except what i see and learn here to go from, but atleast I seem to be sparking some interest with a few people, and I am by far no expert at this yet.. but its coming along slowly and surely!


----------



## PackMomma

Losech said:


> Here's a raw meal from today.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Big bowls: Chicken backs, ground beef heart, green tripe, lamb liver, beef thymus, pork fat.
> Little bowl: Chicken back, ground pork, ground beef heart, green tripe, lamb liver, canned fishes.
> 
> Conker did not eat his raw food (as usual) so that got put back into the freezer for a later day.


I am noticing that Cash is becoming a picky eater these days, he's always kinda been this way on and off, but its becoming more frequent he chooses not to eat some meals. Maybe I am just feeding too much though, I'm not sure. I'm slowly trying to cut down his portions each day to see if it helps, but I think I might have to put him onto once a day feeding, because he will usually eat one meal, then he wont eat the next. This is particularily the case with the premade raw, he's just not all that interested in it somedays, and will usually only eat it if Thumper finishes his bowl and goes for Cash's bowl, then he will start to eat, then walk away and guard it. Then I take it away for a few minutes, and he stares at me like "WTH? Gimme my food!". Then I put it down and he reluctantly forces himself to eat it otherwise he knows I take it away. He opted out of breakfast this morning, which was premade raw (its just easier on weekday mornings). I dunno what his deal is, but he's certainly not starving and I think I might just have to try once a day feeding, and cut him down to about 5 or 6 ounces a day. When I do two feedings per day, he probably ends up getting closer to the 6-8 ounces. He will eat any prey model though, doesn't matter what itis or the portion he won't refuse it, although sometimes he still seems to eat it reluctantly, then other times he acts like a starving beast and wolfs it down. But i'm beginning to think that he's just eating what he needs and the rest he just isn't that hungry, He's definitely not the type of dog that will eat himself to death, when he's had enough he's had enough, i coudl leave a raw meal out al day and he won't touch it unless he's hungry. So hopefully its just a sign that I might be giving him too much and he's satisfied with a small meal each evening, and for his age and activity level I think one 5 ounce meal a day will work. Hopefully.


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## MagicRe

kafkabeetle said:


> Point taken. Say goodbye to your chicken wing Sydney. ;p



that was funny.


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## kafkabeetle

Well she ate it all like a champ today! It's amazing how quickly she's learning! And she left most of it in the bowl while she ate, and only moved the leg piece just outside of the bowl so all I had to do was wipe down the floor in that general area. I'm still amazed at how clean it is.


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## MagicRe

kafkabeetle said:


> Well she ate it all like a champ today! It's amazing how quickly she's learning! And she left most of it in the bowl while she ate, and only moved the leg piece just outside of the bowl so all I had to do was wipe down the floor in that general area. I'm still amazed at how clean it is.


most excellent news 

we just use a towel and taught ours to stay on the towel. in all truth, the bowls are for me, because i like them.


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## kafkabeetle

MagicRe said:


> most excellent news
> 
> we just use a towel and taught ours to stay on the towel. in all truth, the bowls are for me, because i like them.


When I put it on a towel she tries to bury it.


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## Sibe

This is for the cats. We are on vacation right now and I needed to get at least 2 weeks worth of food packaged up for them as they stay with a sitter. Thank goodness the sitter is willing to put up with yucky raw! Gross!!
On the top is chicken hearts & gizzards, chicken thigh filets, and chopped pork shoulder. Bottom is moose (it's ground but frozen so I shaved slices off as it defrosted), beef kidney, beef liver, and 3 sardines sliced up (no heads or tails, dogs ate those as the cats won't and I wanted it the least gross as possible for the sitter). I mixed it all up in a big bowl. Total is about 12-13lbs which should be more than enough. They aren't getting much bone, just a little with the sardine, but I didn't want to make the sitter give chicken wings or whole mice. They'll be fine for the couple weeks. Took me over an hour to chop everything up into little pieces! I typically leave things a little bigger but for the sake of the sitter I wanted to make it all small.










Also, WHY DO PEOPLE STARE AT ME AND MY CART IN THE GROCERY STORE?!?! I mean, hearts & gizzards and beef hearts and pork arm roasts aren't THAT weird, are they?? :wink:









Those were *huge* beef hearts.


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## MagicRe

kafkabeetle said:


> When I put it on a towel she tries to bury it.


she's a real character, isn't she?

we trained ours with a leash...that way we controlled what they did.

use a dish towel.....the idea is to train her to eat where you want her to eat.


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## Sibe

Has this been posted in here? Project to get pics of 1,000 raw fed dogs! Over 200 pics currently.
http://tinkerwolf.com/1000-raw-fed-dogs/raw-fed-dogs-1-to/


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## InkedMarie

Sibe said:


> Has this been posted in here? Project to get pics of 1,000 raw fed dogs! Over 200 pics currently.
> http://tinkerwolf.com/1000-raw-fed-dogs/raw-fed-dogs-1-to/


Two things: my husband looked at a few pictures and I doubt we'll ever be doing prey model here. Second, dog # 105, Ellie....what the heck is she eating?


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## kafkabeetle

MagicRe said:


> she's a real character, isn't she?


She's something. xD I'll work on the towel thing.

Determining subject's edibility.









Seems ok...









OMNOM CHICKEN NECK











InkedMarie said:


> Two things: my husband looked at a few pictures and I doubt we'll ever be doing prey model here. Second, dog # 105, Ellie....what the heck is she eating?


Looks like the head of a goat to me. Can't say I'm eager to feed things like that either. ;p


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## InkedMarie

look at Sydney eating chicken, go girl!


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## kafkabeetle

InkedMarie said:


> look at Sydney eating chicken, go girl!


I remember people recommending chicken wings and necks as dental chews for small dogs. They must have meant more like toy breeds because once she got the hang of it both were gone in about 30 seconds flat.


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## Losech

Sibe said:


> Those were *huge* beef hearts.


OMG those are huge! Mine aren't anywhere near that big.



InkedMarie said:


> dog # 105, Ellie....what the heck is she eating?


It's a goat head.
http://tinkerwolf.com/2012/06/09/raw-fed-dogs-number-105-and-106-ellie-and-budda-man/


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## PackMomma

Well.. Had to do some butchering/portioning last night. What you see here is 1 out of 6 of my duck carcasses, duck necks, bison tripe, ground mixed sheep/lamb organs, turkey gizzards, turkey hearts, turkey liver, ground whole pork, beef heart. Oh - and my little helper. I think he was trying to let me know I had gotten too consumed with the butchering and I forgot to feed them dinner.









Dinner lastnight, just some stuff from what was brought out to butcher/portion.


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## Losech

PackMomma said:


> View attachment 35148


Hahaha! I love that picture.


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## PackMomma

Losech said:


> Hahaha! I love that picture.


Lol, considering its about 7:30 PM at this time, I've been too busy to feed them, he hasn't eaten since 6 AM, and there's tons of scrumptious food scattered on the table well within his reach, he just patiently sits and waits.. glaring at me, then the food, then back at me. Once though, I turned my back to go grab something from the kitchen, and he snuck a quick lick on whatever was closest to the edge of the table lol, didn't grab it.. just licked. Then went back to watching lol.


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## Kayota

I got chicken gizzards and hearts for 75 cents tonight! I was getting yogurt and they had them on sale, I was pretty thrilled. Roxie loved it...


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## Kayota

kafkabeetle said:


> I remember people recommending chicken wings and necks as dental chews for small dogs. They must have meant more like toy breeds because once she got the hang of it both were gone in about 30 seconds flat.


Sydney seems more medium to me! lol!


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## kafkabeetle

Kayota said:


> Sydney seems more medium to me! lol!


I guess she's kind of on the edge at 20ish pounds.


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## Kayota

Oh yeah that's definitely a medium dog to me, I'm used to small dogs though.


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## MagicRe

20 lbs is not a toy, but certainly not medium......

as long as your dog is not a gulper, wings work.....though they are very bony..


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## CptJack

MagicRe said:


> 20 lbs is not a toy, but certainly not medium......


I think for me 
Toy = < 10
Small = 11-20
Medium = 21= 50
Large = 50-70
Extra Large 71-100
Giant = > 100.


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## PackMomma

So, I went golfing yesterday after work, I didn't get home until 9:30 pm, upon my arrival I forget.. CRAP! I didn't feed the dogs.. and of course hubby didn't, either. He will feed the premade raw, but he will not touch or try and portion out the prey model stuff, which they typically eat in the evenings. He didn't want to mess anything up so he decided not to bother thawing out some patties for them to eat.. bugger.

So i get home and I'm kinda scrambling around trying to fix the dogs a meal, I didn't really have anything thawed out previously for them, except I had an enormous bag of beef ribs sitting in the fridge still half thawed, that I need to thaw out completely and package separately. Ugh I hate these unorganized evenings. Anyway, I quickly half thaw a sardine, use all the strength left in my body from a long day/night to try and rip apart some beef ribs that are still frozen together, and hmm... an egg will do and voila..dinner lol


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## Catdancer

Hello all! I am a new dog owner, but I am an old cat owner. lol And it wasnt until seeing this thread that I had even considered raw feeding. I have 6 cats, weights are 9-13 pounds, ages 3 yrs to 9 yrs. And we have a papillon puppy, who is about 5 1/2 months old and 7.7 pounds. I am very interested in raw feeding both the dog and the cats. My kitties are all rescues ( I did animal rescue for 10 years) and two have Herpes. In cats herpes attacks the respiratory system the hardest. The other 4 are very healthy, they hunt and eat mice, moles, shrews and birds. I think that my 4 young cats would do really well on raw food, but I'm wondering if it would help my chronically ill boys. They also have mouth ulcers and mouth pain from the herpes virus, so I am wondering if it would be too much for me to take on, or if this could work. 

I also have a 3 year old. He is my biggest hold back right now as he is VERY involved in the care, feeding and training of the dog as well as the cats. Are there any of you who raw feed and have small kids? For our puppy, I could feed him in his crate. But for the cats, I have no idea where or how I could feed them. Right now they eat kibble and they free feed. The feeders are on the kitchen counter. 

Also, toy breeds are notorious for having bad teeth. I'd like to be able to give him bones and whatever to chew on to help with his teeth. Any recommendations for a 7.7 puppy to help clean his teeth? I did see a beef rib bone with meat on it at Petsmart and I got it for him. I know it's been cooked or whatever but Dexter LOVED it and chewed until the remaining bone was smooth as glass. 

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?


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## Willowy

Transitioning cats to raw can be a real trial, because cats imprint on food early on and may not recognize raw meat as food, and you can't starve them out (if a cat doesn't eat for a certain amount of time, his liver will fail). Do they eat canned food at all? A lot of people start by putting the cats on scheduled meals, then transitioning to canned food, then transitioning to commercial raw, then to ground raw, and then maybe transitioning to chunks (although a lot of cats do stay on ground meat always). You might want to join a cat forum with a busy raw feeding section if you're serious about it. Or a raw-fed cats Yahoo group. There are pasteurized commercial raw products, so if you're worried about bacteria, that might be a good place to start. You can give them some slivers of raw meat the next time you're preparing it for human meals, just to gauge their interest. If they like it, it might be an easy transition!

Raw beef rib bones are excellent for cleaning teeth. I would say a beef rib would be too big for him, but I guess he managed! You'd probably want to cut most of the meat off, though, because that would be too much meat for one day.


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## melundie

I gave Ace his first chicken neck this evening as a treat. He loved it. He ate really slowly (took him about 20+ minutes to finish it). He very carefully nibbled most of the meat off and then slowly and methodically chewed the bone up into tiny pieces before swallowing. Such a good boy  Question for thquose of you with dogs that eat raw on the regular: how long does it take your dog to eat a normal raw meal?

Here are pictures of Ace enjoying his bone:

























Another question: do you think there are any real advantages or disadvantages to giving your dog raw/meaty bones occasionally as a treat?


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## PackMomma

melundie said:


> I gave Ace his first chicken neck this evening as a treat. He loved it. He ate really slowly (took him about 20+ minutes to finish it). He very carefully nibbled most of the meat off and then slowly and methodically chewed the bone up into tiny pieces before swallowing. Such a good boy  Question for thquose of you with dogs that eat raw on the regular: how long does it take your dog to eat a normal raw meal?
> 
> Here are pictures of Ace enjoying his bone:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Another question: do you think there are any real advantages or disadvantages to giving your dog raw/meaty bones occasionally as a treat?


Thumper takes about a total of 3 noms on a duck/turkey neck and its down the hatch. He may chew it a bit more than 3 times, but its gone in 30 seconds or less, and he's only about 40-45 lbs. Also, once its in his mouth, he doesn't drop it or set it on the ground, the whole thing is in his mouth and he eats standing up with his head up. The only thing I ever see him eat lying down are ribs, or bison/elk necks or something that requires a good, long chew. 

Cash is a slower, more organized eater. He carefully chews and crushes up the necks or other boney meals from beginning to finish, as he rests half of it on the ground and works his way down, using the ground as a way to stabilize the neck so that he does not have to use his paws to hold it.. he hates touching raw meat. He takes approximately 10 minutes to finish a good sized turkey/duck neck. Turkey necks are huge.. I cut them into 3 lenghts. But for the majority I give duck necks, which are probably comparable to size as chicken necks, maybe slightly bigger

I personally don't think there are any disadvantages to giving a RMB occasionally as a treat. Its not only a treat, its a healthy, tasty way to clean their teeth. And the little raw meat is certainly a good supplement to their diet.


----------



## kafkabeetle

CptJack said:


> I think for me
> Toy = < 10
> Small = 11-20
> Medium = 21= 50
> Large = 50-70
> Extra Large 71-100
> Giant = > 100.


That's pretty much how I think of it. It makes sense that everyone's breakdown would be slightly different though.


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## Kayota

Roxie eats hers really slowly because she hasn't figured out that she can get a better grip if she uses her feet... She eats faster when I hold it.

I'm really loving this now, my mom gave me a freezerburned steak and some swai fillets! Free meals! I had the chicken thigh she was working on in the fridge still but it had begun smelling really rank today so I tossed it and she got some Vital instead. Right now I'm doing kibble for breakfast and raw for dinner until I use up her kibble.


----------



## kafkabeetle

Kayota said:


> Roxie eats hers really slowly because she hasn't figured out that she can get a better grip if she uses her feet... She eats faster when I hold it.


This is what I thought was going on with Sydney, but now that she's eating on her own she doesn't actually use her paws at all. If it's big she balances it on the floor and if it's smaller she just picks the whole thing up in her mouth and chomps away. The first several days trying to get her to eat on her own were rough, but once she stopped looking at me like "helpppp" because I stopped helping her, she started trying harder for herself. It's kind of interesting to watch her sort of size something up and you can see she's thinking up a strategy. ;p Like, "Ok, how do I get that thing in my belly?" lol

FedEx says my Darwin's has been sitting in a local delivery truck since 7:23 this morning. When will it get here already?? ;p


----------



## Kayota

Yeah, apparently Roxie appreciates steak more than chicken because dinner was steak tonight and she inhaled it! When she had had her fill and I went to take it away she started to try and gulp the whole thing O_O Never did that with the chicken...

ETA: One of my coworkers said my dog would get sick if I fed her raw meat and no one listened when I tried to explain... /sigh


----------



## kafkabeetle

Woah, Sydney REALLY likes Darwin's. Too bad I can't really afford it more than every once in a while.

EDIT: When you buy ground meats like on Hare-Today.com, should it be assumed that it comes out to a balanced meal? Are these ground whole carcass or ground meat/bone/organ mixtures pretty much the equivalent of premade raw diets minus the extra supplements and veggies? I don't plan on feeding primarily ground foods but I'm just curious how they would fit into a raw diet.

And this is a more specific and mostly hypothetical question-- if someone wanted to feed exclusively ground foods, could they buy these whole carcass and/or ground meat/bone/organ mixtures from a great variety of animals and end up with a pretty well-balanced diet? Is this basically the way a person would follow the BARF style of raw feeding?


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## Kayota

Roxie REALLY likes steak...


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## kafkabeetle

Kayota said:


> Roxie REALLY likes steak...


Glad to see she's getting the hang of it. Sydney's a big fan of steak, too.


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## Kayota

I think she's just not as fond of chicken, but she'll have to get used to it because I have like seven thighs left lol! Sydney is such a cute dog, I meant to tell you I saw a dog that I thought WAS her at Petco the other day, until I realized he had boy bits!

That aside... I think I'm going to pick up some meat shears today, because she really tries to gulp when I try to take away her food before SHE'S done lol!


----------



## kafkabeetle

Kayota said:


> I think she's just not as fond of chicken, but she'll have to get used to it because I have like seven thighs left lol! Sydney is such a cute dog, I meant to tell you I saw a dog that I thought WAS her at Petco the other day, until I realized he had boy bits!
> 
> That aside... I think I'm going to pick up some meat shears today, because she really tries to gulp when I try to take away her food before SHE'S done lol!


Ha, thanks.  Whenever I'm out of traveling I see dogs that look like ones from the forum and I always think, "Is that poster from around here??" ;p 

Sydney I think likes chicken just fine, but finds certain cuts difficult to eat. Particularly the "drumsticks." If I break the bone for her and expose it in the middle a bit she does ok, but when there's all that meat tightly enclosed over the bone she has a really tough time and usually gives up pretty quickly. But yeah, I bet beef has more flavor to it than chicken.

As for the gulping, maybe you could try to trade-up with liver or whatever you can find that she likes better than the meat. That way when you approach she'll think, "I'm getting something awesome!" instead of "I have to eat this quick so she can't take it away." I personally don't take meat from Sydney but that's mostly because she used to have resource guarding issues that we've worked through beautifully and I don't want to ever go down that road again.

Enjoying one of the last bits of her first whole chicken.


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## pekelover

Juicy loved the chicken wings! Sassy not so much


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## kafkabeetle

Aw, it's fun to see all these little dogs eating raw.


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## Kayota

I thought about trading up but I wasn't sure if there was anything I could trade up for! Raw meat is pretty delicious and I'm wary about giving organs too often... I can try just a tiny piece though maybe.


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## kafkabeetle

Kayota said:


> I thought about trading up but I wasn't sure if there was anything I could trade up for! Raw meat is pretty delicious and I'm wary about giving organs too often... I can try just a tiny piece though maybe.


You could weigh your weekly portion of organ meat, then cut it into as many pieces as you would need during that week.


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## InkedMarie

kafkabeetle said:


> Woah, Sydney REALLY likes Darwin's. Too bad I can't really afford it more than every once in a while.
> 
> EDIT: When you buy ground meats like on Hare-Today.com, should it be assumed that it comes out to a balanced meal? Are these ground whole carcass or ground meat/bone/organ mixtures pretty much the equivalent of premade raw diets minus the extra supplements and veggies? I don't plan on feeding primarily ground foods but I'm just curious how they would fit into a raw diet.
> 
> And this is a more specific and mostly hypothetical question-- if someone wanted to feed exclusively ground foods, could they buy these whole carcass and/or ground meat/bone/organ mixtures from a great variety of animals and end up with a pretty well-balanced diet? Is this basically the way a person would follow the BARF style of raw feeding?


One thing that is nice about Darwins is you can order X amount of food, as long as it's 20lbs (that's their minimum after the special deal) every X amount of weeks. So, you can order 20lbs every 20 weeks if you wanted to, it would give you time to save in between. We stick money in an envelope every week so when my bill comes with the Darwins, I have the money to pay it!


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## kafkabeetle

InkedMarie said:


> One thing that is nice about Darwins is you can order X amount of food, as long as it's 20lbs (that's their minimum after the special deal) every X amount of weeks. So, you can order 20lbs every 20 weeks if you wanted to, it would give you time to save in between. We stick money in an envelope every week so when my bill comes with the Darwins, I have the money to pay it!


Yeah, I'll probably do something like that. When I cancelled the auto-shipment (for now) I asked if I could make one time purchases and they said I could but that I would have to do it by email or phone (because the form on their website is for auto-shipments only) and there would be a $10 charge per order. They have some really nice customer service. 

So, I got some pork necks. I understand that these need to be frozen for some time to avoid trichinosis? Also, when I was separating them into smaller containers to freeze I noticed that the bones were pretty hard. Are they safe to feed with the bone or should I try to cut away the meat from the bone?


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## Willowy

The USDA says trichinosis is no longer a threat in the U.S. commercial pork supply. So unless it's wild boar, don't worry! I feed my kitties raw pork chops all the time.


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## kafkabeetle

Willowy said:


> The USDA says trichinosis is no longer a threat in the U.S. commercial pork supply. So unless it's wild boar, don't worry! I feed my kitties raw pork chops all the time.


Oh that's good to hear!


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## Kayota

Today Roxie did really well with her "drop it" command to drop the meat after she had had tonight's portion, and I also like Kafka's idea to measure out her amount for the week and portion it for this purpose  Do you think once a week would be good for organs for a 12 lb dog?


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## InkedMarie

kafkabeetle said:


> Yeah, I'll probably do something like that. When I cancelled the auto-shipment (for now) I asked if I could make one time purchases and they said I could but that I would have to do it by email or phone (because the form on their website is for auto-shipments only) and there would be a $10 charge per order. They have some really nice customer service.


Take a look at their bones too. IMO, from my prices up here, they have excellent prices. We're ordering bones to go with my next order. I may order some of their tripe too


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## kafkabeetle

Kayota said:


> Today Roxie did really well with her "drop it" command to drop the meat after she had had tonight's portion, and I also like Kafka's idea to measure out her amount for the week and portion it for this purpose  Do you think once a week would be good for organs for a 12 lb dog?


Once a week is fine but the total amount you are feeding is more important than precisely how often. It should be 10% of the overall diet with half of that 10% being liver and half other organs. I've been measuring mine out and keeping them in a bag in the fridge, then she gets a little piece with each meal.



Kayota said:


> Take a look at their bones too. IMO, from my prices up here, they have excellent prices. We're ordering bones to go with my next order. I may order some of their tripe too


I'll have to look at that. She didn't eat her Darwin's so well today (I've been alternating it with normal raw every other day, so it's the second times she's tried it). She was eating it fine so I went to the bathroom and when I came back I found it about 2/3 gone and her working on spreading the rest all over my kitchen floor. She was taking little bites and dropping them, then pushing the bowl somewhere else and dropping another mouthful on the floor. God only knows what goes through the mind of this dog. 

I like to think she's a modern artist. It would certainly explain the time she dragged a bag of potatoes around the house and my roommate came home to find potatoes lined up in a perfect row from the kitchen to the front door.


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## Kayota

I worded that weird, I think I was tired... I meant to ask if 3 ounces/week would be okay for a 12 lb dog who is also getting kibble still.


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## kafkabeetle

Kayota said:


> I worded that weird, I think I was tired... I meant to ask if 3 ounces/week would be okay for a 12 lb dog who is also getting kibble still.


Ok, if you wanted to feed 2% of her body weight she would need 3.07 ounces of meat, .37 ounces of bone and .19 ounces each of liver and other organ per day. A weeks worth of liver/organ would be 1.33 ounces each. Since you're feeding half kibble I would cut everything in half and go with .67 ounces per week each of liver and other organ. If my math is right typing this on my phone.


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## Kayota

Okay thank you. I struggle with percentages so that was really helpful ^^ I'm actually doing closer to 3% I think but it varies by day really. On 3% she gets about 3 ounces total per meal according to the raw food calculator. I do 2-3 ounces though. Would I want 1.33 ounces of bone per week too then by your math?


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## kafkabeetle

Kayota said:


> Okay thank you. I struggle with percentages so that was really helpful ^^ I'm actually doing closer to 3% I think but it varies by day really. On 3% she gets about 3 ounces total per meal according to the raw food calculator. I do 2-3 ounces though. Would I want 1.33 ounces of bone per week too then by your math?


I'm not very good at the percentages either. I actually use an iPhone app called raw dog. You just choose your dog's weight and the percent you want to feed (2% is default but I think that works beat for bigger dogs.)

So using the calculator your 12 pound dog at 3% body weight would get:

Meat-- 4.61 ounces daily (32.27 weekly) (16.14)
Bone-- 0.58 ounces daily (4.06) (2.03)
Liver-- 0.29 ounces daily (2.03) (1.02)
Organ-- 0.29 ounces daily (2.03) (1.02)

The weekly amounts I just got by multiplying them by 7. 

EDIT: Whoops, I forgot you were feeding only half raw. So I'll divide all the weekly amounts by 2.


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## kafkabeetle

Sorry to double post, but I have a question. Sydney has been trying to cover her food at almost every meal since going primarily raw. If I feed on a blanket/towel she will try to push the fabric on top of her food. When she's on a hard surface she will sort of rub her nose on the ground as if pushing imaginary dirt over the food. It almost seems instinctual since she continues to do this even when she's obviously not making any progress, just pushing the bowl around at most. It's like a tic.

When we first got her we had a difficult time getting her to eat. Part of the problem was crappy food and part was probably stress. She would purposefully knock over her bowl and cover up the food with socks and things she found. Until we instituted the 15 minute rule it was pretty common to find a bunch of kibble squirreled away in a pair of boxers if they were left on the floor, etc. She will sometimes do this with kibble while we are traveling as well, so it definitely appears to be stress related. This article confirms that.

So now I need to figure out what is stressing her. I try to remain in the same room as her while she eats for safety, but generally I try my best not to stare at her. Usually I'll sit at the kitchen table and play on my phone. Has anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions?


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## Kayota

Roxie tries to run and hide with her food always, it's really odd... She never did that with kibble or anything but she'll try and hide with something as small as a gizzard 

Thanks so much for your help  I need that app on my iPod!


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## Kayota

I got five ducks and some deer for $15 today! I wasn't sure how much it was worth but I think that was actually pretty cheap? I'm also not sure what to do with these whole ducks, they still have feathers and everything lol Any tips for plucking? Mostly the Internet says wax for the down but I don't have that and I'm not gonna go out and get it either lol!


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## PackMomma

Five ducks and deer meat for $15! I'm jealous - that is insanely cheap. Although I keep forgetting everything is cheaper in the US compared to here.

I get venison meat (deer, elk, moose) for free, I know lots of hunters, but for a duck comparison, I just got 6 whole ducks (de-feathered) and they were $50 with GST.


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## Kayota

Holy cow! Well he DID cut me a deal, he let me pick the price and I was like "fif... teen?????" and he was like "okay sure why not" so. The deer is actually ground apparently so I might save it for if I ever go anywhere, so my parents aren't dealing with chicken and duck parts lol! Does anyone have any tips for what to do with the ducks? I'm debating just skinning them... But I also would like to leave all parts intact if I can but that may not be feasible because the entire duck would go bad in my fridge since she can't eat it fast enough and you also can't skin a duck if you do that based on what I'm reading. What to do, what to do...


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## PackMomma

Yeah I'd say that's a steal. I paid roughly $8 per duck. Cleaned and defeathered, and i consider that a great deal. Unfortunately, my dogs do not seem to be overly crazy about duck -- i'm interested to see your Roxie's reaction to it. I can't figure it out. When I first ordered duck necks, they enhaled them. Now that I've been offering whole duck, they could really care less about it, and they aren't even crazy about the necks anymore. I'm kinda choked, cuz i'm stuck with 6 ducks, + another 5lbs or so of duck necks.. its the staple of their diet for the next while as I have to get rid of these darn ducks - taking up way too much room in the freezer. Wasn't my fault though, they screwed up my order and I was pretty much stuck with them, ordered 1 and ended up with 6 somehow.. geez. Ohwell, crossing my fingers the dogs will start liking it again.


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## Kayota

Man I just have to figure out how to pluck and portion them, I'm at a loss, I guess it will be a learning experience lol


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## PackMomma

Kayota said:


> Man I just have to figure out how to pluck and portion them, I'm at a loss, I guess it will be a learning experience lol


Sorry I can't help you with the plucking, but what I've been doing with whole chicken/ ducks, is chop off the legs and wings (and necks if they have them on), and portion those out accordingly, then I slice off as much meat as possible like the breasts, etc. and then I leave the remainder of the carcass as is, and use that as a separatel. Not really much left of it at that point other than the rib cage and back, but I let each dog take a turn at it chewing up all the little bones.

You kinda have to use a meat cleAver or a fairly large knife, and I cut the wings and thighs off at the joint, and I find just a few quick smashes with the knife on the bone joints will easily break it and make it easier to cut off. Took me less than 10 mins to carve up an entire duck - it is really all experience and it doesn't take long to figure it out - good luck!


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## Gally

Kitchen shears are great for cutting up poultry. I just cut the meat with shears and then pull the bones apart at the joint.


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## Kayota

Thanks! I was kind of wondering how I was going to make a whole duck stay good while my little girl munched away... I guess I have no choice but to hack away!

Man I made the mistake of going past the meat departments at Kroger and Walmart today and I scored 99 cent/lb pork spare ribs!!! I was really excited! I got some other good stuff too including 4.19 for 10 lbs of chicken quarters! And 1.04 pork neck pieces! I was only going to get ONE kind of RMB today since I didn't have any yet... So much for that! I think the human needs a "leave it" command now... I just can't resist a good deal! I guess I'm just astounded that at 99 cents/lb the ribs are cheaper than the kibble that I was buying  I also have five protein sources now which is also fantastic... I think I'm doing pretty well 

EDIT: Wow I portioned out everything I got today into 3-day packs until I had no more baggies left! There were 20 baggies so I have at least 60 days of food portioned already and a lot more thawing/waiting in the fridge O_O And for so little...!

Anyway she had some liver, her first RMB--a pork neck bit--inhaled it a bit faster than I would have liked!--and some chicken thigh. I had to cut off the meat from the bone because I microwaved it for a few seconds yesterday and I didn't realize that cooked the bone and I was pretty worried when she ate part of the cooked bone. Learned my lesson!

Also I wonder if I could freeze everything else (after I take care of those ducks) and thaw it again later to portion it?


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## PackMomma

Kayota said:


> Thanks! I was kind of wondering how I was going to make a whole duck stay good while my little girl munched away... I guess I have no choice but to hack away!
> 
> Man I made the mistake of going past the meat departments at Kroger and Walmart today and I scored 99 cent/lb pork spare ribs!!! I was really excited! I got some other good stuff too including 4.19 for 10 lbs of chicken quarters! And 1.04 pork neck pieces! I was only going to get ONE kind of RMB today since I didn't have any yet... So much for that! I think the human needs a "leave it" command now... I just can't resist a good deal! I guess I'm just astounded that at 99 cents/lb the ribs are cheaper than the kibble that I was buying  I also have five protein sources now which is also fantastic... I think I'm doing pretty well
> 
> EDIT: Wow I portioned out everything I got today into 3-day packs until I had no more baggies left! There were 20 baggies so I have at least 60 days of food portioned already and a lot more thawing/waiting in the fridge O_O And for so little...!
> 
> Anyway she had some liver, her first RMB--a pork neck bit--inhaled it a bit faster than I would have liked!--and some chicken thigh. I had to cut off the meat from the bone because I microwaved it for a few seconds yesterday and I didn't realize that cooked the bone and I was pretty worried when she ate part of the cooked bone. Learned my lesson!
> 
> Also I wonder if I could freeze everything else (after I take care of those ducks) and thaw it again later to portion it?


Hehe - refer back to my comment in the Menu - "welcome to the world of raw feeders!" LOL. I can never resist good deals and finds at grocery stores too, even if i'm fully stocked and freezer is full to the brim of food, and I come across something on sale at the grocery store... well, I make room lol. Good for you, and yes I do agree I think you're doing pretty good for starting a raw diet for the first time. Its a gradual and slow process and you learn to be resourceful as you go..atleast I find.

I do often refreeze and rethaw food, I don't have any problem with it, its better than letting it sit in the fridge. IMO, its also always best to thaw and feed immediately, just avoid leaving food sit for too long to accumulate bacteria. I do the same thing with portioning everything out into prepackaged meals for the month, in little freezer bags, usually what I do is set out a bowl of luke-warm water and thaw the food out an hour or so before I feed. However, sometimes before I leave for work or whatever, I take the food out of the freezer, and stick it in the fridge to thaw out during the day.. usually its still partially frozen by meal time but not too frozen that they can't eat it. Occasionally I have too much food out, or I take out several different miscellaneous items and mix together for a meal so I have to thaw a bunch out, portion what I need, then throw the rest back into the freezer.


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## PackMomma

Lamb shank, turkey liver, turkey heart


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## Kayota

Okay thanks  Sorry about the long post, I never thought I'd be so excited about meat...


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## PackMomma

Kayota said:


> Okay thanks  Sorry about the long post, I never thought I'd be so excited about meat...


Welcome to the club..


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## Kayota

Oh my gosh, I just skinned a duck... The worst part honestly was the head, I was not grossed out at all other than by blood after I took off the head. That is, until I realized Roxie would never touch the head with the feathers on and had to skin most of that too... SIGH...

But that aside, I was curious... Well, obviously I'm no duck skinning master, but since I have five more (he gave me one more than I thought!), would you all like to see a skinning next time I thaw one or two for the purpose? Might be educational or something...


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## Sibe

Kayota said:


> Oh my gosh, I just skinned a duck... The worst part honestly was the head, I was not grossed out at all other than by blood after I took off the head. That is, until I realized Roxie would never touch the head with the feathers on and had to skin most of that too... SIGH...


Eeeew. I've had to skin whole chickens before. Feathers are just too messy and skinning is easier than plucking. What I do is cut around the base of the neck then peel the skin off over the head. Deglove it inside out. Ugh so gross!! *shivers*


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## Kayota

I still got feathers everywhere, I never thought I would vacuum tile... That is how I skinned the head but I had some difficulties and ended up just leaving some feathers on. Honestly the worst part for me is when blood comes leaking slowly out of a vein... That just creeps me out so so bad. Otherwise though hacking at meat is mostly cathartic... I can imagine it's my childhood enemies... (jk jk) I spent a really long time last night and today portioning meat out and I have to say I kind of enjoy it... Perhaps I should become a butcher instead of a vet tech? LOL


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## PackMomma

Kayota said:


> I still got feathers everywhere, I never thought I would vacuum tile... That is how I skinned the head but I had some difficulties and ended up just leaving some feathers on. Honestly the worst part for me is when blood comes leaking slowly out of a vein... That just creeps me out so so bad. Otherwise though hacking at meat is mostly cathartic... I can imagine it's my childhood enemies... (jk jk) I spent a really long time last night and today portioning meat out and I have to say I kind of enjoy it... *Perhaps I should become a butcher instead of a vet tech? LOL*


Where raw feeding and nutritional benefits of it is concerned you'd be far better off being a butcher than a vet tech  lol. My cousin is a vet tech, Ohh boy she could go on and on and on about the disadvantages of raw, and all the pro's of kibble.. oh and she just couldn't resist informing me of her trip to the US to Hills nutrition school, where she was thoroughly taught about how good Science Diet is.... blah. Honestly, I was ready to go to veterinary school a while back, I'm actually quite glad I didn't. Sometimes I think vets do more harm than good, in SOME cases.. don't get me wrong, they are definitely good to have around for emergencies, but I still avoid them at all costs lol...so far...its been working.

However... I still think it would be nice to be able to interact with animals on a daily basis for a career

Thanks for the update on your duck-skinning, very informative lol. I'm glad I haven't had to endure that process. In a sick way I do sorta enjoy butchering up all the meat and such too..its kind of therapuetic? I get the music going, have a glass of wine.. get my surgical gloves and away I go. I've been learning that this raw feeding becomes a lifestyle.. and a passion, and no matter what the slight disadvantages are you just learn to love it!


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## Kayota

Yeah it is pretty fun... As far as being a tech I figure I'll just keep my mouth shut at any job I happen to get lol! Fortunately I'm fully capable of researching and forming my own opinion so the classes shouldn't change that...


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## PackMomma

Kayota said:


> Yeah it is pretty fun... As far as being a tech I figure I'll just keep my mouth shut at any job I happen to get lol! Fortunately I'm fully capable of researching and forming my own opinion so the classes shouldn't change that...


Glad to hear it!  Although, I think I would find it rather tough to try and keep my shut while working in that profession with people constantly recommending crappy food to clients dogs in attempt to make them "healthier"... oh boy would that drive me nuts. But of course, it is your career and you have to do whats best for your well being, despite what you see and hear. I'm sure you will find some of the classes entertaining. I couldn't help but giggle to myself when my cousin posted a status on FB bragging about how excited she was to get to go to Hills Pet nutrion courses in Kansas or whatever it is, and that she was going to come out more educated about diet and nutrition..LOL..meanwhile, i'm posting a picture on my FB of my dogs dinner.Surprisingly, not all vets are against raw though. I think more and more are coming around to it and doing their own research about it. The vet clinic I do go to now if need be, supports raw feeding. They don't push it, but they don't really push the crappy Science Diet lining the shelves either, and they never have negative comments about raw diets, and I do believe a couple of them even feed raw themselves. I like that clinic.. they don't make me feel like a horrible pet owner like my cousins clinic did because I feed raw, and they have complimented on how healthy my dogs look and act, the very few times we've been there.


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## PackMomma

Beef rib, ground rabbit, egg and beef kidney







Duck thigh/leg, deer trim, beef heart, turkey liver


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## JLeighL

ok so y'all seem like experts on this. I need some advice. I want to try raw feeding a little bit bc i think its healthier for my dogs. I have a 120lb bullmastiff (Charlie) and a 13lb lab puppy (Ryleigh- i wont start her just yet) but how much food for the mastiff?! And is it bad to mix kibble with raw just to try to transition?! I give him raw beef liver every so often and he seems to enjoy it. We are big hunters so during those winter hunting months it will be no prob to stock up on some good food for him.


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## PackMomma

Generally you want to start by feeding approximately %2 of the dogs bodyweight per day. This is general, though - some dogs need less some need more, depending on their activity level, metabolism, etc but this is a starting point and then you adjust accordingly if your dog looks too fat or too thin. For a 120lb dog you'd want to aim for about 2.5 lbs of raw food per day, you can feed that in one meal or break it out into two separate meals.

I strongly do not recommend mixing kibble and raw together, some dogs do fine with mixing, but I don't recommend it personally. It can cause digestive upset because of the digestion rates. Alot of pro raw feeders do not recommend transitioning dogs onto raw, but rather go cold turkey and some even recommend a fasting period to completely rid the body of all the toxins build up in the system from processed food (kibble). However, with that said, again some dogs can tolerate this differently, you could try feeding one meal of kibble, then one of raw in a day (ensure you feed atleast 8 hrs apart), starting out with only a small raw meal then gradually increasing while decreasing the kibble. Most dogs would likely do fine with this, and if you choose to only stick to a half and half kibble/raw diet and it works for you and your dog then by all means. Even being able to feed a couple of raw meals per week is better than not at all IMO. 

I used to do the half and half with my dogs, until about 3 or 4 months ago I switched them to completely raw. They were doing OK with the half/half diet (kibble in the AM, raw in the PM), however, there were still some slight noticeable things like occasional itchy/dry skin, eye goobers, bad poops. They were minor, and still in great health because they were eating raw as well, but I felt I could get more solid, consistent results going to completely raw and sure enough I did. However, it is a lifestyle adjustment I can admit that. It is cost effective, though, but I'm only feeding a 20 lb and 45lb dog. Your Mastiff needs quite a bit of food.. but if your hunters then that would decrease the costs of raw food considerably.

Good luck!


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## JLeighL

Sounds good. I may try to do this. I feed him in the morning before work and then again around 7 or 8 at night. So i may try to do the kibble in mornings and then raw at night when i'm home to supervise. Thanks for all the info. Also does anyone know what to give to keep him from shedding alot. I mean i know dogs shed but sometimes is ridic. lol. Will the raw diet also help with this?


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## PackMomma

JLeighL said:


> Sounds good. I may try to do this. I feed him in the morning before work and then again around 7 or 8 at night. So i may try to do the kibble in mornings and then raw at night when i'm home to supervise. Thanks for all the info. Also does anyone know what to give to keep him from shedding alot. I mean i know dogs shed but sometimes is ridic. lol. Will the raw diet also help with this?


Raw feeding most definitely helps with shedding. Of course they will always still shed, but I know with mine it has decreased the shedding noticeably between the two shedding seasons. They still blow coat quite a bit in fall and spring.


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## JLeighL

Ok so doing my research on raw feeding. I see where some people think its great and other do not. Some say that raw bones can splinter and cause damage to the dogs internal organs, whereas other people say that only cooked bones do this! Info please?!? I think my dog would be healthier and more lively on raw but scared a little!


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## PackMomma

JLeighL said:


> Ok so doing my research on raw feeding. I see where some people think its great and other do not. Some say that raw bones can splinter and cause damage to the dogs internal organs, whereas other people say that only cooked bones do this! Info please?!? I think my dog would be healthier and more lively on raw but scared a little!


My dogs have never had issues with bones, and yes it is cooked bones that tend to splinter more easily. If your dog is a gulper, then yes, you sometimes need to be careful with raw bones. Some people smash the bones up so that they are easier to chew/swallow for some dogs. Most bones are edible except most weight-bearing bones (leg bones) from large ungulates like cows, bison, elk, pork etc, are too big to actually digest but they can break teeth because of their density especially for an aggressive chewer so some tend to avoid them.meaty bones from larger animals like Ribs as well as neckbones, are good for chewing/teeth cleaning, but typically aren't digested either, and should be taken away once the meat has been stripped. Although, once my dogs have stripped a beef rib, I leave it lying around usually for them to chew on as a recreational bone later. My younger dog is an aggressive chewer and he's sometimes able to splinter off small shards of rib bones, but nothing that has ever been able to harm him. Once theyre chewed down to a smaller size I tend to take them away.

Pork ribs seem to be fine, my dogs chew them up and digest them easily, pretty much any bone in any fowl/poultry is fine, although for smaller dogs or gulpers some people choose to smash them up so they are in smaller peices and less of a choking hazard. The concern about raw bones is more of a choking hazard than splintering and causing damage to their digestive system - dogs are designed to digest bone matter, and believe it or not bone is part of the balanced raw diet, a requirement.

The general guideline for a well-balanced raw diet is %75 muscle meat (including heart) %5 fat %10 edible bone %10 organs (%5 liver, %5 other organs - spleen, kidney, brain, pancreas, etc) - this is what I try to follow anyway, and you can balance over time, not in a day. 

Some people can't really handle the extra effort of the Prey Model Raw diet, and opt for a commercial, pre-made raw diet instead. They are convenient and much more expensive, but they are balanced and come in ground form so they are easy to feed and no chewing required - however chewing raw meaty bones has a lot of dental benefits, and keeps the teeth healthy and clean 

You can check out more threads here, and sticky's for more information. There's a thread under the dog food section of getting started, menus, etc I suggest you read through.


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## Sibe

JLeighL said:


> Ok so doing my research on raw feeding. I see where some people think its great and other do not. Some say that raw bones can splinter and cause damage to the dogs internal organs, whereas other people say that only cooked bones do this! Info please?!? I think my dog would be healthier and more lively on raw but scared a little!


You NEVER want to feed cooked bones. This includes bones that have been smoked.

You also want to avoid the large weight-bearing bones like cow femurs and knuckle bones as they are known to damage, crack, and break teeth.

If your dog is a gulper avoid feeding small bits like chicken wings, unless the wing is attached to the breast portion. Wings or necks by themselves can be a choking hazard.

Here is a vid of my huskies eating chicken leg quarters. Chicken bones! They get leg quarters a few times a week usually. They chomp up the bones as they swallow pieces. Dogs cannot chew, their jaws do not move back and forth as ours do they only move up and down. They are able to swallow and digest bigger pieces. Go to about 2:30 in the video and you'll see Kaytu, on the left, do a typical chomp-chomp-chomp-swallow. Dogs don't break their food into little pieces. Usually if they try to (or do) swallow something too big they just barf it up and have another go at it, which is totally fine. Just be careful they don't swallow pieces so big they'll choke. Always supervise. At about 2:40-2:45 in the vid Denali (on the right) swallows almost the entire drumstick without chomping it at all. It digested just fine.


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## Kayota

The first time I gave Roxie liver she ate it fine but now I'm having a hard time getting her to touch it... Any idea why? Should I offer the liver first at every meal til I can get her to eat it? She ate her chicken quarter with gusto so she's not off her food or anything.

EDIT: I found some info on how to get them to eat it--guess I'm not the only one with this issue! I'm going to try freezing it and offering it like that.

Also I meant to say I found a lot of good stuff today! Cow intestine, goat, bison, guinea fowl... I had a pretty exciting day scoping out stores! However one of the stores I went to had a multitude of frozen, unlabeled whole fish... Could I still buy these and find out what they are online/on a fish forum? Or is it too risky?


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## Losech

I did a Raw Meaty Bone Day today with all the dogs. Conker actually ate his food this time, but not the turkey liver. He's never really liked it anyways...

So! This is what the dogs got:








Pork shoulder and butt bones with ample meat on them, an egg, and some turkey liver.









Juneau got right to work on her bone.









Sasha likes to eat hers in the bushes. I didn't get any more good pictures of her.









Conker just eats his on the pavement.









Juneau is very delicate when she eats, stripping small bits of meat off at a time and chewing purposefully on the bone.



















Conker generally made a mess, but cleaned most of it up when he was done. He didn't finish his whole bone, he rarely does, and Sasha got the leftovers (after a growlfest from Conker) but I'm glad that he actually wanted to eat something!









Juneau took twice as long as Sasha to eat her bone.

All the dogs got a good tooth scrubbing from this. Conker's teeth (which normally have no tartar whatsoever on them) were looking gross, and this cleaned them up nicely. Juneau had an extraction a couple months ago and hers were cleaned then, but a couple bits of tarter had begun to build up and this also got those off. Sasha on the other hand, her teeth are still kinda nasty, so she'll probably get another bone soon. She doesn't do much chewing, more like comping and gagging, so she doesn't clean her teeth as well as the other two do.


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## Kayota

Chicken quarter yesterday and today. She takes a while to finish a big piece of anything, this will last 4-5 meals I think. She also had a piece of gizzard this morning I believe. I forget... Mornings are a little hectic. And while I was at work, some frozen pork neck. These seem to keep her quite entertained.










I want to get a bowl so I can take decent pics of her meals even though I don't feed in one. And also so I don't have to do as much cleanup of liver/organ cubes... Liver is so nasty!


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## Losech

I use the bowls for ease of transport (I prepare inside, feed outside) and to keep things like eggs, organs, and ground/scrap meats contained (not my house, can't have a mess). It also helps prevent the dogs from stealing. But they are allowed to carry the larger pieces to wherever they like in the yard and eat it there.


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## Kayota

Yeah, I also want one for ground, egg, and yogurt purposes. Cleaning egg and yogurt from the mat doesn't sound like much fun! I'll have to grab one from work tomorrow, I think.


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## Sibe

Kayota said:


> The first time I gave Roxie liver she ate it fine but now I'm having a hard time getting her to touch it... Any idea why? Should I offer the liver first at every meal til I can get her to eat it? She ate her chicken quarter with gusto so she's not off her food or anything.
> 
> EDIT: I found some info on how to get them to eat it--guess I'm not the only one with this issue! I'm going to try freezing it and offering it like that.
> 
> Also I meant to say I found a lot of good stuff today! Cow intestine, goat, bison, guinea fowl... I had a pretty exciting day scoping out stores! However one of the stores I went to had a multitude of frozen, unlabeled whole fish... Could I still buy these and find out what they are online/on a fish forum? Or is it too risky?


Yup, try it frozen! Denali wouldn't touch organ for a couple weeks once so I started hiding it in ground meat. I prefer to not feed ground but it did the trick to get her eating it again. Also try a different piece. Have trust in your dog, it could be a bad piece of liver. If she is only refusing that one piece then throw it away.
Good finds! Not sure I'd feed intestine, for my understanding it doesn't offer much nutritionally and many dogs won't eat it anyway. As for fish, I would want to know exactly what it was and where it was from. The best fish are oily ones like mackerel, sardines, anchovies, smelt, etc. and if it's wild caught it should be frozen for about a week first. Fish like tilapia is pointless to feed unless you're completely desperate for variety.


----------



## Kayota

Alright. I'll stick to labelled fish then I think. Though these come frozen so I think they'd be safe either way. Rox won't eat -any- liver now, I think she just likes it fresh out of the jar but not frozen then thawed again.


----------



## PackMomma

Cash is such a finicky eater, too. I wonder if its just a Shiba thing? He doesn't seem to be overly picky over certain types of food, he will eat anything really, if he's hungry enough. I've started noticing a slight pattern though, where he'll eat both his meals one day, then the next day he picks at his food the first meal, picks at his food the 2nd meal, sometimes refuses to eat one of them, then the following day he doesn't really eat anything at all, and then next day he's back to eating, and is so hungry that he will try to steal Thumpers food. Then once he's satisfied, goes back to the cycle of decreased appetite again. Its frustrating trying to feed that dog, I'm constantly trying to adjust his portions, tried to do once a day feeding but he only likes that when its on his terms, when he chooses not to eat one of his meals.. then there are the days he happily wolfs down breakfast and dinner and then looks for more. He's always been a finicky eater since the day I got him, and since he's never seemed to have any health issue's or food related allergies or any kind, always maintains a decent body weight, I've just let him eat on his own terms and he's probably just grown used to it, but it is rather irritating constantly thawing and re-freezing food for him now that we are on %100 raw.


----------



## Kayota

Breakfast










Ground venison and a chicken gizzard


----------



## InkedMarie

Kayota, can I interest you in some organs? What nationality? ROFL, I read dfc, too. <G>


----------



## Kayota

LOL oh I prefer Japanese really, maybe some spleens?


----------



## Kayota

Dinner










She ate about half of this chicken quarter, there's also some liver and venison stuck to it on the left and she ate that too.

EDIT: it's a chicken quarter HALF. lol!


----------



## kafkabeetle

So now that I've moved back in with my parents, I've found that the Wal-Mart in town has a lot more organ meats available than where I used to live. I bought beef liver, as well as chicken liver and a container of chicken hearts and gizzards. I still have a couple more places to check but this is a good start and very encouraging. Looks like I probably won't have to depend on whole chickens for organs now, yay! I wish I could find whole raw fish. I've been feeding canned sardines instead, about once a week for the omega 3s. I have some salmon but it's just fillets. 

I think once the kibble and the Darwin's run out I will probably stick with prey model raw and just order the odd bits I can't find locally online. I got a nice mini-fridge with a relatively large, independent freezer, as well as a food scale. I have to wait for food to defrost so I can separate it to finish the job, but I'm weighing everything out into weekly portions to make things as simple as possible. I intend to balance everything as though I were feeding exclusively raw instead of 50%, so that when I do go fully raw I'll already have the hang of things. Anyway, that's about where I'm at right now. How's it going for you folks? 

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I discovered that the easiest and cleanest way to feed for me has been to put the meat in a large shallow Tupperware container. She drags it all over but the mess stays contained. I was pretty worried about her making a mess in my dad's house but it's turned out to be a non-issue, at least with the pork necks and beef ribs she's had in the container so far.


----------



## Sibe

Whole sardines!


















Denali ate the head. Then she swallowed the rest whole. Silly puppy! She's not a gulper but I guess since it was so slimy she figured it didn't need to be chomped.


----------



## kafkabeetle

You know, I got this mini fridge primarily for myself, to make sure my brother and his friends didn't get into some of the more expensive heathfood items I buy, but it is now pretty much overrun with meat for Sydney. The only stuff in there that's for me is some hummus and veggies and a Brita filter. The rest is all kinds of raw meat. hahaha This dog doesn't know what she's got.


----------



## Willowy

Haha, yeah, I can't fit any people food into my freezer anymore. It's all meat. . .I totally need to get a chest freezer. Hmm, well, technically, I _could_ eat a fair percentage of that meat (not the bone-in grinds, and I wouldn't eat hearts, liver, or gizzards), but I don't like cooking meat so probably not.


----------



## wolfsnaps

Hello everyone. I do not post here often. I saw this thread and just had to. LOL


This is my lab with a deer rib cage









My mastiff with a deer head









Dachshund/poodle mix with a rabbit leg








Here he is with a goat head









Here was a meal of his of beef tongue, turkey neck, and liver. He got a bit more liver this day because we had skipped it for a while









A mastiff meal: chicken leg quarter,trachea, beef ribs, and liver drizzled with fish oil









Here he is eating the beef trachea









My little guy's dinner here was almost half a cornish game hen with a beef tripe garnish:









Those are just a sample of the bazillion pics I have LOL


----------



## PackMomma

I fed my boys ground whole Alpaca this morning for the first time, of course Thumper loves anything but even my finicky eater Shiba wolfed it down this morning which is quite unusual as he usually skips breakfast completely, or nibbles some and leaves the rest, but the Alpaca was gone in seconds. A good buy I guess, never seen Alpaca before. I have an order of ground Llama coming in too. Wonder if Cash will eat it with gusto as well like the Alpaca.

So i'm currently prepping this week for a 5 day camping trip, its always fun trying to plan what you're going to feed the dogs when you have very limited freezer/fridge space in the RV!  I need like a portable chest freezer....


----------



## PackMomma

Cash eating a peice of sheep back/rib combo and Thumper eating a duck


----------



## kafkabeetle

Sydney's always had a pretty nice coat so long as she's getting enough fat in her diet. But in the past few weeks that she's been eating primarily raw it's become like...impossibly shiny.










I guess I'm a believer now. ;p


----------



## Kayota

Yeah Roxie is shinier too


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## kafkabeetle

Kayota said:


> Yeah Roxie is shinier too


I don't think I've ever seen a picture of her where her ears were visible. She's got such silly little mutt ears! So cute!  And her coat does look pretty.


----------



## Kayota

Oh thank you ^^ I love her ears! They're bat/rabbit/deer ears depending on position and situation lol!


----------



## Wirehaired Pointing Griff

I must say, that this thread is inspiring. I currently feed my own raw blend and various carcass bones, etc, but I haven't tried a whoe, feathered game bird (love it), or whole heads. Simply awesome.


----------



## wolfsnaps

Wirehaired pointing Griff....I am assuming thats what kind of dog you have? LOL

If you feed whole heads, be sure to observe how your dog (s) do. Many can not get through a whole head (especially something large like a deer/pig/cow).

If your dog can't do it, I suggest taking an ax to it. The brains are worth the trouble.


----------



## Losech

Turkey necks, ground lamb liver and pork fat, eggs.


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## kafkabeetle

Yummy beef rib


----------



## Sibe

Does Sydney keep it in the container the whole time? Mine are so paws-on when it comes to ribs. Ribs day is always bath day haha.

My cats have been transitioning to raw since January. They're finally able to conquer big pieces of meat. I can put a whole chicken drumstick down and they eat it all. I still cut slices into bigger pieces to help them get their mouths around it. This is some pork shoulder roast.









Tarp! They were just finishing up turkey necks, about to start on their fish. The organ in front of Kaytu is beef kidney.


----------



## kafkabeetle

Sibe said:


> Does Sydney keep it in the container the whole time? Mine are so paws-on when it comes to ribs. Ribs day is always bath day haha.


Yeah, for the most part. She did *try* to take it out once yesterday but I stopped her before she dropped it on the ground. Pretty much the larger the container I feed it in, the less likely she is to try to run off with it, because she can just slide it around and readjust it inside the container. Sometimes she just slides the container all over the place, lol. I don't care so long as she isn't getting meat on my carpet. She hardly ever uses her paws and she always eats standing, so it works out.

Edit: LOL, I gave her the mostly stripped bone today and found that she does want to lay down for that. I turned around for a second and she was laid down with it on the carpet. I cleaned the carpet with with vinegar, then let her have it again on a towel.


----------



## Losech

These were snacks, not actual meals. It was "bath" day, so I gave the dogs some frozen bones to munch while they dried off. Turkey neck and beef trim for Conker, turkey neck for Sasha, and a beef rib for Juneau.









I love taking pictures of Juneau munch her bones.









Sasha always eats in the bushes, so I never get good shots of her.









Conker giving me a primal wolf glare as I snuck closer to snap some shots. He is a reformed food aggressive fiend; He would seek out other dogs to attack them when he was younger, even dogs in other rooms or the back yard (I liken his behavior to that of a heat seeking missile) but now will allow them to get about three feet away before he gives a warning. He was only rarely food aggressive with me, but those instances were always my fault.
I guess today he did not want a paparazzi in his face.









Juneau uses her feet to work her beef rib.


----------



## MagicRe

i love looking at these pictures.....


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## PackMomma

Dinner lastnight, striploin steak (we were butchering a whole slab for ourselves and the dogs got the end tips), chicken neck, bison tripe and ground sheep organs.








Prepped some meals for the dogs lastnight as well, from left to right there is ground alpaca/llama mix, bison tripe, ground sheep organs, chicken/turkey hearts and livers, beef heart, duck, chicken necks and pork riblets


----------



## Sibe

Girls eating turkey drumsticks. Loooove that satisfying crunch! Denali at the end tries to swallow a pieces that is too big and then forces it up to chew it more. I swear every time I take a vid they do something they rarely do or have never done before!





Cats eating raw. I did it at 8x speed to show as much as possible in a short time, and I think it's really funny sped up! They eat slow. They typically get much more meaty meat and not as much bone as the vid would suggest. The chicken wings in the beginning were to get them used to the idea of bone. Haven't done wings since.
**WARNING** on this one as Everest (black cat) eats a mouse. I know whole prey is more than some people want to see. ETA: The brown tabby is named Zebulon.


----------



## Losech

Today I gave all the dogs some raw food. The Girl's are 7 years old this month, don't know the exact date, but I picked August 15th as a general "Happy Birthday!" day so I gave them some yumms.









They all got... Chicken quarters with beef heart, lamb liver, beef thymus, and green tripe. 









I got a halfway decent picture of Sasha eating. Usually she goes off into the bushes.









Normally Juneau takes twice as long as Sasha to eat. Today she crunched her quarter up just as fast as her sister.

Conker was a dork and ate everything but the chicken.


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## Sibe

I got a bunch of moose and elk at the end of May. I didn't have the freezer space (or tupperware) to package it all up so I'm still doing it bit by bit every couple weeks. The cats have been getting the ground stuff and I let the dogs have the roasts.
I add bits of pork belly (bacon!) for fat.

Elk (I titled the pics wrong so the url is wrong, if anyone notices. This is elk, not moose)









Pork belly









Elk + pork belly!









Moose









12 meals. Was about 7.5 lbs of moose/elk and a few lbs of belly.


----------



## Sibe

With the recent thread about teeth cleaning products, I want to see pics of rawfed teeth! Before/After pics too! Please say how old the dog is and how long on raw 

2 and 1/2 years old, on raw since 9 months old
Denali









Kaytu, same age, on raw since 1 and 1/2 yrs old.


----------



## PackMomma

Wow sibe that looks like an awfully tasty meal! Bacon and game meat... mmm.. my pups are jealous. They eat elk and pork on a regular basis but not pork belly bacon fat yum!

I'm not sure I could handle prepping meals in tupperware containers.. I know its probably more environmentally friendly, but I wouldn't have the space to do it that way. I use freezer bags, but I do reuse them at least once, and then I clean them out and recycle them... the community I live in.. its pretty much illegal to not recycle, they won't pick up our garbage if they find recycleables in the trash, so I've learned to become as environmentally friendly as possible when it comes to reuse and recycle! lol.

I wish I had before and after pics of the teeth... For Thumper, there isn't a whole lot of difference in his teeth since I started raw feeding him at 7 1/2 weeks old, but I did notice a small difference with him when he was taken completely off kibble and started feeding more PMR. 

Cash on the other hand, I have noticed HUGE difference with his teeth.. being that he's almost 7 years old, and up until the last 6 months or so, he ate partial kibble and raw diet and never chewed any raw meaty bones - needless to say, despite the fact he ate mostly raw diet.. it was premade, he wasn't a big chewer, so his teeth never really got clean. But let me tell you, since joining dogforums and learning more about PMR, and finally making the decision to put my dogs on %100 raw and introduce PMR and RMBs.. those teeth have become pretty clean! Unfortunately, Cash hates having his mouth touched or pried open, so it was difficult to try and get before and after pics, but ya'll just have to take my word for it. His teeth were pretty gross, brushing just wasn't an option because again, he hates having his mouth touched. The build up on his teeth has long since gone, and although they aren't as pearly white as Thumpers, they're getting there! 

I honestly cannot say how much positive effects of raw feeding with PMR/RMB in the diet i've noticed over the last couple months, I thought they did pretty darn well when they were eating all premade raw and kibble but the complete raw diet has been more effective by leaps and bounds.. I'm very happy I finally "took the plunge". 

All smiles here! lol


----------



## Sibe

Apparently belly fat tends to be expensive, it's a bit of a push for my dog food budget at $1.60/lb here (recently was $2.05, ouch) but I guess most places it's closer to $5-6/lb. I try to stay under $1/lb and not more than $1.30 or so. I go through about 2 to 2.25lbs a day total feeding two dogs and 2 cats.

I use tupperware for most things. Chicken quarters or other oddly shaped things go in ziplocks. The tupperware do take a lot more room but I couldn't justify the money or waste of using all ziplocks regularly.

Does anyone else label things or is that just me? I stack them up in the fridge by type and the tupperware on the bottom gets a label stuck on it so I know what it is. I don't _always _label as things like turkey necks or the chicken in ziplocks I can tell what they are.

Glad your pups are doing so great on raw! Love those smiles


----------



## Kayota

I don't and now I'm stuck peering at stuff going wtf IS this? LOL


----------



## PackMomma

I used to label the weight, so I knew which one was for which dog, but recently, to save space and try to eliminate my use of ziploc bags I put all their food into one bag and just split it out once it thaws. so each food bag is roughly 10 ounces. 

I don't find the need to label whats in the bags, I have a pretty good mental note as to what is in the freezer, and I can usually tell by looking at the bag whats in it.


----------



## Losech

Chicken legs (thigh for Conker), ground beef meat and thymus, lamb liver, green tripe, and eggs.


----------



## Sarayu14

PackMomma said:


> I've got one more,
> 
> This was just a little breakfast concoction I put together for them one morning before a long day of hiking, some turkey neck, whole sardine, egg and some ground whole elk
> 
> View attachment 34337


Did you get them at Save On on Baseline or Wye? I want to try to feed them to my girls again, I know that the Golden will eat it. Where did you get the elk from?


----------



## PackMomma

Sarayu14 said:


> Did you get them at Save On on Baseline or Wye? I want to try to feed them to my girls again, I know that the Golden will eat it. Where did you get the elk from?


I get the sardines and turkey necks at the Save On on Baseline yes. Although, they didn't have turkey necks in yesterday when I went grocery shopping.. sometimes they have them and sometimes they don't but I find them there more often then not, and the Save On by my house (Summerwood) doesn't carry them what so ever. I find the Baseline location just as more variety with meats. Beef ribs are fairly decent priced there too and I buy those occasionally from there.

The elk is a Carnivora product, its a commercial premade raw, which I normally buy from a breeder but Bone & Biscuit (just off Broadmoor by Good Buddy) carries it as well, Tailblazers just over by the Mazda dealership was carrying it, but I think they might be dropping them, both locations carry Spring Meadows now though, and they have elk, and deer as well I believe.


----------



## Sibe

Where are those teeth pics I want to see?

I *might* be a raw feeder.









Freezer was plenty full enough. The goal was to get chicken leg quarters for the dogs and some drumsticks for the cat that won't eat mice. I ended up with 34 lbs of meat. Other than the leg quarters, pork spare ribs were the cheapest I've ever seen at $1.68/lb so while still out of my usual price range I grabbed a small slab. Also got more pork belly to add to the moose/elk meals. Got 3 packages of chicken hearts and gizzards for the cats, and also a huge pack of thigh filets for them along with the drumsticks. Mmm dark meat! That meant when I got home that I went ahead and did another big defrost, thawing out more leftover/extra/haven't-dealt-with it-yet elk, moose, liver, and kidney to package up meals.


----------



## Minka

Sibe said:


> Cats eating raw. I did it at 8x speed to show as much as possible in a short time, and I think it's really funny sped up! They eat slow. They typically get much more meaty meat and not as much bone as the vid would suggest. The chicken wings in the beginning were to get them used to the idea of bone. Haven't done wings since.
> **WARNING** on this one as Everest (black cat) eats a mouse. I know whole prey is more than some people want to see. ETA: The brown tabby is named Zebulon.


Watching them eat like typewriters and lick their faces was SOOOOO adorable xDD


----------



## Sibe

The licking cracks me up every time!


----------



## Sibe

More kitty pics! I took some today to get a couple good ones to submit to http://tinkerwolf.com as they have a 1000 Raw Fed Cats section now too. 

There is chicken thigh filet, chicken gizzards, and ground moose with organ mixed in.

Everest


















Zeb


















Together


----------



## PackMomma

Well I don't have a pic but I just scored about 15-20lbs of FREE moose meat! My buddy had to clean out his freezer from last year's kills, to make room for this year's kill. 

He will also be saving me all scraps, organs, bones, etc from whatever he gets this season! Pretty excited.


----------



## Sarayu14

PackMomma said:


> Well I don't have a pic but I just scored about 15-20lbs of FREE moose meat! My buddy had to clean out his freezer from last year's kills, to make room for this year's kill.
> 
> He will also be saving me all scraps, organs, bones, etc from whatever he gets this season! Pretty excited.


You are too lucky.


----------



## PackMomma

Question? I was at my local grocery store the other day and I noticed they had a huge bin of 'mature stewing chickens'. I've never seen them before. They were in packs of two for anywhere between $3-$6 for TWO chickens. They look to be about the size of cornish hens.. but they say mature. I bought a pack for $4, instinctively because it's such an awesome deal. But i'm not sure if they're okay to feed? I would assume so.. but what do ya'll think?


----------



## CptJack

PackMomma said:


> Question? I was at my local grocery store the other day and I noticed they had a huge bin of 'mature stewing chickens'. I've never seen them before. They were in packs of two for anywhere between $3-$6 for TWO chickens. They look to be about the size of cornish hens.. but they say mature. I bought a pack for $4, instinctively because it's such an awesome deal. But i'm not sure if they're okay to feed? I would assume so.. but what do ya'll think?


They're fine - all it really means is they're not butchered at the roughly 12 weeks most chickens in the grocery store are, and would take a longer/slower cooking process to become tender, and have a stronger flavor. Since you're not cooking there's literally no difference.


----------



## Sibe

PackMomma said:


> Question? I was at my local grocery store the other day and I noticed they had a huge bin of 'mature stewing chickens'. I've never seen them before. They were in packs of two for anywhere between $3-$6 for TWO chickens. They look to be about the size of cornish hens.. but they say mature. I bought a pack for $4, instinctively because it's such an awesome deal. But i'm not sure if they're okay to feed? I would assume so.. but what do ya'll think?


 Chicken is chicken! That's a great deal. As long as they aren't seasoned or enhanced or smoked or anything, go for it!


----------



## Canyx

Oh my god Sibe can I move into your house and get a share of that meat (for ME?!)??


----------



## Kiera

always interesting to see these photos, don't think I will ever feed my dogs pure raw. I can't afford to buy that much meat, 1 chicken is a 3 days meal here. Though I do give them raw as treats during hunting season, deer legs and bits and so forth. Till then they can be happy with Nutri Source Kibble.


----------



## PackMomma

Sibe said:


> Chicken is chicken! That's a great deal. As long as they aren't seasoned or enhanced or smoked or anything, go for it!


Awesome! I really don't know what the sodium content is. Unfortunately most of the chicken I've found at grocery stores does not have a sodium content indicator, but from what I hear most chicken here in Canada is under the 100mg/4 oz serving. But I don't feed a lot of chicken/turkey from grocery stores, maybe once a week. Pork comes from grocery store usually too if its cheap.

So I went back yesterday to see if I could grab a couple more of these and they were ALL GONE. Fak. Probably a good thing. I really don't have the room after stocking up on moose meat. I'm gonna have to go buy another freezer just to make room for all the stuff Ill be collecting from hunters this season. Also, I just learned my Dad managed to collect a bunch of stuff from hunters in his area that were getting rid of stuff and he has it all sitting in his freezer and I can take it as I need. I'm pretty happy about this. Last year during hunting season I wasn't a PMR feeder so this is a whole new ball game for me. I didnt' realize I had so many connections as far as wild game was concerned. How much is TOO much?? lol. My dogs might be eating a lot of deer, moose, elk.. and duck.. I still have several ducks sitting in the freezer.


----------



## MagicRe

PackMomma said:


> Awesome! I really don't know what the sodium content is. Unfortunately most of the chicken I've found at grocery stores does not have a sodium content indicator, but from what I hear most chicken here in Canada is under the 100mg/4 oz serving. But I don't feed a lot of chicken/turkey from grocery stores, maybe once a week. Pork comes from grocery store usually too if its cheap.
> 
> So I went back yesterday to see if I could grab a couple more of these and they were ALL GONE. Fak. Probably a good thing. I really don't have the room after stocking up on moose meat. I'm gonna have to go buy another freezer just to make room for all the stuff Ill be collecting from hunters this season. Also, I just learned my Dad managed to collect a bunch of stuff from hunters in his area that were getting rid of stuff and he has it all sitting in his freezer and I can take it as I need. I'm pretty happy about this. Last year during hunting season I wasn't a PMR feeder so this is a whole new ball game for me. I didnt' realize I had so many connections as far as wild game was concerned. How much is TOO much?? lol. My dogs might be eating a lot of deer, moose, elk.. and duck.. I still have several ducks sitting in the freezer.


i'm sorry, but i fail to understand why another freezer is a bad thing...LOL


----------



## PackMomma

MagicRe said:


> i'm sorry, but i fail to understand why another freezer is a bad thing...LOL


I know right?? LOL. Its not a bad thing at all. I have the space for several freezers if needed, and to purchase another used for $100 and fill it full of free meat is an ivestment IMO! 

I sorta had a feeling this would happen. Here I thought a small chest freezer would be more than sufficient. Nope.


----------



## Sibe

There is no "too much" when it comes to wild game. I'd rather be able to limit myself to 2-3 wild game sources and feed through the whole animal than do frankenprey from the grocery store.


----------



## PackMomma

Sibe said:


> There is no "too much" when it comes to wild game. I'd rather be able to limit myself to 2-3 wild game sources and feed through the whole animal than do frankenprey from the grocery store.


Good to know then - I didn't think there would be a problem with feeding a lot of wild game, since it is probably as natural as you can get I suppose. I do feed elk regularily, but that is likely all farmed elk. They liked the deer I had a while back but I have since ran out and the other day was the first time they've ever eaten moose and they really loved it, sure is smelly though. I forgot how bad that stuff smells, growing up on moose/deer meat. yuck. LOL


----------



## Sibe

Eating turkey drumstick and beef kidney today


----------



## dogmom613

So, I've never heard of feeding raw for dogs before I started reading this forum. It sounds great, if you can afford it. I do have a couple questions, though. Is it beneficial at all to feed raw meats only occasionally? Such as when someone I know goes hunting and has some extras? Also, I've always heard how bad chicken bones are for pets, but some of you are giving your dogs whole chickens to eat. Aren't the bones a big choking hazard?


----------



## Sibe

dogmom613 said:


> So, I've never heard of feeding raw for dogs before I started reading this forum. It sounds great, if you can afford it. I do have a couple questions, though. Is it beneficial at all to feed raw meats only occasionally? Such as when someone I know goes hunting and has some extras? Also, I've always heard how bad chicken bones are for pets, but some of you are giving your dogs whole chickens to eat. Aren't the bones a big choking hazard?


 Chicken bones being bad is a hugely common myth. But it is a myth obviously. *Cooked* bones are the problem, which includes smoked bones. When cooked the bones become brittle and splinter into sharp shards. Raw bones are soft, flexible, and easily digested. You should still always supervise by keeping an eye or at the very least an ear on your dog, and definitely watch closely when the dog is new to raw.

As for cost, I feed both my dogs and both my cats for $60/month. Combined weight of my pets is 100 lbs. You'd be hard pressed to find a decent kibble that could feed a 100 lb dog for $60/month. Price really varies by location though.

There is definitely benefit to feeding whatever raw you can get. Wild game like deer should be frozen for at least a week or 2 in order to kill parasites, then it's fine to feed. I wouldn't give the leg bones as they are too hard and will damage, crack, or break your dog's teeth. I let my dogs strip the meat off legs and dense bones but I don't let them eat the bone.


----------



## PackMomma

Sibe said:


> Chicken bones being bad is a hugely common myth. But it is a myth obviously. *Cooked* bones are the problem, which includes smoked bones. When cooked the bones become brittle and splinter into sharp shards. Raw bones are soft, flexible, and easily digested. You should still always supervise by keeping an eye or at the very least an ear on your dog, and definitely watch closely when the dog is new to raw.
> 
> As for cost, I feed both my dogs and both my cats for $60/month. Combined weight of my pets is 100 lbs. You'd be hard pressed to find a decent kibble that could feed a 100 lb dog for $60/month. Price really varies by location though.
> 
> There is definitely benefit to feeding whatever raw you can get. Wild game like deer should be frozen for at least a week or 2 in order to kill parasites, then it's fine to feed. I wouldn't give the leg bones as they are too hard and will damage, crack, or break your dog's teeth. I let my dogs strip the meat off legs and dense bones but I don't let them eat the bone.


x2! lol. My dogs eat and digest all sorts of bones (except weight-bearing bones). Never a problem. The one thing Sibe didn't mention is that dogs being able to crunch up bones keeps the teeth exceptionally clean, but aside from that, bones provide very crucial nutrients to dogs in the form of calcium, etc. 

I can't comment on the cost too much, I live in Alberta and the cost of anything here is pretty well through the roof, but the economy is entirely different so its hard to compare. Its also difficult for me to keep track of what I spend in a month, because I'll stock up the freezer with meat one month, then get half way through it and stock it up again, but the leftover half from the previous month will last me several months to come. I STILL have food that I bought in May. I also just got a ton of free game meat, so there's some savings. I can easily spend $200/month on raw food, just stocking up on good deals or whatever becomes available that I might not get again for a while, but that $200 worth of food can definitely last several months. I'm an opportunistic raw feeder lol. I buy it even when I dont need it, but variety is key and if I can score something now even when I'm chalked full for months, I'll do it. But generally, the cost is no different and for some better than feeding high quality kibble.

Like sibe said, there is certainly benefit to feeding raw occasionally rather than not at all. Lots of people who feed dogs kibble might offer a raw meal per week, or give raw meaty bones for the dental benefits and for a yummy treat!


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## Sibe

I actually started a spreadsheet to keep track of how much I was spending on raw. I buy more of a certain item when I run out or when it goes on sale. The freezer is never empty and I usually have enough to last me 3-4 weeks. So each month varies.. for example in June I spent $58.23 for 51.49 lbs of meat. In August I spent $70.73 for 62.70 lbs, and in September $53.78 for 52.85 lbs. The overall total since the end of April until now is $357.65 for 367.04 lbs.


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## Sarayu14

This was tonight's dinner.





I know that they are not the greatest pictures in the world but the girls were hungry. I was surprised that Shay (Lab mix) actually ate the sardines, she doesn't usually like fish.

I don't think that I will get a picture of their breakfasts, because my mother feeds them in the mornings. She added veg to the meal this morning (I don't like adding veg at all.)


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## PackMomma

Sarayu14 said:


> This was tonight's dinner.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I know that they are not the greatest pictures in the world but the girls were hungry. I was surprised that Shay (Lab mix) actually ate the sardines, she doesn't usually like fish.
> 
> I don't think that I will get a picture of their breakfasts, because my mother feeds them in the mornings. She added veg to the meal this morning (I don't like adding veg at all.)


Are those sardines from Save-On? Hehe kinda look like it. Those also look like the turkey hearts from Courtlyn. I basically just fed my dogs the exact same meal last night LOL.


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## Daenerys

Legend's eating raw now because of his bladder stone! This picture isn't all that exciting since he's just eating some chopped up chicken breast in a bowl, lol. It's chopped up because he only eats about 1.8 oz of meat per meal and it's easier to weigh that out accurately when you have small pieces. I do have some bony pieces that are way too big for a meal and I don't have a sharp enough knife to cut it up smaller that he will get at least once a week and he will have to chew it all up. I broke up a few chicken leg quarters and a cornish game hen for those meals. Also most of his chicken breast meals have organ meats mixed in. This just happened to literally be the one and only all chicken breast meals in his entire month's stash of food. 

Also, notice the cat to the right. He was really jealous because he didn't get any XD










Are chicken gizzards muscle meat or organ meat?


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## Sibe

Gizzards are muscle.

Quick rundown of common organ/meat mixups. The basic rule is "if it doesn't secrete, feed it as meat":
Gizzard is meat.
Tongue is meat.
Heart is fed as meat.
Lung is fed as meat (but as with heart, introduce it slowly as it's known to cause runny poops).
Penis and uterus are meat. Testes and ovaries are organ.
Stomach is fed as meat.

Organ is the rest: Kidney, liver, spleen, pancreas, brain.


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## Sarayu14

Sibe said:


> Gizzards are muscle.
> 
> Quick rundown of common organ/meat mixups. The basic rule is "if it doesn't secrete, feed it as meat":
> Gizzard is meat.
> Tongue is meat.
> Heart is fed as meat.
> Lung is fed as meat (but as with heart, introduce it slowly as it's known to cause runny poops).
> Penis and uterus are meat. Testes and ovaries are organ.
> Stomach is fed as meat.
> 
> Organ is the rest: Kidney, liver, spleen, pancreas, brain.


This is very helpful. I tried prey model once before but I went back to pre-made, which cost at least twice as much as the meat for the prey model. I did it because I never got the right amounts of organ, meat, and bones right. So, thank you Sibe for this information.


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## PackMomma

WELL, I dont have any new pictures at the moment but I will have some tonight! Dog food order came in yesterday, as well I found some good scores at the grocery store too! Got a pretty good deal on a pork shoulder (which I have NEVER seen in my grocery store) as well as some pork sideribs, around $12 I spent on the big shoulder and the slab of ribs. Not bad. My dog food order consisted of Elk necks, elk kidney, bison kidey, chicken feet, ground goat, pork organs and some boneless beef chunks for a total of $65, for two heavy cardboard boxes full of the goodies  my premade raw order also came in this weekend, and that was $120 for approx 6 weeks worth of food. So my dogfood total came to about $200 this weekend! LOL. Seems like a lot, but that food will last months combined. 

So currently thawing in the fridge for butchering/portioning tonight is a whole duck, couple lbs of misc moose meat (ground and steaks), chicken feet, pork ribs, sardines, elk kidney, beef liver, turkey gizzards & hearts. I'm also concocting my own ground mix using ground goat/moose + ground pork organs + bison tripe and ground llama/moose + ground sheep organs + bison tripe. These ground mixes will help my supply of not so cheap premade ground raw last a bit longer, and comes in handy when I need to feed in a hurry or when are out of town and the dogs need convenient on the go meals!


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## kathylcsw

I have 2 small dogs that are raw fed. Together they eat about 4 lbs per week and it costs me about $10.75 a month to feed them this diet. There is no way I could feed premium dog food for that price. I have one small chest freezer that I bought new and this weekend I bout a used upright that is big! I hope to get a lot of deer scrap this winter and I want room to be able to take it all. 

I keep my pirce per lb so low because I get a good amount of meat free. My brother gives me all the scraps when he gets a deer and cuts it up. That got me about 30 lbs last year. I have a friend who gave me out of date deer meat they had and will hopefully get me lots of scraps this hunting season. A local processor told me that I could go thorugh their scrap bins but so far I haven't had to resort to that!

I also post ads on Craigslist, Freecycle, and local print classifieds looking for out of date or freezer burned meats. This can be a great way to make raw feeding affordable and get some unusual meats at times. Last year I got about 15 lbs of ostrich which the dogs loved plus lots of deer meat.

I live near Virginia Tech and being an agriculutural school they have a meat processing center. I can get beef, pork, and lamb trim for .25 a lb. I get the hearts and kidneys for $1.25 a pound. I also contacted a local grass feeding farmer and he will sell me pork and beef hearts, kidneys, livers for $1 per lb. As you can see I have made it my life's work to source cheap and free meat!

Lola started on partial raw at 4 months old. I would give her a turkey neck on the weekend. After a few weeks I started feeding her all raw on the weekends. When she was 5 months old or so I went to kibble in the a.m., raw in the p.m., and all raw on the weekends. When she was 6.5 months old she went all raw. Buster started on all raw when he came home at 8 weeks.

They are both healthy and happy. They are full of energy with lush soft coats. Their breath has almost no smell and neither does their coats. They eat a good variety - deer, beef, chicken, fish, turkey, duck, tripe, pork, and eggs. I will be introducing lamb in the neext few weeks. I have 3 hearts in the freezer but they are small. I am waiting for Tech to "harvest" some more lamb so I can get about 20 lbs of trim. Then I will start them on it.


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## Sarayu14

Having made the switch to Courtlyn for all of our food has saved us almost $200 a month, and we are getting more food then we were with the other people that we were getting the food from. We were spending almost $300 a month and the food was not all that great, in fact Shay (my lab mix) stopped eating raw for a few months, until we made the switch.

PS PackMomma, Did I miss you at the pick up again this week?


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## PackMomma

Sarayu14 said:


> Having made the switch to Courtlyn for all of our food has saved us almost $200 a month, and we are getting more food then we were with the other people that we were getting the food from. We were spending almost $300 a month and the food was not all that great, in fact Shay (my lab mix) stopped eating raw for a few months, until we made the switch.
> 
> PS PackMomma, Did I miss you at the pick up again this week?


Courtlyn definitely has great prices! I just have to be careful with how much I order each month as I don't have a TON of freezer space lol!

I WAS at the Sherwood Park pickup on Sunday! You didn't miss me if you were there! - I was one of the first ones there, got there just after 12:30 and they were late and didn't arrive until around 1:30 so I had a nice nap in my truck for a bit!

I drive a white Nissan Titan 4 door pickup..  come say hi next time.. Nov 25!


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## PackMomma

Did some butchering lastnight.. the boys got to share a duck carcass after I took the legs, wings and part of the back (tail) off. Unfortunately Thumper doesn't like duck all that much, he nibbled on it a bit but wasn't interested so Cash got a gorge meal lastnight lol.

So theres elk neck cut, beef liver, elk kidneys, duck, moose meat, chicken feet and pork side ribs. I also added chunks of boneless beef to this once it was done thawing.


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## Juramentado

Raw feeders, i need some advice.
my dog loves raw meat. but the thing is.. he doesn't like chewing it! whenever i give him even a small piece of meat. he puts it in his mouth and once he realize he's gotta have to chew it. he spits it out. he only eats raw meat when i chop it down to small pieces. he does go down on bones though! and he was able to eat a pig or cow's bone i gave him as a chew toy(cuz i thought it would be too hard for him to eat). so i know he doesn't have a problem with his teeth or jaw strength.
what could be the problem why he wont chew on his meat?
i read that chewing on meat helps promote superior jaw and neck strength. so i want him to be a normal dog and eat meat without me having to chop it to little pieces.


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## Sibe

Juramentado said:


> Raw feeders, i need some advice.
> my dog loves raw meat. but the thing is.. he doesn't like chewing it! whenever i give him even a small piece of meat. he puts it in his mouth and once he realize he's gotta have to chew it. he spits it out. he only eats raw meat when i chop it down to small pieces. he does go down on bones though! and he was able to eat a pig or cow's bone i gave him as a chew toy(cuz i thought it would be too hard for him to eat). so i know he doesn't have a problem with his teeth or jaw strength.
> what could be the problem why he wont chew on his meat?
> i read that chewing on meat helps promote superior jaw and neck strength. so i want him to be a normal dog and eat meat without me having to chop it to little pieces.


A few things you can try, in order of what I would try first..
-Try feeding it frozen or only semi-thawed so it's more solid. If it has ice crystals on it you can rinse it in cool water for a second so his tongue won't stick to it.
-Have him try at meatier pieces with a little bone, instead of bones with a little meat. Like a pork arm roast.
-Gradually increase the size of the pieces; start with something he doesn't have to chomp that he can swallow whole, and increase from there little by little.
-Hold it for him. When I hold anything, I basically make a first around it and have the dog chomping at the part coming out of the hole between my index finger and thumb on the side of my fist. This helps prevent accidental chomping on your fingers. If you don't trust him to not get your hand then don't hold it.


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## Juramentado

Sibe said:


> A few things you can try, in order of what I would try first..
> -Try feeding it frozen or only semi-thawed so it's more solid. If it has ice crystals on it you can rinse it in cool water for a second so his tongue won't stick to it.
> -Have him try at meatier pieces with a little bone, instead of bones with a little meat. Like a pork arm roast.
> -Gradually increase the size of the pieces; start with something he doesn't have to chomp that he can swallow whole, and increase from there little by little.
> -Hold it for him. When I hold anything, I basically make a first around it and have the dog chomping at the part coming out of the hole between my index finger and thumb on the side of my fist. This helps prevent accidental chomping on your fingers. If you don't trust him to not get your hand then don't hold it.


thanks for the tips. i've seen your videos and your dogs look great while eating raw meat. i want my dog to eat like kaytu and denali too.
hopefully by following your tips. Smokes will be like them too.


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## Sarayu14

Will do


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## Juramentado

*Sibe*, thanks for the tips. the semi-thawed meat worked! i will try to give him bigger pieces after 2 days or so.
strange, because a few days ago i read a tip in the internet that said the opposite. it said that i should try warming up the meat in the oven. i did that but didn't work at all.


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## Sibe

Juramentado said:


> *Sibe*, thanks for the tips. the semi-thawed meat worked! i will try to give him bigger pieces after 2 days or so.
> strange, because a few days ago i read a tip in the internet that said the opposite. it said that i should try warming up the meat in the oven. i did that but didn't work at all.


 Glad it worked! If none of those had worked, instead of using the oven you can try getting a frying pan screaming hot and dropping the meat in to sear it on a few sides. Just a couple seconds on each side. Helps bring out the smell without cooking it too much. Better to try the other options first though. Frozen/semi thawed always works for mine. I mean, if all you'd ever had was tiny pieces of crunchy kibble and you suddenly had a cold, slimy, squishy chunk of chicken in front of you.. that's quite a change! Making it more solid seems to really help for most dogs.


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## Weolanko

Sibe said:


> Glad it worked! If none of those had worked, instead of using the oven you can try getting a frying pan screaming hot and dropping the meat in to sear it on a few sides. Just a couple seconds on each side. Helps bring out the smell without cooking it too much. Better to try the other options first though. Frozen/semi thawed always works for mine. I mean, if all you'd ever had was tiny pieces of crunchy kibble and you suddenly had a cold, slimy, squishy chunk of chicken in front of you.. that's quite a change! Making it more solid seems to really help for most dogs.


Hey Sibe... Thanks for posting the videos. I loved seeing Kaytu and Denali in action. 

How often do you clean the tarp you use to feed?


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## Sibe

I only clean it about once every week or two if I'm honest. Ideally I'd like to clean it a couple times a week. I clean the one for the cats at least once a week. I get a new tarp every 6 months or so.


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## Abbylynn

I need some advice please. 

I want to start feeding Eddee ... 13 lb dog ... a raw meal once a week to start. Any advice on what that meal should be/weigh/amount/bone in or out ... and should the raw meat always be frozen first to kill bacteria?

Thank you ... I started a thread in the food forum ... but thought I should try here also.


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## kathylcsw

I answered you in the other thread but I'll add it here as well. I started with turkey neck for Lola. It was easy to find and not messy. On the days I gave her the turkey neck I only fed a tiny bit of kibble. If you continue feeding kibble though you should be able to feed him just about anything because the kibble should help prevent loose stools. A meal should weight between 2% to 3% of his ideal body weight which is around 4 oz per day. If you feed that much then no kibble that day. 

Although you are starting out with just 1 raw day this is a good web site to give you pointers on raw feeding
http://preymodelraw.com/how-to-get-started/

I started slowly and within 2.5 months I took the plunge to all raw and have never regretted it. If you have any specific questions feel free to PM me!


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## Abbylynn

kathylcsw said:


> I answered you in the other thread but I'll add it here as well. I started with turkey neck for Lola. It was easy to find and not messy. On the days I gave her the turkey neck I only fed a tiny bit of kibble. If you continue feeding kibble though you should be able to feed him just about anything because the kibble should help prevent loose stools. A meal should weight between 2% to 3% of his ideal body weight which is around 4 oz per day. If you feed that much then no kibble that day.
> 
> Although you are starting out with just 1 raw day this is a good web site to give you pointers on raw feeding
> http://preymodelraw.com/how-to-get-started/
> 
> I started slowly and within 2.5 months I took the plunge to all raw and have never regretted it. If you have any specific questions feel free to PM me!


Thank you!


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## PatriciafromCO

pups at 4wks working on lamp necks

















group training


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## Sibe

Abbylynn said:


> I need some advice please.
> 
> I want to start feeding Eddee ... 13 lb dog ... a raw meal once a week to start. Any advice on what that meal should be/weigh/amount/bone in or out ... and should the raw meat always be frozen first to kill bacteria?
> 
> Thank you ... I started a thread in the food forum ... but thought I should try here also.


 I would do a bone-in meal to help keep his stool firm. Chicken is usually the best as it is easy to digest and the bone are very soft and flexible. With the guideline to feed 2% of his ideal adult weight per day, that would be 4.16 oz but if you feed him twice a day and it would be one meal, that's around 2 oz. I would do a chicken drumstick. Drumsticks are about 33% bone and it's a good sized bone great for chomping. Make sure anything you feed is not enhanced. Sodium content should be under 100mg per 4oz serving. If it does make him have loose stool then take the skin off next time, but try it with skin first. Some dogs don't quite know what to do at first so you might need to try ribboning the meat by making deep gashes into it and/or partially cutting the meat off the bone. Also try feeding it semi-frozen so it's not quite so squishy and slimy. Neither of my dogs was a fan of thawed chicken at first (now they'll eat it at any temp).


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## Abbylynn

Sibe said:


> I would do a bone-in meal to help keep his stool firm. Chicken is usually the best as it is easy to digest and the bone are very soft and flexible. With the guideline to feed 2% of his ideal adult weight per day, that would be 4.16 oz but if you feed him twice a day and it would be one meal, that's around 2 oz. I would do a chicken drumstick. Drumsticks are about 33% bone and it's a good sized bone great for chomping. Make sure anything you feed is not enhanced. Sodium content should be under 100mg per 4oz serving. If it does make him have loose stool then take the skin off next time, but try it with skin first. Some dogs don't quite know what to do at first so you might need to try ribboning the meat by making deep gashes into it and/or partially cutting the meat off the bone. Also try feeding it semi-frozen so it's not quite so squishy and slimy. Neither of my dogs was a fan of thawed chicken at first (now they'll eat it at any temp).


Thank you! I can always get chicken cheap ... and I always have drumsticks in the house. How do you mean "enhanced?" .........

Also ... Eddee accidentally swallowed a cooked chicken drumstick bone ... whole! ... he stole from the trash ... lickity split one night! He got through alright thank goodness.


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## Sibe

Yikes! Cooked bones are the bad ones that kill pets.. so glad he's ok!

"Enhanced" means they've added broth or salt to make it taste better for humans but it can give dogs really bad loose poo. That's why you need to check the sodium content. Most chicken I find is about 70-85mg per 4 oz serving. Take a peek at those holiday turkeys that are popping up in those giant bins.. they're all like 250+mg per 4 oz!! Not good for giving to dogs.


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## Abbylynn

Sibe said:


> Yikes! Cooked bones are the bad ones that kill pets.. so glad he's ok!
> 
> "Enhanced" means they've added broth or salt to make it taste better for humans but it can give dogs really bad loose poo. That's why you need to check the sodium content. Most chicken I find is about 70-85mg per 4 oz serving. Take a peek at those holiday turkeys that are popping up in those giant bins.. they're all like 250+mg per 4 oz!! Not good for giving to dogs.


Gottcha! Thanks! I will check all meats.


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## Sibe

Down-Stays on their tarp, (im)patiently waiting for their chicken leg quarters. I make them stay laying down when eating to prevent them from pulling it off the tarp. For bigger or more complicated things like ribs they're fed outside or on a larger tarp so they can stand and use their paws. Or sometimes on the kitchen floor if it needs to be cleaned anyway lol.


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## Sibe

Got a deer leg from yesterday's haul. Figured since it didn't fit in the freezer I'd let it thaw and do some BFFLO (big food fed less often). The leg weighed about 9 lbs and after letting them go at it for a while it now weighs 4-5 lbs. I won't feed them tomorrow, and Tuesday they'll get a snack.

Thawing in the sink. I got it all in the evening, so I unwrapped it more to have it thaw overnight.









This was their first shared meal so I was a little nervous. I expected Denali to do fine, and Kaytu has shown some lip curls and grumbles before but nothing major and we've worked on it a lot. I was expecting her to grumble, but it was actually Denali who was the growly one and Kaytu did great. Once they got it figured out they were fine. 99% was polite sharing, the other 1% was having Denali drop it/leave it and having my hand in the middle as a divider. Neither has ever shown guarding toward me, only toward each other and the cats.


















When Nali would steal it away Kaytu looked *so* sad.









Poor girly haha



























Also a video. Denali totally understands when I say "share" right? LOL. The beginning of the vid is I think the only time they both did snarly faces.


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## Daenerys

I don't know why but I find the sound of dogs eating raw meat and bones very therapeutic and relaxing. My papillon Legend needs help eating the larger pieces of boney meat, I have to hold it for him, and I almost fall asleep while he sits there gnawing on it.


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## Sibe

Daenerys said:


> I don't know why but I find the sound of dogs eating raw meat and bones very therapeutic and relaxing. My papillon Legend needs help eating the larger pieces of boney meat, I have to hold it for him, and I almost fall asleep while he sits there gnawing on it.


 It used to bother me. Bones popping and cracking and breaking. Unsettling. Now I find it to be a satisfying crunch. Watching them eat in general is very relaxing to me.


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## Weolanko

Sibe said:


> It used to bother me. Bones popping and cracking and breaking. Unsettling. Now I find it to be a satisfying crunch. Watching them eat in general is very relaxing to me.



Thanks for posting the deer leg pics and video... I would have expected them to use their feet a lot more... They do have very good "tarp" manners.


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## Sibe

If they hadn't been sharing, they would have used feet more. At least Kaytu would have. Denali is anti-feet-using but she will use them. They both use their feet and legs a lot for meals like ribs and bigger things. For this I wanted them to stay laying down and being more civil. I considered letting them go at it individually and letting them do whatever they wanted but I haven't ever had a good chance to see how well they would share. I knew neither would attack of course but I didn't know how they'd handle it. I think if I hadn't moderated, Denali would have had her fill before letting Kaytu get any.


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## PackMomma

That's just awesome Sibe. I wish my boys would share like that, but my Shiba would never share, as he is a bit of a resource guarder, and Thumper is just down right terrified to be near Cash when there's food around, so he avoids going near him and never attemps to steal or share his food lol. I will have them share rabbit, duck or chicken carcasses but they just take turns back and forth, and sometimes I keep one inside and toss the other out to eat for a bit, then call the other in and let the other out to eat, etc and they always seem to be good about that, and thankfully they aren't aggressive towards eachother but they do prefer their own space when they eat. This winter though I am going to train them to eat on a tarp or a towel in the kitchen for the really cold days, and would like to attempt to have them eat together side by side so I only have to deal with one towel, but we'll have to see how that goes. It will definitely be a good training opportunity.


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## Sibe

The wild turkey I got along with the deer leg and such was put in the sink last night to thaw so I could butcher it tonight. I'm always amazed how long meat stays frozen.. after almost 24 hours sitting in the sink the middles of the breast meat were still frozen, and the skin was still cold. Anyway.

Denali was SUPER interested. But neither dog likes it! They wouldn't eat windpipe or bits of breast meat, and wouldn't even lick the blood off the cutting board when I was done. They weren't big fans of pheasant either, but did eventually eat the pheasant. I was hoping to have them celebrate Thanksgiving with some turkey but it may end up being a day of tough love. If they don't eat what is offered, they don't eat. (Which is fine for healthy dogs).









Beef heart, you think? Wrong! That's a turkey thigh. TURKEY!! I'm completely shocked by how dark the leg meat is.









One breast cut off, tenderloin still on. HUGE turkey boobs. To orient you, the dark bit at the top right of the pic is the neck, and the tail is at the bottom left. The bird is laying on its left side.


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## Daenerys

I've just discovered that Faolan really doesn't like pork. I offered him a pork shoulder and whatever part of the pig is called "a ham" and he only nibbled a bit on the bones and licked it a lot but wouldn't eat the meat. I think I will try some tough love on him because we have a lot of pork we got for free taking up freezer space and we're certainly not going it eat it.


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## Sibe

Ham is back leg. I saw one giant ham at the store and I was really tempted as all I can *ever* find for ham is the smoked/cured/honey/seasoned stuff and never a plain uncooked unaltered ham cut. But my freezer is packed.

I wanted to shared Zebulon. Before pic: 1.5 years old, ~15-16lbs. After pic: 4.5 years old, ~12 lbs, and 11 months on raw. He was as fat as the before pic until doing raw this year. I'm so happy!! Feel free to giggle at the before pic.. we call him our "Pear-shaped cat" haha.


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## honedanny28

lexi's first raw chicken quarter!
been on raw for nearly a week from 4 months old


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## PackMomma

Well folks... got some butcherin to do tonight, I forget what is all on the menu... duck, beef, moose, goat, elk kidney, turkey necks, bison necks, turkey hearts, chicken hearts, chicken liver.. the turkey necks I got are the biggest I've ever seen.. almost twice as big as the turkey necks I normally get at the grocery store, they are at 10 - 12 oz each.. pics tomorrow


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## Juramentado

thanks to all of Sibe's advices i don't need to chop Smokes's food to little pieces anymore lol


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## Rescued

Daenerys said:


> I've just discovered that Faolan really doesn't like pork. I offered him a pork shoulder and whatever part of the pig is called "a ham" and he only nibbled a bit on the bones and licked it a lot but wouldn't eat the meat. I think I will try some tough love on him because we have a lot of pork we got for free taking up freezer space and we're certainly not going it eat it.


Maybe if bubba eats one in front of him, he'll eat it  works with toby and bubba


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## lyvwire

I feed raw and have for several years now....I see so many pics with egg but no shell....wondered why you don't feed the whole egg. The shell is a great source of calcium.


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## PackMomma

lyvwire said:


> I feed raw and have for several years now....I see so many pics with egg but no shell....wondered why you don't feed the whole egg. The shell is a great source of calcium.


I feed the shell only if I feel my dogs need it, they don't need the shell every time I feed eggs since I normally feed with a boney meal, and have to ensure you don't over do it on the calcium, either. If my dogs haven't eaten enough bone in a couple days or i'm out of boney meals, I"ll add an egg and the shell in with a boneless meal to ensure they're getting adequate calcium. However, my dogs really dont like the eggshells so unless they are finely chopped up and mixed in with meat, they just pick out the shells and leave them anyway.


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## lyvwire

Oh gotcha!! That makes sense!!


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## Sibe

Mine eat the shell! Many dogs don't eat the shell, which is fine.

--
Typically turkey drumsticks splinter a little and it's fine, but this was was making me nervous so I took it away. I'm ok with how drumsticks normally break apart but this one seemed extra sharp. Probably still not a big deal as it'll soften in their stomachs and be digested but it was really making me nervous!


----------



## mrgoodkat

Today we had raw satellite receiver with a bit of power plug for breakfast. I hope we get the runs from it. :Cry:











Dinner:
Chicken Wings
Chicken Breast
Beef Rib
Egg

Left: Spitz, Right: Husky









Husky


----------



## beretw

I should have taken a picture of the pile of tripe that Garp yakked up last night.


----------



## Kathyy

Don't give Max any ideas. He never used to get into stuff as that was Sassy's job. Now, well - he gets into stuff. Emptied DH's briefcase Saturday night and enjoyed a granola bar and ripping up a plastic bag but not the electronic gizmo inside.

Here is Max' Christmas dinner. Beef ribs with lamb liver for an appetizer. For dessert he got a couple tiny bits of ham and 2 slices of carrots cooked in butter.


----------



## kelii36

Christmas dinner consisted of two frozen chicken thighs and a side of mackerel.


----------



## Kathyy

Max's Christmas dinner. Three beef ribs.
Before








and after half an hour


----------



## AntMar

Funny thread 

Here our contribution to reduce stocks of meat (dog birthday party)

(Aramis Birthday I)









(Aramis Birthday II)









(Achilles Birthday I)









(Achilles Birthday II)


----------



## nkmccoy2007

just have to say that i love this thread. very informative


----------



## Sibe

Chicken livers (pork on the side). I'm wondering why some are lighter/yellowish than others.









Whole sardines. They weigh about 1/2 lb each usually.


----------



## dexterborg

I love this thread


----------



## PackMomma

Haven't posted any pics for a while.. heres the boys' dinner the other night.

Certifed organic/free range pork heart, bison tongue, chicken neck & certified organic/free range chicken egg..


----------



## mrgoodkat

Today's dinner was:

Mystery Deer (A friend gave me 50 lbs of deer meat for free, frozen in blocks. I just don't know which part of the deer.)
Pork Ribs
Pork Liver
Raw Egg


----------



## nemefeme

So if my dog have never eaten raw foods and is five years old, how would I "introduce" raw food to his diet?


----------



## Kathyy

Max started raw when he was 8 years old and did just fine. See the sticky at the top of the board for a lot of ideas on how to start. Usually we start with plain whole chicken cut to size. The usual starting point is 2% of the dog's ideal body weight, 1 pound for a 50 pound dog.


----------



## Sibe

nemefeme said:


> So if my dog have never eaten raw foods and is five years old, how would I "introduce" raw food to his diet?


 If you want to go fully raw, switch cold turkey. No gradual switch.

Here is an excellent beginner's guide.
beginners guide to prey model raw


----------



## nemefeme

Sibe said:


> If you want to go fully raw, switch cold turkey. No gradual switch.
> 
> Here is an excellent beginner's guide.
> beginners guide to prey model raw


Thanks, I'll take a look.


----------



## Pugtown

My dogs usually eat ground raw but do get some non-ground as well. They are stocked up.


----------



## Sibe

That is a beautiful freezer. I need to get a freezer for just the dog stuff..


----------



## Sibe

30+ lbs of free meat from Craigslist!! Filet mignon anyone? Or perhaps a boneless ribeye or t-bone? Only been frozen since last May. My husband and I may eat some ourselves..


















This was the freezer BEFORE I put anything in it. I successfully reorganized and fit it all in. Well, I had just put a plastic bag with the little filet mignon steaks in the bottom drawer and Zebulon immediately jumped in to investigate.









I ended up clearing off one of the shelves and stacking the boxes there, with 2 plastic baggies full of filet mignon and t-bone steaks in that bottom drawer. It all fits!


----------



## Losech

Through a random and unexpected turn of events, I got myself a $10 calf today. Read more here









Skinned and ready for gutting. He's about as big as a large Mastiff.









Gutted, cut, boxed, and ready for the freezer. I don't know how much poundage there is, but it seems like a lot.
I know what I'm feeding for the next few weeks!


----------



## Sibe

Luckyyyyyyyyy!!! I feel bad for the farmer, it's not easy to lose a calf. I'm glad it can go to good use.


----------



## Losech

Day one of feeding the Baby Beef:









Each of the Girls got a meaty legbone and some organs. Liver, heart, kidney, lung, and, something else. Not sure what it was.
(Yes, these legbones are safe to feed. The Baby Beef was very young, and the bones are very soft. Easily crunched. If this had been an older calf or adult beef, I would not have given them the legbones.)









Sasha munching her legbone.









Juneau enjoying her legbone.

The Girls will be getting Baby Beef until it is all gone, several weeks I imagine. Conker is a dork and won't touch _any_ part of the baby beef _at all_, so he does not get to enjoy the rawgoodness.


----------



## HollowHeaven

So... convinced my mother to let me start adding more raw to the dogs' food. 

And I kinda decided this when I saw bags. of chicken quarters. on sale.
$2 for a big bag of chicken quarters? Yessir 10/10 will purchase. I also bought ribs for them.

They each got a couple last night, with an egg, just to see how they'd like it.

Aleu wasn't sure at first, but she knows she likes eggs. So she ate that first.









But then she tried it and decided it was pretty darn good. 



























(I held it for her because she kept trying to take it to the couch.)

Troubles thinks it's some sort of sick joke. Lol. I cut it up into small pieces but he still wanted none of that foolishness.










Tied giving the cats some. Oldest boy didn't want anything to do with it. Killian growled the entire time he ate it. 

Camera died before I could get any of Diesel .-. But he very much loved it.

SO. SUGGESTIONS.
What is and is not safe to feed them? I mean as far as dates on the meat go. We have a reduced section for meat but, by the time the meat gets thrown in there, it's green... I don't know if I'm comfortable with that. Is it alright?
Also, meat that's been in the freezer for forever and a day, is that safe?


----------



## mrsahunter86

We don't raw feed but do occasionally give bones  here are some from last week!
























Just realized I didn't get one of Terror eating his bone, but all three of them enjoyed the bones immensely


----------



## Losech

HollowHeaven said:


> What is and is not safe to feed them? I mean as far as dates on the meat go. We have a reduced section for meat but, by the time the meat gets thrown in there, it's green... I don't know if I'm comfortable with that. Is it alright?
> Also, meat that's been in the freezer for forever and a day, is that safe?


As long as it's not like, rotting, it's fine. My dogs have eaten stuff that's been in the freezer for over a year without issue. Slightly smelly is fine too. Green though... I'd probably not feed that.
Check out this thread for more info on rawfeeding: http://www.dogforums.com/dog-food-forum/15085-feeding-raw-where-start.html


Day 2 of the Baby Beef:








Leftover legmeat, liver, and lung.


----------



## ChaosIsAWeim

BB stole a raw beef rib today (meant for dinner), so she had a nice snack before her real dinner, lol.


----------



## Willowy

I've noticed beef gets a greenish sheen when it ages a little. . .I still feed it to my pets. If cats will eat it, that's usually a pretty good indication that it's still good . As long as it's not totally rotted, which it shouldn't be if it was refrigerated and not past the expiration date (they aren't allowed to sell it past the date, so it's probably real close). I wish the stores here had a discount meat bin. I just have to lurk and dig around for the short-date stuff. It would be easier if it was all in one place.


----------



## PackMomma

Losech, kudos. I could not butcher a whole calf. I'd have to pay someone to do it for me LOL. I have a hard enough time doing chickens, ducks and rabbits. I'm fine with the outer parts, but when it comes to the guts and insides.. I just can't do it anymore.

Nice score though. Lucky puppies.


----------



## Losech

PackMomma said:


> I'm fine with the outer parts, but when it comes to the guts and insides.. I just can't do it anymore.


Heh, I didn't touch the head, other than chopping it off, wrapping it in a bag, and stashing it in the freezer. Heads are not my thing. I'd like to keep the skull, but that means I'd have to skin and deflesh the head... That's where I have my issues. Meat and guts? No problem! Heads? GET AWAY FROM ME RIGHT NOW!!!


Day 3 of the Baby Beef:








More meaty legbones and a smorgasbord of organs.


----------



## PackMomma

Dont know how feasible it is for you, but my aunts horse of 31 years old just passed away and she threw him in a bush to feed wolves/coyotes and whatever else and to decay for a few years. Once he's cleaned she will be taking his skull and painting it. But, obviously might not be an option for you, but its the best way to get them clean, for free.


----------



## Losech

Baby Beef day 4:








Boneless leg meat.


----------



## Sparkles123

I feed Darwin
They have a great introductory offer...darwinpet.com
Great food!!!!


----------



## Losech

Baby Beef day 5:








Boneless legmeats.

Baby Beef day 6:








More legbones, and a bunch of organs.


----------



## InkedMarie

Sparkles123 said:


> I feed Darwin
> They have a great introductory offer...darwinpet.com
> Great food!!!!


It's Darwinspet.com

I agree, it is great food!


----------



## Sparkles123

Oh thanks for correcting that! 
My dogs LOVE that food, however, it's expensive....
I tried to add some raw chicken yesterday, and boom...diarrhea...darn...


----------



## InkedMarie

Sparkles123 said:


> Oh thanks for correcting that!
> My dogs LOVE that food, however, it's expensive....
> I tried to add some raw chicken yesterday, and boom...diarrhea...darn...


Yes it is. If you can afford to buy 40lbs, you get a 10% discount. I only feed it for one meal.


----------



## Sparkles123

And what do you feed for the other meal? I bought some ground beef to add to the Darwin, my puppy seems very hungry these days...


----------



## InkedMarie

Sparkles123 said:


> And what do you feed for the other meal? I bought some ground beef to add to the Darwin, my puppy seems very hungry these days...


Depends on the dog! LOL! Ginger my brittany has Dr. Tim's Pursuit in the afternoon, with some canned mixed in. Boone has Brothers Complete allergy formula in the afternoon, with some canned. Gemma doesn't eat Brothers, we had a little issue with her not being able to poop so she is off Darwins (bigger pieces of bone in it) and on Bravo for pre made raw. She came to us a month ago with no teeth.


----------



## Sparkles123

Never heard of bravo...will check that out!


----------



## Losech

Baby Beef day 7:








More boneless legmeats!

Baby Beef day 8:








If you guessed meaty legbones and a ton of organs...

Finally done with those pesky legbones! I accidentally make it work that way.


Bonus image:








A random assortment of free meat! (not pictured is a large garbage bag full of similar items) Most is freezerburnt, some is stuff like sausage, either way, as long as it don't stink like death, I'll feed it. The processed stuff as snacks, everything else as meals.


----------



## Losech

Baby Beef day 9:








Liver, lung, and large sections of spine.





































Here's a video. Sorry, no audio.


----------



## Losech

Baby Beef day 10: Nothing, since the Girls ate enough food for two and a half days the day before.

Baby Beef day 11:








Ribs, liver, heart, and lung.


----------



## nico.

1st post. Biggie the pug waiting for dinner. beef trim and rabbit leg.


----------



## Losech

Baby Beef day 12:








Ribs, a shoulder blade, and a large assortment of organs.


----------



## Losech

Baby Beef day 13:








Ribs, shoulder blade, and a bunch of organs.


----------



## Losech

Baby Beef day 14:








Ribs, a bunch of organs.


----------



## Losech

Baby Beef days 15 & 16:








Pelvis and spine, neck (not pictured), and organs.









Sasha working on the (frozen) neck.









Juneau and the pelvis/spine.

And that is it for the Baby Beef! I could have made it last a bit longer but I was getting sick of it, so I just fed the remaining huge chunks as is. There is still a portion of the pelvis and spine sitting in the yard right now (it's cold outside) which the Girls will finish off tomorrow.


----------



## taquitos

All the raw that you guys give look so much more impressive than what I give my dog since they're for larger dogs lol! Sometimes I wish Meeko were 40-60 lbs so I could give whole carcasses and whatnot... but then I remember how expensive that would be


----------



## Sibe

taquitos said:


> All the raw that you guys give look so much more impressive than what I give my dog since they're for larger dogs lol! Sometimes I wish Meeko were 40-60 lbs so I could give whole carcasses and whatnot... but then I remember how expensive that would be


 You can still feed big! Little dogs tackle huge pieces bigger than they are. Some dogs will self-regulate and stop when they've eaten enough, and others you can "trade up" by offering great treats or a small bit of raw while you simultaneously remove the large piece. Or, you can know that a piece is supposed to last, say, 4 days. So let the dog eat as much as it wants each day. If it's done on day 2 then don't feed the next 2 days.
Check out pics here of dogs eating raw http://tinkerwolf.com/1000-raw-fed-dogs/raw-fed-dogs-1-to/




























Even big dogs get big food, more than they will eat in one sitting.


















Feeding big pieces is a great workout physically and mentally for the dog. Also helps clean those teeth!


----------



## HollowHeaven

Sibe said:


> Feeding big pieces is a great workout physically and mentally for the dog. Also helps clean those teeth!


Oh can you feed the whole head?!


----------



## Sibe

Absolutely! I'd try to have the butcher split it in half though because otherwise you may need to bash in the skull with a hammer to expose the brains.. no thanks. Most dogs will eat all parts of a head (any head: pig, sheep, goat, deer, etc) except the teeth.


----------



## Losech

Today the Girls got some fish!









Conker investigates but refused to eat his fish, so I restashed it in the freezer for later.









Sasha is very efficient with raw foods now. She stands on it with her front paws and shreds it with her teeth! She looks like a floppy-eared black and white wolf when she eats.









Juneau didn't really know what to do with the fish at first and just laid around licking it until I told her it was okay to eat. Then she bit off chunks at a time until it was small enough that she could mash the rest as one piece.









I hadn't pulled anything out of the freezer for Conker (I thought he would eat the fish. Silly me...) so he got some turkey misc in frozen form. A neck, gizzard, liver, and heart. 









He was delicate at first, testing the neck to determine if it was safe or not. (He always does this now.)









Yup, it's safe.









Conker ate everything (I usually only give him a half neck but let him have the whole thing) including the gizzard! He almost never eats those, so I was glad he did.


----------



## mrgoodkat

Just reread the thread and just had to post this as a reply to Sibe's picture of Kaytu eating the beef rib. The one captioned "Bath Day"

That 's the way a proper lady eats her ribs without getting herself dirty:










And licking the floor clean









Notice the lack of blood on the paws?


----------



## taquitos

Haha what a dainty lady!

My Meeko gets raw meat juices ALL OVER himself ugh... He doesn't like it when I use wipes on him either, so I have started putting baby bibs and bandanas on him to stop him from getting it all over himself.

Aaaanyway, I'm going to repost some photos from my big raw haul from last week:

Not my dog, but one of my cats sneaking a bite while I was butchering the meat lol!









Aaaaand, Meeko enjoying his chicken foot:


----------



## Sibe

mrgoodkat said:


> Just reread the thread and just had to post this as a reply to Sibe's picture of Kaytu eating the beef rib. The one captioned "Bath Day"
> 
> That 's the way a proper lady eats her ribs without getting herself dirty:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And licking the floor clean
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Notice the lack of blood on the paws?


Hahaha! I'll show this to Kaytu


----------



## Pugtown

duck neck (whole meal for my small dogs)


----------



## InkedMarie

Pugtown said:


> duck neck (whole meal for my small dogs)


I saw these posted on the DFA forum!


----------



## BoxerFanatic

This is my one girl, Destiny, chompin away at a chicken carcass a few months ago! 




















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----------



## Sibe

Kitty buffet! I find this is the easiest way to feed my cats. Lots of variety, a take a bit of each thing and layer it in tupperwares so each container has different things. I always put the fish on top and give it first so the fridge doesn't have fish smell lol.


















Co-op order! Pork brains, chicken thighs and chicken hearts, pork spleen, pork heart, beef sweetbread. Awesome variety of organ that will last me a long time. 130 lbs total. I turned a lot of the pork hearts into treats, since I get beef heart regularly at the store. (I know heart is fed as meat, not organ).


----------



## Sibe

Bump! I just got 24 rabbits for $1/each! Most are 2-3 lbs and a couple are 4+ lbs. They are culled Mini Rex rabbits from a local breeder, these are the ones that weren't "show quality" as well as a couple older rabbits past their prime. They were killed by cervical dislocation which is instant, humane, and clean. I'm glad I can put them to good use and not waste any part of them. Even after raw feeding for a few years, these are a bit tough for me mentally because they are so cute and soft.










Everest enjoying a turkey thigh I had thawing on the counter. He determined it was thawed enough to eat so helped himself! (It was for them anyway)


----------



## kcomstoc

Awes  poor bunnies (I think about my bunny) but I'm glad they aren't going to go to waste and it looks like a great deal


----------



## mrgoodkat

Awesome deal on the bunnies. I always end up eating them myself because they are too pricey to give to the dogs.
Love the pic of Kaytu and Nali checking them out.

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----------



## Sibe

Giant turkey legs


----------



## Sparkles123

Yum, happy dog!!!!!!


----------



## Effisia

I love this thread so much. Our market was having a sale on cornish game hens. Lucky puppy!










For those with cats, how do you get them to eat raw? Maybe I just have the weirdest cats ever, but they won't touch it.


----------



## taquitos

Effisia said:


> For those with cats, how do you get them to eat raw? Maybe I just have the weirdest cats ever, but they won't touch it.


Cats are generally pretty difficult if they've grown up with processed food.

I would suggest getting prepackaged raw/ground up meat (bones and all) and adding it into wet food and slowly increasing the amount (and cut out the kibble completely). Get them on a feeding schedule (I do twice a day) and that helps too. Once they are eating just ground raw, you can start transitioning them onto mashed up meat (as in you beat it with a meat cleaver until the bones are all broken) that has been cut into smaller pieces (and then increase the size over time). Cats are also usually a fan of organ meats I find 

It took my cats around two weeks to get on ground raw, and now one of them eats PMR, and the other is still on part ground. You just gotta be patient and perservere  There's a huuuge difference in a raw fed cat VS processed food fed cat imo. My cats are the healthiest they've ever been


----------



## Sibe

Effisia said:


> For those with cats, how do you get them to eat raw? Maybe I just have the weirdest cats ever, but they won't touch it.


 It took me about 6 months before I completely stopped the kibble. The very first thing I did was to puree chicken hearts and gizzards in the food processor until they were goo, then I added a bit of drained tuna "juice" from canned tuna (in water, NOT in oil). Each "batch" of this I made I would puree it less so there were bigger chunks, and I would add less juice. It took about a month- each batch lasted several days- before they were eating whole hearts and gizzards. Ok, so they can do it. Yay! I then cut up other meats like pork and turkey into tiny, teeny, itty bitty wittle pieces about the size of my pinky fingernail or smaller. If they wouldn't eat anything, I'd go back to puree into goo and add juice until they'd eat it. Once they were getting a decent variety I started only offering raw during the day and letting them eat as much of it as they wanted, and at night I free fed kibble because I had one kitty that was refusing to eat any kind of bone, and the other was refusing organ. For the love of God, avoid having to puree liver and kidney and other organs if you can help it. So gross but at least it only takes like 3 seconds for it to liquify. To start on bone I would offer chicken ribs from whole chickens and dissected wings. For my one that was refusing to eat bone, I went and got him a mouse and he LOVED it, so that started him and now he'll eat other really soft bone too but he still gets his "Monday Mouse" once a week.

I kept doing that, raw during the day and kibble at night, until I was confident that they were both eating a good variety of meats, eating organ, and eating bone.

At that point I was able to do portion control to help my chubby kitty lose weight









And gradually give larger pieces of meat. Scoring the meat helps them at first. I normally don't give pieces this large to them but sometimes I do. One kitty will even use his paws to hold meat down as he shreds it, he's an 8 lb beast!









I continue to offer the a variety every day. I do this by making a buffet. I cut up several kinds of meat and organ to put in a tupperware. This way I can package up enough to last for ~3 weeks all at once. Keep a tupperware in the fridge, going through it for several days. When it's almost gone I'll get the next out of the freezer to thaw.


----------



## Sibe

This is a great guide too for switching cats.
http://www.rawfedcats.org/practicalguide.htm

And yes, my cats are the healthiest they've ever been too. The difference is absolutely incredible. Chubby kitty lost weight and no longer has constant diarrhea, on Science-fiction diet he never had normal poop and on grain free kibble his poop was good but he still pooped a lot. On raw I scoop the box about once a week which is a great bonus. They pee more which is great, cats don't drink much water and dry food dehydrates them which is why SOOO many cats are having kidney failure. Other kitty, before raw, always had bright red gums from the time he was a baby, dry flaky skin, greasy icky fur. Now his gums are healthy and pink, his skin is great, and his fur is a healthy silky oily texture. They both have great teeth at 5 and 1/2 years old.


----------



## Effisia

You guys are awesome, thanks!

I have some chicken necks leftover in the freezer from when we first got Annabel. She's too big for them now, but I'll try pulverizing them for the kitties. We also get organ grinds when we get bulk meat for her because I'm not a fan of blending it up myself. I think the girl cat will take to it alright, she already eats wet food. But the boy cat is super picky and refuses ANYthing but kibble. And fortune cookies. He's a weirdo.

I have noticed a HUGE difference in my pup than the other pups her age in class. Brighter eyes, nicer coat, way better teeth. I think we need to start brushing once every two weeks or so, though. Even with RMBs, she's getting a bit of plaque just on her way way back teeth. It all makes me wonder about the health of my dog growing up and whether or not some of his conditions would have been lessened or non-existent if he hadn't been eating Science Diet.


----------



## taquitos

Effisia said:


> You guys are awesome, thanks!
> 
> I have some chicken necks leftover in the freezer from when we first got Annabel. She's too big for them now, but I'll try pulverizing them for the kitties. We also get organ grinds when we get bulk meat for her because I'm not a fan of blending it up myself. I think the girl cat will take to it alright, she already eats wet food. But the boy cat is super picky and refuses ANYthing but kibble. And fortune cookies. He's a weirdo.
> 
> I have noticed a HUGE difference in my pup than the other pups her age in class. Brighter eyes, nicer coat, way better teeth. I think we need to start brushing once every two weeks or so, though. Even with RMBs, she's getting a bit of plaque just on her way way back teeth. It all makes me wonder about the health of my dog growing up and whether or not some of his conditions would have been lessened or non-existent if he hadn't been eating Science Diet.


Honestly with teeth I find a lot of it has to do with genes. My dog has been on PMR for almost a year now and he still gets plaque/tartar buildup. He's a pom-chi mill rescue so you can just imagine how horrible his teeth can get with that type of genetic background. It's honestly not as bad as the other toy dogs from bad genes, but they're still not that great. I am treating him with LEBA III right now to see if that' help and I have started giving him different sized meals so that he is getting larger chunks of meat on some days, and smaller chunks on other days. It's been helping but he still has some plaque. Not saying your dog is badly bred, just that genetics do play a big role. If Meeko was on kibble I am 100% sure his teeth would look even worse though.

As for the differences, yeah I find it even more noticeable in cats! I have a kitten who is a foster who has been raw fed since 6 weeks, and comparing his fur to my other two cats who were switched at an older age, there's an incredible difference in their fur! I mean, my cats' fur improved drastically with raw, but this guy is like a completely different beast. He's also wayyy heavier than kittens his age, but it's all muscle. My other cats also gained weight on raw. One went from being kind of dumpy to being his ideal weight (but heavier?), and the other one went from looking awkward and skinny to lanky but muscular.

One of my cats also has FLUTD and he had cystitis flareups (crystals and all) quite often until we switched to raw. He hasn't had a single flareup since switching. My other cat used to get a bloody anus because his poops were too soft and he was ingesting too much of his fur (it was becoming like a brillo pad when it came out of him basically), and his stools are perfect now. Both cats have cleaner teeth, are more active, and they shed a lot less. They also hardly ever drink anymore (they used to wait at the faucet for us to turn it on and drink regularly out of their water bowls).


----------



## littlesoprano

All these pictures make me want to start Cosmo on raw (koko is my bf's mother's dog, so I don't know whether she'd be comfortable with it or not). He gets Stella & Chewy's Duck Duck Goose dinner. Which is organic raw, but its so expensive. For the 11 bucks we pay for a 6 oz bag, I could probably get enough food to last him for quite some time. He does still get Purina Pro Plan puppy, which despite its bad name, he does well on. I do notice though with the freeze dried raw (S & C), his coat is growing thicker, he barely even sheds, and his poop looks better. He also gets raw pieces of chicken, ground beef, and other meats while we are cooking, but I think going full raw might be in his near future. We have a large freezer (it looks like a refrigerator, except both top and bottom are freezers), and it is not used, but just sits in the basement plugged in, so we have the storage for it. My bf wants to get back in to hunting, and he said maybe one of us could learn to process deer, which would satisfy both us and Cosmo! 


If any of you are in the West Michigan area, what places do you know of have good deals on meat?


Also, what is the cost like for feeding raw? It seems like it might actually be cheaper going the raw route then kibble, but I'm pretty clueless


----------



## taquitos

littlesoprano said:


> Also, what is the cost like for feeding raw? It seems like it might actually be cheaper going the raw route then kibble, but I'm pretty clueless


Raw is definitely be going to be cheaper than Stella & Chewy's. not sure about kibble though. My dog costs me approximately $20 a month and I just buy his meat from grocery stores (and he's 7.5 lbs). I think I would probably be paying the same amount for high quality kibble like Orijen if he were eating it.


----------



## BubbaMoose

Sibe said:


> Bump! I just got 24 rabbits for $1/each! Most are 2-3 lbs and a couple are 4+ lbs. They are culled Mini Rex rabbits from a local breeder, these are the ones that weren't "show quality" as well as a couple older rabbits past their prime. They were killed by cervical dislocation which is instant, humane, and clean. I'm glad I can put them to good use and not waste any part of them. Even after raw feeding for a few years, these are a bit tough for me mentally because they are so cute and soft.


Sibe I totally agree that it's great that you were able to take advantage of it, and for a great price. Do they eat the fur? How does that work?

It would be hard for me to feed them too. 

Just curious how you heard about the bunnies?



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----------



## Sibe

BubbaMoose said:


> Sibe I totally agree that it's great that you were able to take advantage of it, and for a great price. Do they eat the fur? How does that work?
> 
> It would be hard for me to feed them too.
> 
> Just curious how you heard about the bunnies?


 Kaytu won't touch them. Not even a lick. I got several of them ground (I have an awesome supplier who ground them for me) to see if that would work but she still won't eat them. If I sprinkle Parmesan cheese on the ground rabbit she'll lick a little but doesn't eat much. The cats love the ground rabbit though.

Denali eats the entire thing. Fur included. As for how that works, I'm about to give a semi-graphic description so anyone who doesn't want to hear should stop reading. Ok. She usually starts at the head. She mouths it a bit gently then harder and harder. She has a soft bite and only bites as hard as she needs to in order to crush the bone. I can't watch her eat the head because most of the time, because of the pressure, the eyes pop out and it really creeps me out (graphic right?!) but I always listen to make sure she's eating ok. After the head she keeps working her way down. Front legs and shoulders, ribs and belly, butt and back legs. Sometimes she will not eat the intestines so I just collect it back in the ziplock and throw it away. Sometimes she starts just above the tail and eats the back first, then the butt/legs/and on up. Usually she will self regulate and eats about half the rabbit. I simply bag up the other half and put it in the fridge, then give it to her the next day. If she eats the whole thing I won't feed her the next day.

I heard about them by posting an ad on Craigslist. I have an ad I post for unwanted raw meat.


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## Foresthund

I`m not really a raw feeder for a few reasons,partly because it's not cheaper for me being I lack a butcher anywhere near. Here's him eating a raw meaty bone(I forgot which animal this pic is from though)
He used to eat the whole thing,but started to get lazy.

(Yeah I know his nails are too long in the photo,I've been better about clipping)


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## Little Wise Owl

Our local butcher was very generous today. 7lb of turkey back, entire turkey wings, giant half turkey breast (bone in), beef tongue and assorted beef chunks for a whopping $0.33. The dogs were spared commercial food today and received only the finest unwanted human scraps. lmao

Bon Apetit, Doggies.


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## taquitos

Little Wise Owl said:


> Our local butcher was very generous today. 7lb of turkey back, entire turkey wings, giant half turkey breast (bone in), beef tongue and assorted beef chunks for a whopping $0.33. The dogs were spared commercial food today and received only the finest unwanted human scraps. lmao
> 
> Bon Apetit, Doggies.


Whaaat that's CRAZY. You are sooo lucky!!


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## mrgoodkat

Next week's kill.


















Faith is always supervising the whole process. Might be something falls down and I won't see it


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## Kayota

Sibe-- you have the same floor and general kitchen layout as me... get out of my house! lol


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## Pugtown

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