Raw feeding for the squeamish - can I make this work?

[kitsmummy]

I want to raw feed my dogs. I've read the threads on here and I've been to the butcher where I've just collected my ribs and bones, chicken wings, ox heart and pigs trotters. However, at the butchers it already started to go wrong .

Firstly he produced the heart for me - some humoungous great thing, whole. I all but screamed in the shop. I didn't realize it was ox heart I was getting and thought I'd be getting almost bite sized hearts . God knows what animals I was expecting them to come from - pixies or something I think.

the butcher kindly went to cut it up for me and I went home. At home, I took the pigs trotters out, expecting them to be just the toe bit at the end and quite small, except that each one is about 10 inches long and virtually a whole leg it seems to me!

I'm afraid to say I've already binned them as I know I couldn't face a whole bloody pigs leg, complete with toes, being dragged across my kitchen floor.

I am pathetic, I know, but I genuinely can't cope with these, to me, grotesque elements of feeding. Is there a way that I can do this, but a bit "naicer"?

Unfortunately I definitely cannot afford to buy the pre-made blocks. The two dogs will need about 700g per day between them and I can't afford for this to cost more than £40 per month. Chicken wings and bones etc I can cope with. I can just about cope with chunked up ox heart, although I had to put carrier bags over my hands to put it into smaller bags . Am I a lost cause or is there an easier way of doing this?

thank you!

[thegriffon]

I'm squeamish as well but have been raw feeding my lab for over a year now and wouldn't go back to manufactured food.
I think the pre-made blocks, mince etc defeat the whole object of raw feeding. Dogs need to be able to sink their teeth into big chunks of meat and bone.
I try not to look and put everything into meal sized bags for the freezer (dog has 600g a day) wearing rubber gloves, take food out a few hours before to defrost. He doesn't mind it frozen if I forget.
You're lucky to have a good butcher, we don't have one locally so mostly rely on Tesco/Asda (chicken quarters, pork ribs, lamb/ox liver and kidneys) and PAH frozen beef chunks. I put everything into meal sized bags (dog has 600g a day) wearing rubber gloves, and try not to look.
He usually eats outside. If raining food goes on a large tray in the utility room and he never drags food about, too busy eating it.

[WifeofPie]

I buy pre-packaged/cut stuff from the supermarket (poultry wings, thighs, necks only so far...haven't ventured into the guts dept yet ), go to the back door (with plastic gloves on) throw the meat into the garden and let the dogs go and forage for their dinner. Then the DCs and I watch from the window...it's like a mini-safari!

The ox heart sounds positively horrifying! It must have been HUGE. Ew.

[kitsmummy]

Thank you both. I think perhaps I may have been a bit over-adventurous to start off with! Maybe I could do this slightly more low key like you two do. Does anyone know if it's acceptable to feed a normal kibble diet in the morning (this has to be at around 7am on my working days before i take the dogs to my parents) and then a raw food tea (mainly comprising chicken wings, cubed heart and bone perhaps?) at around 4 or 5pm?

I read somewhere online about the a combined kibble/raw food diet being acceptable if they were at least 8 hours apart?

ps Wife - I like your gloves and garden method, you sound like my kind of person!

[NothingIsAsBadAsItSeems]

Kibble and raw food stuff digest at different rates so can cause problems if fed together. Not sure what the minimum time between feeds would be for it to be ok. Mine get raw stuff as a special treat, that's all they get on that day and they can only have it outside :)