Am I doing this raw feeding properly?

[aliciaflorrick]

Firstly, I live in France so don't have access to the companies that provide the raw food that you can use in the UK so I'm doing this by myself. Puppy is a 7 month old lab/chow cross, already about 25kg - he's huge. I started last week just with beef bits that are marked for animal consumption in the supermarket and a huge sausage of dog food which contains 75% chicken and I split these over the two meals he has a day. Thrown into that were two big bones during the course of the week and lots of veggies, lentils and scraps from the DCs plates, an egg, and a couple of pieces of frozen pumpkin a day because I read this helped with constipation (just in case). Pup seems much calmer, only does one poo a day but loads of energy when outdoors, drinking much less water. So far so good.

Today I've gone out and bought the beef bits again, rabbit, turkey wings and 150 gms of beef heart and some fresh sardines - all of which I will feed to the dog during the course of the week. He'll also have the usual left over veggies, egg and probably some lentils or pulses from our meals.

Is this a varied enough diet for him? Is that enough offal for a week? I'll probably use half as treats when training and can I just chop the other half up and feed it raw? Will the sardines need to be gutted or can I feed as they are?

Already I've been told by a neighbour that it's not natural and I'm cruel and that I will starve my dog - at 25kg I'm feeding about 500 - 600 gm of food a day - he hasn't lost any weight nor gained either.

I've read on the internet but it's really hard to put into practice what you've read without having any feedback.

Also I saw when perusing the meat counters in the supermarket that here in France they sell such delicacies as pigs feet - will these be ok for him? I thought they might be interesting because of texture, taste etc. Don't know if they will have much nutritional content but they weren't being sold as dog food so I expect some old lady somewhere is cooking them up for her tea.

This has proved to be quite long so thanks for taking the time to read.

I'm by no means an expert but didnt want to leave you hanging so to speak- that mix sounds a bit too varied for starting a RAW diet, I started with wings, carcass', (chicken), minced turkey/chicken and then very gradually (like one new meat a week) introduced other bits like tripe, heart, bits of liver (I use this as training treats though otherwise dog swallows it whole!)

I don't add grains/rice/lentils/potato/fruit/veg on a regular basis- dogs don't need them although my dog loves carrot and rice- so if I'm cooking and I've a bit left I'll chuck it in his bowl.

As long as youre feeding 2-3% of expected adult weight he'll be getting enough, I dont measure anything out as once you get used to it you can tell how much to feed I think. I recently was given 2 whole fresh rabbits and didnt bother taking all the bits apart, just hacked them into 3 'chunks' and lobbed them onto the lawn! Lovely.

Oh and everyone has an opinion on raw feeding, I've stopped preaching it's benefits to people who are happy enough to feed thier dogs processed food- tell your neighbour it's the most natural way of feeding there is!!

Hopefully more BARFers will be along soon- Minimuu, Scuttlebutter, and Misdee ring a bell but there's a few of us around!

HTH

Mine are clamouring to visit yours if that's the food on offer! My pack is fed raw meat and wholemeal biscuit, bones, bit of veg, with very little variety.
At 25KG some breeds will need much more food than others, at that weight mine need about 800grams meat for active entire boys to about 400 for a middle aged lazy speyed bitch, so if your dog looks good and is maintaining good body condition on 500 to 600 grams then you are getting it right, congratulations! The lab part of the pup may eventually put on weight when he is finished growing so you may need to reduce quantities if so. Some labs only need to see the food bowl to put on weight, particularly once neutered.

Great I'm glad I've got it all right, though to be fair, I've looked at the rabbit and thought stuff it that's going into a pie so he'll just have to stick with the other bits.

Although he's energetic on his walks he's very lazy in the house and just lounges around so I don't think he uses much energy, he spends most of his time thinking of ways he can break into the kitchen and get into the bin.

I think you are certainly on the right track. When we started feeding raw, one place that had lots of answers was the RMB group pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/RawMeatyBones/ they have a wealth of knowledge and can help with any problems you have feeding raw.