Can you all stop by and tell to me about dog feeding, but nicely?

[HoneyDragonWearingLederhosen]

I have searched loads and some threads are bunfighty some are not. I have over the years used Skinners, James Welbeloved, Nature Diet and so on.

I am interested in raw feeding, is this suitable for a Puppy? Is it ok/better just to feed dried food as the vets seem keen to recommend?

Which are definitely food brands to avoid? I was told today Beta is full of sugar today for example.

I know this is an area many people are passionate about, and I'd like to get into good habits now

I am genuinely not being lazy, I realised when I had over 13 tabs open on feeding dogs it was better to ask direct

[MrsSpoonFromButtonMoon]

Sorry on my phone and hit post. I find that very little ends up on the floor anyway but some dogs are messier than others. I haven't had a lot if success with raw whole fish but know others that feed them, I tend to give my three tinned sardines or mackeral in oil or tomato sauce.

[Scuttlebutter]

Better, one of the easiest ways of doing it is to get some of the freeflow minced raw stuff (brand is Prize Choice, either from PAH or order direct from them) and just tip into the bowl and watch woofs tuck in. They also do frozen packs of chunks of tripe and beef which can be placed directly into bowl. Sadly, no getting around that tripe smells absolutely vile in every form!

If you want to go upmarket a bit, Basil's link here do a very user friendly version of raw - a sort of giant sausage. We tried them and the food was great, but cost was prohibitive with three large greyhounds. With one smaller dog, would be much more affordable.

With raw chicken wings, yes, you just unwrap and give the whole thing to dog. It is cooked chicken bones that should never be fed, as they are sharp and splintery.

[BetterChoicesChair]

Thanks! Think I can handle that .

[Housewifefromheaven]

I feed nature diet for the nice firm poo!! Although she always has raw meat too whenever we are. I wouldn't feed the bones though as i read somewhere (think it was on here) about a woman who cut herself picking up poo that had a sharp piece of bone in!!!

[HoneyDragonWearingLederhosen]

I have always like Nature diet if I am honest, but I think raw might be more cost effective

This thread is definitely giving me (arf) food for thought. I just don't think I could give a dog chicken wings, the bones scare me.

What about tripe, do you guys feed that raw too?

[HoneyDragonWearingLederhosen]

oh and housewife, do you and your family eat a lot of raw meat then?

[Flatbread]

I feed precooked tripe. It is very expensive here, some kind of regional delicacy. But the dogs love it so much, that we buy it once a week as a treat.

If you don't feed bones to a puppy, it could get calcium deficiency. There is a ratio of calcium and phosphorus 2:1, perhaps?Anyway, it seems that cooked meat has more phosphorus and if you don't have enough calcium, e.g, bones in the diet, it can lead to a deficiency.

Vet told me feed either crushed egg shells as a supplement ( a tsp a day) or tablets.

Went on the net and it seems the calcium thing is under debate. But I am sticking with my vets advice

[Flatbread]

I posted this link on another thread, dogaware.com/articles/wdjhomemade3.html

I found this really helpful

[Rikalaily]

Here's some companies that supply raw dog food, includes minces, meaty bones, chicken carcasses etc, everything there is fine for dogs. The only bones not recommended are the weight bearing bones of large animals like cows. I've heard lambs ribs and green tripe (green tripe is much better for them than the tripe sold as human food) are a fave of most dogs and I know some raw feeders who pick up any fresh roadkill they find too. We are planning to raw feed in the future but will need to buy a chest freezer first. Atm he's on Wainwrites wet food (alot of raw feeders recommend this food as it's as close to a raw diet as you can get without actually feeding raw as it's got a huge meat content and no cereals), he only needs 1 tray a day but he's a puppy so I add a little Wainwrites dry kibble to it too and split it into two meals a day, it's settled his tum which was awful when he first arrived (rescue pup). He gets the odd raw egg and Kongs stuffed with veggies/apple/pears/banana/cheese/peanut butter too.

www.daf-petfood.co.uk/wb/
rawtogo.co.uk/

There are more but these two deliver countrywide and buying it in bulk is alot cheaper than feeding a commercial diet.

If switching to raw you should start off slow, chicken only for a few weeks, then you can add a different meat every few weeks until you have included everything you plan to. Most raw feeders I know feed a muscle meat based meal in the morning and then a boney meal in the evening, you can adjust to what they need by checking thier poo, too dry and crumbly lower the amount of bone, too soft and increase the bone. You can feed fresh fish/tinned sardines etc once a week, a raw egg inc shell a few times a week, natural yogurt and can even add some raw veg to add even more variety although veg isn't really needed.

To start with you could bash chicken wings etc up with a hammer to shatter the bones a bit and hold onto it while the puppy chews until they get better at chewing and eating slowly. Honestly, dogs are fine with bones, thier digestive tract is alot tougher than ours, they are designed to deal with sharp bones and the bacteria in raw meat.

[TheCunnyFunt]

Housewife that was me, it was a very sharp shard of bone and it bloody hurt! I worried about what that could've done to his guts so stopped giving them to him.

[Housewifefromheaven]

cunny your incident will become a Chinese whisper!! Whenever raw feeding comes up, people will say "ooh, bad idea that mate. I knew a woman once who cut her finger off picking poo up with a bone in...then she DIED of blood poisoning! Yeah, she was a friend of your mums next door neighbours!

:o honey

[TheCunnyFunt]

God yeah, it'll end up escalating to cutting my whole hand off or something :o