Another raw feeding question.

[Floralnomad]

Hi ,I mix feed at the moment ,raw for breakfast and Barking Heads for tea ,I'm not looking to go all raw for various reasons which I won't bore you with . At the moment my terrier (13kg) has a large frozen chicken wing for breakfast ,I feed it frozen because otherwise it's gone in 30 secs , he has the jaws of a Rottweiler! I would like to swap to drumsticks so the question is can I feed drumsticks and if so can I feed them frozen ? TIA

Yes and yes.

I wouldn't mix kibble with raw. It's best to jump straight in, cold turkey with raw. Kibble digests at a slower rate than raw and you run the risk of raw sitting in their stomach for too long.

Watch out feeding too much bone (drumstick and wing) due to compaction and hard white, rabbit like poo (it's all about the poo )

I work on dog weight and then work out 2.5% of that weight. I then divide each daily intake into 80% meat, 10% bone and 10% offal I also mix in some pulsed veg but that is what works for us.

It's cheaper than dried or tinned/pouches, better for the dog and once you ge the hang of it it's great.

My understanding is that kibble and raw feeding are not compatible. The slow rate of digestion of kibbles means the raw food pass through is slowed and this increases the likelihood of bacterial illness.

I meant cold turkey with kibble. My brain is full of raw!!

We feed our dog kibble in the morning and raw in the evening and always have!! New puppy too. I might be wrong as I haven't researched too thoroughly but if you have a search around on the raw feeding Facebook sites, you will find it's perfectly fine. I will definitely stand corrected though, but my basic understanding is that it's ok. It's either new thinking or urban myth or confusion about kibble/raw within SAME meal.

But, Floral - yes and yes.

If you were to join this FB group, www.facebook.com/groups/rawfeedinguk/, you'd find that they don't advocate mixed feeding (kibble and raw) but I suppose it's all about whether your dog seems to thrive on it or not. But this site is good, lots of info on the pinned post at the top, and generally people who aren't going to flame you if you ask lots of questions. Interesting to see what weird and wonderful things are fed!

I read that a drumstick or wing takes 4/5 hours to digest and kibble about 12/13 hours so the way I feed ( roughly 9am and 4.30 pm) with the raw in the morning it shouldn't be an issue . That said I've been doing it for months ,with wings ,and not had a problem ,the question was purely whether the bigger bone in a drumstick was ok frozen . I'm not happy to go completely raw as I can't feed offal and my boy enjoys having his kibble in his feed ball in the evenings . He is very healthy and maintains a good weight on the current regime . Thanks for the help.