Switching to Raw Feeding

[Mitzi50]

I am thinking of switching to raw feeding. I have a greyhound (44kgs) and a staffie x (13.7 kgs). Both are rescue dogs (both were found in a very poor condition) and both have little interest in food. They are currently on dry kibble and tinned food but often do not eat what is put down. The staffie x is still slightly underweight and is quite hyperactive - rarely just lies and usually paces - despite being walked regularly and attending agility classes.

Raw feeding is significantly more expensive (and messier) so I'd be interested in hearing MNers experiences. Also recommendations of a supplier of complete frozen raw food and any other tips. Thanks!

[MarcoPoloCX]

If you feed just from complete raw meals check if it contains liver. If not then you may have to supplement.

[LadyTurmoil]

Great news. If you've got freezer space it prob works out cheaper to do an order, but if you've got some local butchers and a Morrisons nearby, you should be fine.

[Mitzi50]

I've just fed them some minced chicken and miraculously both of them cleared their bowls for the first time since I've had them! They are now in the garden happily chewing on a couple of beef ribs.

[Mitzi50]

Well I have just got a week's supply of a raw food so I will start feeding tonight and let you know how it goes.

[HotPinkWeaselWearingLederhosen]

I tried Landywoods too, but preferred Albion, which deliver weekly to most areas.

[BingoBonkers]

For a complete raw food try Nutriment, Honey's or NatureDiet or Natural Instinct.

I should think your Staff will certainly calm down. Your grey will certainly gain weight. You may find you feed less than you expect and the poos will be easy to pick up. No more sloppy ones.

Ignore the comment above from itsbetterinabox. Utter nonsense.

[monkeyfacegrace]

Yes I used Landywoods with no problems.

The only reason I swapped to TPMS is they deliver weekly, and if I ran out mid month or missed a delivery with Landywoods I was fucked

They are reliable and cheap, and the meat is fine.

[LadyTurmoil]

Has anyone tried Landywoods?

I've been looking at their website and it seems good value and they deliver to the SE. Just phoned and they deliver monthly to where I am in Surrey... minimum order of £30.

Can anyone recommend them? Thanks

[HotPinkWeaselWearingLederhosen]

No problem, it's a PDF so do you want to pm an email address that your happy for it to be sent to?

The free flow works out about £1.80 per kilo, and I know the meat chunks are cheaper agin.

[MarcoPoloCX]

Hi Hotpink. Wonder if you could send me the price list please. 30 quid a month for a lab is really cheap. Do you get mostly mince from them? I get chunks of filets from my supplier and then add organs and meaty bones, that way I know exactly what's in their meal. The frozen blocks of filets work out roughly 2 quid per kg.

[HotPinkWeaselWearingLederhosen]

(Including delivery it costs me about £30.00 for a month for my Lab)

[HotPinkWeaselWearingLederhosen]

If your in the SE than I can highly recommend Albion Meats, excellent quality and one if the cheapest suppliers of free flow and prepared raw I've found.

I can send you a PDF of a price list if you want or you can call them direct :-)

[Scuttlebutter]

Mitzi, if he's a grey, you should be able to clearly see at least the last three ribs. A greyhound should be lean, with good muscle tone. Once they come off track, they can comfortably gain between 1 - 3 kg (depending on size) from racing weight. If you have his tattoos, you can look up his racing weight on hte greyhound database, that will give you a starting point.

[yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo]

When i first swapped over i really panicked about getting the balance right. I thought it was going to be so time consuming and difficult.

We now get it all ready for us minced. We also give then a chicken/turkey leg or wing a few times a week and add in some organs!

It is really easy. When we first started we fed too much bone, so their poop was quite crumbly. So we just decreased the bone.

[Floralnomad]

He was diagnosed with SLO and although there are opinions both ways most research says that there could be an issue ,particularly with raw chicken ,he didn't eat lamb / pork anyway ( fussy git) so we are erring on the side of caution . He is very settled on Barking Heads ( two small poos a day) and cooked chicken to take his pills in !

[MarcoPoloCX]

Hi Floral.

May I ask why your dog cannot eat raw?

[Mitzi50]

Thanks everyone - you've been really helpful. I particularly like the idea of smaller poos - the greyhound does whoppers which are very sloppy (TMI).

Scuttlebutter I will check his weight (it sounds like I've got it wrong) he is a huge boy but you can see his ribs and I have been told he needs to put on a bit of weight by the vet.

I'm going to give the raw feeding a go but was put off by the nurse at the vets who said you have to get the balance right (which is why I thought of complete raw food). What MarcoPoloCX posted makes sense - I am hoping they will both put on the weight they need and I am hoping that the Staffie x will become calmer (I've read that raw feeding can help behaviour) as she seems so tense all of the time.

[MarcoPoloCX]

Kibbles and wet food are made from meat, organs so why nuke and render it, kill off all the bacteria plus a lot of the nutrients and then add some crap to it to preserve it and for it to smell nice? Would you eat a meal replacement soup everyday or a nice whole meal? Commercial dog food has been around for ~ 150 yrs, you cannot change their diet after millions of years of evolution. They are surviving on commercial food but I wouldn't say they are thriving on it. A raw fed dog has much smaller poo as most of it is absorbed by the body. A lot of people are humanising their dogs. At the end of the day they are animals, a different specie and they have different needs to us ... Feeding something as natural as you can would be best for them.

[monkeyfacegrace]

And the fact that kibble is full of mites that cause a lot of skin irritations which people pass off as other things

[NCISaddict]

And all the recalls for salmonella in kibble? A dogs gut has not been completely changed by breeding, it still has higher levels of acid and a quicker transit so raw food is easily digested. They don't need carbs in the form of maize, wheat etc. They can also easily eat raw bones just never cooked as they splinter.

[monkeyfacegrace]

its sorry, you lost all credibility when you said they choke on bones

And bacteria? Really? Have you seen what dogs eat off the floor. Mine likes nothing better than a good gobful of shit

[itsbetterthanabox]

Not exactly natural when the dogs we have as pets are no longer anything like they were in the wild. That's all been bred out. They have different needs.

[Scuttlebutter]

If yr greyhound is 44kg, it must be eating something!! Our biggest grey is 37/38kg and he's a big black muscly male who's an absolute whopper.

Ours eat raw - we get it from a local supplier but are in S Wales so can't recommend to you. Like others, we have a freezer, and feed the mince for convenience. However, we vary it with leftovers e.g. rice, pasta, roasted squash/veggies, and regular oily fish such as sardines or pilchards. Also add in occasional yogurt, plus training treats of cheese or sausage.

I think the "complete" raw diets are a very easy way into raw feeding - there are some nice ones around. There are lots of variations in how you can do it - a lot depends on budget, your access to a freezer, access to local butchers and how much time/effort you want to put in to sourcing stuff.

I honestly wouldn't say it was any messier than any other way of feeding - I defrost the blocks in the utility room and plonk them in the bowls twice a day. Can be a bit splashy as one dog in particular likes to scatter his food round his bowl before then eating it from the floor but he did that with kibble as well. We are not raw purists - because we often travel for shows/business on weekends, we will take kibble with us for those, and the dogs switch very happily between.

All our 4 are greyhounds and are doing very well on this sort of diet, with beautiful soft coats, healthy weights, good muscles, and very nice small, firm poos.

I must admit I have wimped out over tripe. The smell, especially in summer is particularly vile - it hasn't made it's way into the trolley the past couple of trips to the supplier.

[yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo]

Of goodness sake please dont listen to people that have absolutely no idea about raw feeding ie. Natural feeding!

[itsbetterthanabox]

Not a good idea. Meat does not have all the nutrients they need. Don't feed bones at all as they can choke. Raw meat from farms has more bacteria on it which is a risk to the dog and you.