Raw feeders I'm after your advice regarding supplements.

[dillite]

I am looking for home-made raw food recipes, as my dog is now refusing to eat commercial raw food- she's driving me mad with her fussiness! This week I had made some myself using a recipe of 10% liver, 80% meat and 10% fruit and veg (I had made up lamb and chicken feeds this way). I have been looking for more variety online and many recipes are asking for supplements such as omega oils 3, 6 and 9 and some kind of Dinovite supplement. Do you use supplements? I have found omega oils, but Dinovite isn't available in the UK and I can't find an alternative to it.

Oh and bones, and they absolutely necessary? Whilst she eats them very happily, her white fur gets stained very badly by them and is also always full of little remnants which are a pain to brush out and need to be washed out.

I've raw fed for nearly 10 years and don't supplement. One dog will eat pulped fruit/veg, the other won't. The one that doesn't hasn't come to any harm.

In a typical week, mine would have:
Ox heart
Ox liver/kidney
Chicken portions (carcass/wings/legs etc)
Lamb ribs/neck
Fish (usually whole sardines or mackerel)

On occasion, they would ask have beef shin, pork or Turkey mince and anything else I can pick up cheaply.

Even the fussy eater will eat a little of all of these.

As long as they're getting a good variety, I wouldn't worry about supplementing. Raw feeding is about achieving a balance over time rather than at every meal.

Bones are absolutely necessary to raw feeding. Chicken wings are easily edible by most dogs with a minimum of mess. One of my dogs was utterly rubbish at dealing with bones so we cut her chicken wings into 3 bite size pieces (which is a bit ridiculous for a giant breed!) The other dog just about inhales them whole and they don't even touch the sides.

No need for supplements IMHO. My dogs have been raw fed for 4 years, very healthy and lovely white teeth. Similar diet to Queens except I don't bother with pulped fruit/veg. They sometimes get an apple or carrot to crunch as a treat, and enjoy grazing on the spring grass.
They're very good at blackberry picking, managing to only eat the ripe ones and avoid the thorns .

Thank you. Where do you buy your meat from? Went to the butchers today hoping to get some cheap cuts, and boy did I not get any. Ended up buying some chicken wings, chicken liver, beef mince and lamb mince. They said I could order chicken carcasses, lamb necks and oxtail, but only if I order a box of each, which is £££+ I have nowhere to store it. I also got some whole mackerel at asda.

With bones, is it because of the bone marrow that they are important or the whole chewing bones thing? What I was to grind chicken carcasses and wings? Also, do bones need to be fed daily? Can I mix meats together or does it need to be one meat type at a time?

You don't need to feed bones daily but they do need to make up a significant proportion of the diet overall. You could grind them if you can be arsed. Bone is needed for nutritional content, calcium etc.

We struck up a good relationship with a farm butcher. They raise and butcher the animals themselves so have large quantities of the less popular/cheaper cuts always available. Explain to them what you're doing and they should able to suggest the cheaper cuts. Our butcher now uses us as a way to offload unsaleable meat such as stuff that has been frozen. He sells it to us very cheaply as it doesn't matter if it's refrozen for the dogs but couldn't be sold for human consumption like that. We do also buy almost all our own meat from him too which helps in securing a bit of discount on the dogs' food too.

I cant find anywhere cheaper than Tesco (value range) for chicken wings despite having contacted numerous wholesalers over the years.

Having a second freezer is a must-have for raw feeding, IMO so that you can buy in bulk to get the cheapest deals. An ox heart is very cheap but enormous so you do need a bit of space to store it all. Although I have giant breed dogs so am feeding relatively large volumes too. I imagine you'd need less storage space if you're feeding a Yorkie

Chicken wings are also too small for all bug the tiniest dogs and they risk them swallowing them whole. Dogs also don't need fruit or veg, they get everything they need for meat and bones, as long as you include organ meats.

A second freezer is out of question as there's no space for it. We will just have to share the existing freezer. Thankfully she's a small dog so doesn't need huge quantities of food.

She poops better when she has fruit and veg- much less straining, so I will keep feeding those. Also all breed specific literature states that fruit and veg are an important part of the diet.

It had taken me a couple of hours, but I now have prepped all her food, there's enough for a month. I do need to get some more fish. I've added 3 chicken carcasses- cut the breasts and legs off and diced the rest up for her.

General rule I think, 80% meat, 10% bone, 10% offal, 5% of which should be liver and 5% something else eg kidney. Pulped fruit and veg added as extra if you want, not necessary. There are some v useful groups on Facebook, just search under raw feeding. Don't worry about supplements unless you have a particular reason for needing it eg joint issues. You can get a breakdown on the Facebook groups of what bone percentage certain things are, and then work it out from the weight. Or you can estimate and poop watch. Too chalky and crumbly, too much bone. Too soft, not enough. Not every meal has to have these ratios though, you can equalise it out over a week or so. You must include bone for the calcium, very important to get the calcium phosphorus ratio right (Boneless meat high in phosphorus).

Join Raw Feeding UK Facebook group - all the info there.

They refer to this website dogsdinner2.webs.com/