Anyone fancy a raw feeders chat thread?

[MishMashMosher]

I have a miniature schnauzer who has been raw fed since weaning thanks to his fantastic breeder. I also have a raw fed cat. We are picking up our new puppy in 2 weeks who is kibble fed but will be changing her over to raw once she's settled in. I'm a bit nervous about it tbh.

Any other raw feeders out there? Do you DIY or use completes?

I use completes. Badly pup is being abit funny about food at the moment but we going to persevere with Raw. I think she may simply not be as hungry as she once once. She has to stop growing at some point.

I raw feed :) pup loves it, we have a great shop about 5 miles away that sells all the minces, bones and gives great advice :)

When my pup a border collie came to me from rescue he was fed James Welbeloved, just changed him over straight away onto raw. Started with chicken first, (80,10,10) 80% chicken mince, 10% bone and 10% offal. Hes now getting a variety of different minces and meaty bones to enjoy.

We did this with our Schnauzer (giant) and we did it slowly but his stomach couldn’t cope (I am sure you know about the delicacy of a Schnauzer stomach lol). We had to go back to a very bland kibble for about 6 weeks then have transitioned to cold pressed complete food which is like raw but with less mess. It seems fine we had though I’ve moving over eventually but I think we will stick to cold pressed.

Geekone my sister has a mini schnauzer and I never realised how sensitive their stomachs are. You can give him any treat and it results in extremely runny poo! Luckily he is doing well on raw but they are prone to pancreatitis I've heard?

I know they are not dogs but my cats are raw fed and so much healthier since switching a year ago.

I get the natures menu the chicken and fish one for them from pets at home and the rest I do myself. They love sliced up steak, their favourite and minced chicken breast and prawns.

I’m a raw convert after seeing my sister feed her cats on raw. We switched both of our dogs to raw as soon as they came home and they are thriving.

We use Nutriment as it’s handy and Ocado stock it so I can add a few tubs to my shop each week rather than taking up half the freezer with a big monthly delivery.

I feed raw complete and supplement with beef chunks, chicken wings, chicken feet, duck necks, spines, lambs heads.
Need to order today actually now I’ve been paid and they’re doing lambs feet so will get some of those for a treat.
One of dogs is über fussy and hated kibble but she’s never left anything raw. Oh except when I bought fish, she hates fish

@Bananarama12 ours isn’t quite that bad but anything too rich like changing flavour from beef to duck caused serious diarrhoea. Problem is GS need a lot of calories while growing so you have to have a reasonable amount of fat in foods. The mini and standards are more prone to pancreatitis but the giants can get it too.

we raw feed all of ours! it's brilliant! less upset stomachs cleared up our old girls' skin brilliantly! (westie- well, all westies actually but her skin has always been bad and shes 17 , switched to raw about 6 years ago, before that she had steroid creams, tablets, injections and not much ever seemed to make a difference.) love it- we use the completes from nutriment or natural instinct, though ours are fussy and go through stages of refusing to eat one or the other flavours- at the moment they will only eat just duck or rabbit- suddenly won't have the duck mix, trip- which they used to love, won't have turkey, won't have beef! though one of them has started eating beef again, and promptly gone off the lamb - honestly! they have more freezer space than we do!!! but we love them, so who cares about the humans food!!

I raw feed! Some of the forums are a bit dogmatic, I'm a bit more pragmatic in my approach. So we have commercial treats, and kibble in for emergencies.

My boy mainly eats beef mince, pork shoulder and chicken, all from the supermarket. He has liver as treats. I struggle to get him to eat anything interesting. He's not keen on kidney- it has to be hand fed a chunk at a time. Pigeon, rabbit- no way. He occasionally has turkey and duck, too.

Watching with interest.
Currently feeding 8 month old spaniel puppy on kibble but with Natures Menu puppy raw on top. Want to switch to a completely raw diet but don’t really know what I’m doing and he’s doing so well on what he’s on.

When I sent him to kennels I used pre packed blocks, because they were easier for the kennel to store.

Which cold pressed do you use @geekone? I was thinking cold pressed might be easier for holidays.

Just discovered the silly dog will eat more if it is frozen - there is no reason not todo this is there?

No, it's slows them down and makes them chew more. May be less good in a heat wave though- I read something about the dog overheating because the frozen treat confused his thermostat.

I started raw feeding a few days ago, early days but he loves it.

Good to see so many other raw feeders! The barf UK Facebook page is good for info.

I give my dog and cat the dogs butcher mainly but I order from scuffles pet store online and so use whatever they've got In stock. My favourites are Henleys, paelo ridge and vince the vet. I chose the brands without added veg as I feed my cats the same and cats can't have veg.

My schnauzer is the opposite and has a stomach of steel. During the heatwave I gave him a raw chicken wing which he buried in the garden. He dug it up a week later and ate it and was fine!

I feed raw complete (Nutriment)
It's not the cheapest but I've only got one small
dog so it doesn't break the bank,
When we got our frenchie pup after a week or so he became really poorly and vomited up a load of worms. We took him immediately to the vet who wormed him (the breeder had given us his immunization record with wormings written into it that were obviously false)
He stayed poorly and was diagnosed with giardia and coccidia. He was treated and recovered but according to the vet it has likely damaged his gut's ability to absorb nutrition. He can only eat small quantities or he is sick but needs really nutrient dense food as he tends to lose weight.
He does really well on raw, looks great, hardly any wind, very inoffensive wee poops to pick up and bags of energy 😊

I feed mine the food when it’s still frozen, takes them longer to eat it but they have it early-ish in the morning and then not again till 7pm so not the hottest parts of the day. They do have a chicken wing for a snack sometimes or a few chicken feet during the daytime and I feed those frozen too.

Mine are mixed raw and cold pressed kibble. Not in the same meal. The raw is complete from Bella and Duke. I started out quite evangelical about it but have had to become more pragmatic due to having three dogs with good appetites .
Re feeding frozen- I have always believed that it is fine but the other day I saw a FB post apparently from a Vet urging people not to feed their dogs ice cubes in hot weather as it can cause the dog to actually over heat. Something to do with the hypothalamus miss understanding the cold signal as a cold day and causing the dog to warm up as a result. (It actually sounds a bit odd as I write that so I’m not sure I have the science right ) . So I wonder no if it is okay to feed frozen food after all? I think I’ll go and do some googling.

Okay Googled the ice thing and proven that I should stay off FB for the foreseeable future . Just ignore me as I am clearly not safe to drive the internet 😂

I have to admit that I feed my cats kibble they are on prison along with the raw. Very frowned upon by most raw feeders.

I think the whole kibble and raw thing is because the pH of the stomach of a raw fed animal is different to a kibble fed animal. Not 100% on that as I can't remember exactly but I know a few people who feed both together and get on well with it.

How do you lot store your food? I don't have room for a second freezer so just have two drawers of our fridge freezer. It's annoying as I have to pay for deliveries every other week.

I bought an under counter freezer which my DH (a prepper , though he doesn’t realise it) promptly filled with food .

The company I get the complete from deliver for free. I’m not sure if they would do that for more frequent deliveries though.

The ph kibble/raw thing is this...

Raw meat requires a ph of around 1.5 to digest so a dog fed regularly on raw will keep a stomach acid that can handle it. This is important because it is acidic enough to destroy most pathogens also. The more acidic the stomach juices are, the quicker the food is digested so there is less opportunity for pathogens to infect because they are digested quickly.

Dogs fed on kibble with a high % of carbohydrate slowly see their acid levels drop (become more alkaline) to around ph3-4. High quality kibble (low carb) should not do this.

That means that a dog suddenly fed raw after years of carb-loaded kibble may struggle to digest raw food and - more importantly - may get sick from pathogens because their stomach acid doesn't kill them before they can infect, also because they take longer to digest.

Dogs regularly fed kibble AND raw or fed high quality/low carb kibble are unlikely to have an issue with being fed both raw and dry food.