# Raw Diet



## Amanda Layne (Aug 9, 2006)

Well today I switched my dogs to a raw diet. I am still going to feed them the freeze dried beef for tracking and treats, but their meals raw. 

To start, I got 5 racks of ribs (about 3lbs per rack) and cut them into 1lb slabs, cornish game hens (about 1.5lbs each) turkey necks, 10lbs of ground beef (the fatty kind) and 2 packages of chicken heart/gizzards already minced up.

Does all of this sound okay? Is it okay to not feed liver and hearts and all that.....I just cant bring myself to do it yet. This is a huge step for me, I HATE handling raw meat. like......HATE it. I am going to try this and see how it goes. I switched them cold turkey......I still have 4 bags of Solid Gold dog food left, but I can always donate it to the animal shelter if this works out. I have almost no freezer space left for me......but hey at least I have my priorities straight, right  Also, how do I go about giving the oils? I can hand feed them the fish oil capsules (my dobes love crunching them) but my boxer wont eat them that way. I also have a huge thing of flax oil left, can I just squirt that on the food? Anything else I should be doing?


----------



## Amanda Layne (Aug 9, 2006)

One more question. I hope this isnt a retarded question. I gave them some ribs today and a cornish game hen. They ate the whole game hen, bones and all. The ribs they just eat the meat off of. I guess the bones are to hard? Are they supposed to eat the bones?


----------



## steve gossmeyer (Jan 9, 2007)

yes they are. you need to talk to lacey about raw diets she helped me with alot of it.


----------



## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Amanda Layne said:


> Well today I switched my dogs to a raw diet. I am still going to feed them the freeze dried beef for tracking and treats, but their meals raw.
> 
> To start, I got 5 racks of ribs (about 3lbs per rack) and cut them into 1lb slabs, cornish game hens (about 1.5lbs each) turkey necks, 10lbs of ground beef (the fatty kind) and 2 packages of chicken heart/gizzards already minced up.
> 
> Does all of this sound okay? Is it okay to not feed liver and hearts and all that.....I just cant bring myself to do it yet. This is a huge step for me, I HATE handling raw meat. like......HATE it. I am going to try this and see how it goes. I switched them cold turkey......I still have 4 bags of Solid Gold dog food left, but I can always donate it to the animal shelter if this works out. I have almost no freezer space left for me......but hey at least I have my priorities straight, right  Also, how do I go about giving the oils? I can hand feed them the fish oil capsules (my dobes love crunching them) but my boxer wont eat them that way. I also have a huge thing of flax oil left, can I just squirt that on the food? Anything else I should be doing?


What kind of ribs?

It's not OK not to feed organ meat, but it's easy to do.

Organ meat should be 5-10% of the total meat/bones.

Liquid fish oil is much easier.

Flax oil is OK, but not sufficient. Dogs need marine sources for long-chain Omega 3s, which they don't get in modern grain-fed slaughter animals.

I will PM you 50 Q&A that cover everything and a simple list of a week of sample meals.


----------



## Nicole Auldridge (Mar 1, 2007)

Amanda Layne said:


> Is it okay to not feed liver and hearts and all that.....I just cant bring myself to do it yet. This is a huge step for me, I HATE handling raw meat. like......HATE it. Also, how do I go about giving the oils? I can hand feed them the fish oil capsules (my dobes love crunching them) but my boxer wont eat them that way. I also have a huge thing of flax oil left, can I just squirt that on the food?


I feel for you on the handling raw meat thing. I use big, yellow kitchen gloves. The gloves make the whole process tolerable  . I've got a dog who will spit out capsules (and a HUGE bottle of capsules I need to use up), so I mix them in with his veggie glop, yogurt, ground meat, or anything else I can think of. He's so excited about eating, he doesn't even notice. You can also pierce them with a needle and squeeze out the oil, but that gets old after awhile. (I always squeeze out and sniff at least one cap/day to check for rancidity). I'll be buying liquid when this bottle is gone. 

Can you ask your butcher to grind the organs so they look less like... organs?

Good for you for making the switch. It's a steep learning curve (I'm still somewhere near the bottom  ) but, when you start seeing the results, you'll feel really good about it!


----------



## David Ross (Nov 24, 2006)

Hell, I just jumped right in with feeding RAW and never looked back.

I feed:
Chicken for RMB
lil bit o beef cubes (like stew cuts)
beef liver
fish oil
1 egg ever 2-3 days
some raw salmon (you may want to cook it as we don't have salmon poisoning here, dog wise)

I recommend using the feeding chart from rawdogranch. You might also want to read the rawdogranch articles.

http://www.rawdogranch.com/ - recently updated

for the record, I LOVE handling RAW materials. It feels all squishy, meaty, and I just want to eat it all up! j/k Wouldn't mind eating the raw egg though, if it were fresh.


----------



## Paul Coffman (Jul 24, 2006)

Connie could you send me the sample week


----------



## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Paul Coffman said:


> Connie could you send me the sample week


Yes. :>) Will do.


----------



## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

David Ross said:


> some raw salmon (you may want to cook it as we don't have salmon poisoning here, dog wise)


Important if you get salmon (or any salmonid, including trout) from west of the Cascade Range)... do not feed it raw. (It's just dogs who are vulnerable to Pacific Northwest salmon poisoning, it appears, but it does cause death something like 80-90% of the time.)


----------



## David Ross (Nov 24, 2006)

David Ross said:


> some raw salmon (you may want to cook it as we don't have salmon poisoning here, dog wise)


I left out one important detail, if you do feed salmon raw, to freeze the fish for at least 2 weeks to kill any parasites. Freezing may not kill all bacteria and/or parasites, so cook the salmon if you are paranoid or don't know how to check for types of illness. Also, to repeat what Connie said, never feed raw from west of the Cascasde Range.


----------



## Amanda Layne (Aug 9, 2006)

Thank You all for the input and the websites. I appreciate it. Everything is going well so far. Well....my little one (Ziris) had runny poo for the first day, but she is over it now. She is nuts for it. She doesnt gulp it or anything, but she ALWAYS finishes first....then she goes and trys to run my boxer off from her food. Needless to say....the boxer now eats in the dog run. But....so far, so good. This would be wonderful, I could take my kitchen back. I had to take my kitchen table out to put shelving in for all of their food and supplements, and make room for them to each have their own bowl with enough room to seperate them while they eat. This way.......throw it outside....done. Yay! I can have a normal kitchen again!

I am sure I am going to have a ton more questions, but thanks for all the reply's


----------



## Amanda Layne (Aug 9, 2006)

Connie Sutherland said:


> What kind of ribs?
> 
> It's not OK not to feed organ meat, but it's easy to do.
> 
> ...


 
Beef ribs. (back?) I dont eat them......so Im not to keen on the terminoligy. (did I spell that right??:-k )


----------



## Rebecca Santana (May 16, 2007)

I'd love to go ahead and switch to raw. I'm motivated by this thread to just do it and get it done. Would ya'll be kind enough to send me that weekly schedule? I just want to make sure I feed all the right things and don't get deficient in anything (especially with the underweight dog)...


----------



## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Rebecca Hobley said:


> I'd love to go ahead and switch to raw. I'm motivated by this thread to just do it and get it done. Would ya'll be kind enough to send me that weekly schedule? I just want to make sure I feed all the right things and don't get deficient in anything (especially with the underweight dog)...


You got it! :>)


----------



## susan tuck (Mar 28, 2006)

Good for all y'all going raw & thinking about going raw. My current dog has only had RAW. Connie has helped me from the beginning which made it easy for me. I wish I had done it a long time ago with my previous dogs. One thing that continues to amaze me is the difference in the coat look and feel. I could never go back.


----------

