# DNA in dogs,wolves may explain diet prefences, research finds.



## James Kotary (Nov 14, 2012)

*DNA in dogs, wolves may explain diet preferences, research finds *

*Genetic differences in dogs since evolution from wolves may explain dogs' ability to digest starches in the diet*



Release Date: 
Thursday, January 24, 2013 Comments(0) 
Over time, dogs have evolved from their wolf ancestors to be able consume and digest the starches in varied petfood diets found today, according to a new study conducted by scientists in Sweden.
Evolutionary geneticist, Erik Axelsson, Uppsala University, compared the DNA of dogs and wolves to determine which genes were important for domestication. The researchers looked at DNA from 12 wolves worldwide and from 60 dogs belonging to 14 breeds.
Researchers first looked at individual letters, or bases, in DNA that vary from genome to genome, identifying 4 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms. They focused on regions with little or no SNPs, as these regions' lack of variation means the DNA was necessary for survival during domestication, resulting in a loss of variation and the same SNPs for most dogs. The study found 122 genes in 36 regions that contributed to the evolution of dogs, including 10 genes that are important to dogs' ability to digest starch.
According to the research, dogs have four to 30 copies of the gene for the protein amylase, which starts starch breakdown in the intestine, whereas wolves have just one copy on each of their two chromosomes. Another difference noted was that the gene was more active in dogs by 28-fold. These differences mean that dogs should be better than wolves at digesting starches, such as wheat and rice, often found in commercial petfood diets.

Axelsson noted that the number of copies of the gene for amylase also varies in people, depending on the world region and the amount of starch that makes up their diet. "We have adapted in a very similar way to the dramatic changes that happened when agriculture was developed," Axelsson said.

Another key enzyme in starch digestion is the gene that codes for maltase, MGAM, which was found to have the same number of copies in dogs and wolves. However, four differences were observed in the sequence in dogs and wolves, one of which causes dogs to produce longer versions of maltase often seen in other herbivores. Researchers found that these differences make the maltase produced by dogs more efficient than that of wolves, also helping to explain dogs' ability to better digest starches in their diet than wolves.





Note:
Source: _Petfood Industry magazine_
http://www.petfoodindustry.com/47789.html


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## Kat Hunsecker (Oct 23, 2009)

thanks for sharing!!!


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

We need to give a citation and link when copying and pasting text by someone else.

Thanks!


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## Jill Lyden (May 25, 2011)

One question - does the presence of these genes mean that domesticated dogs DO require starches and carbohydrates in their diet or that they can digest them better than the average wolf? I'm in the process of switching my dogs to raw and the prey model made more sense to me than the BARF diet. This study will definitely make a difference in how I approach this whole switch.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Jill Lyden said:


> One question - does the presence of these genes mean that domesticated dogs DO require starches and carbohydrates in their diet or that they can digest them better than the average wolf? I'm in the process of switching my dogs to raw and the prey model made more sense to me than the BARF diet. This study will definitely make a difference in how I approach this whole switch.


A. does the presence of these genes mean that domesticated dogs DO require starches and carbohydrates in their diet

B. or that they can digest them better than the average wolf


B.



"Prey model," you may know, no matter what any web site may tell you, does not mean just clean cuts of meat in a plastic supermarket tray. 

Wild canids eat something like a rodent in its entirety, contents of the gut included. In addition, as has been described here a few times, the Gray Wolf has often been observed eating young tender waterside ferns and ripe berries --- even in times of plentiful prey. This in addition to the contents of hares, birds, field mice, etc.

There are lots of threads here with citations, links, etc., about what a "prey model" diet is in real life, where there are no canid supermarkets. 

Green tripe is a terrific way to provide produce, IMO.

Starch carbs, OTOH, such as the starch required to make kibble, isn't a natural food for canids, but they have evolved (along with us) to deal with it. 


(Note than even in "grain-free" kibble, something has to take that grain's place to enable the kibbling process, and it's not necessarily something good. It may be something like white potato or tapioca, neither of which is a great dog food, and neither of which is superior in nutrition to many whole grains. 

For example, quinoa, IMO, is hugely superior in nutrition to the flesh of russet potatoes, but "grain free" would be emblazoned on the package with the high-glycemic potato as if it was a great improvement.  )


All JMO!


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

I'm not married to prey model and have long felt that domestication influenced dogs in certain regards. I've never believed that dogs couldn't derive benefits from carbohydrates and we know that bitches require carbohydrates for reproductive purposes. However, the fact that dogs have the enzymatic ability to digest carbohydrates doesn't support feeding commercial dog food or act as evidence against feeding non-commercial feed. Reserve further comment until I read the full report and of course the commercial dog food reference makes it suspect to me as to who even funded this study but we shall see.

T


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> I'm not married to prey model and have long felt that domestication influenced dogs in certain regards. I've never believed that dogs couldn't derive benefits from carbohydrates and we know that bitches require carbohydrates for reproductive purposes. However, the fact that dogs have the enzymatic ability to digest carbohydrates doesn't support feeding commercial dog food or act as evidence against feeding non-commercial feed. Reserve further comment until I read the full report and of course the commercial dog food reference makes it suspect to me as to who even funded this study but we shall see.
> 
> T


The actual study is _The genomic signature of dog domestication reveals adaptation to a starch-rich diet _. That reference you mention, OTOH, was made by the online version of the industry publication, _Petfood Industry_ magazine ("_Petfood Industry_ magazine is the leading global information source for petfood manufacturing executives, managers and other industry professionals").

I agree with you that the fact that dogs have evolved to deal better with the starch carbs they have been fed as they cohabitated with humans and humans started to grown and eat grain several thousand years ago doesn't support feeding commercial dog food that's heavy in those starch carbs.

But that's what just about every kibble manufacturer will maintain. :lol:

JMO!


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

("_Petfood Industry_ magazine is the leading global information source for petfood manufacturing executives, managers and other industry professionals").

In other words the study was done by those in the pet food industry, correct?
Similar to vet clinics selling some of the worst dog food on the planet simply because many "nutrition" classes in vet school are ran by or with the backing of........those in the pet food industry. :-k:-k :idea:


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

Connie Sutherland said:


> The actual study is _The genomic signature of dog domestication reveals adaptation to a starch-rich diet _. That reference you mention, OTOH, was made by the online version of the industry publication, _Petfood Industry_ magazine ("_Petfood Industry_ magazine is the leading global information source for petfood manufacturing executives, managers and other industry professionals").
> 
> I agree with you that the fact that dogs have evolved to deal better with the starch carbs they have been fed as they cohabitated with humans and humans started to grown and eat grain several thousand years ago doesn't support feeding commercial dog food that's heavy in those starch carbs.
> 
> ...


Well, James can report back that they can peddle this to the masses who don't research or care, but those that do won't buy into this as support for feeding dogs cellulose and dog foods manufactured with ingredients from god knows where contaminated with god knows what. For me its not just an issue of raw or grain-free. On the one hand they have used the concern to peddle $60+ a bag kibble and on the other it will be used as support for feeding nothing more than contaminated laden cellulose. I'm not impressed with any commercially manufactured products other than sheer convenience. I was amazed at the difference in the dogs from going from the expensive line cadillac kibbles to a Pitcairn home cooked diet. That did it for me. You can go broke trying to feed them something decent that is commercially manufactured. Much cheaper to source from the grocery store and market. 

T


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Bob Scott said:


> ("_Petfood Industry_ magazine is the leading global information source for petfood manufacturing executives, managers and other industry professionals").
> 
> In other words the study was done by those in the pet food industry, correct?
> Similar to vet clinics selling some of the worst dog food on the planet simply because many "nutrition" classes in vet school are ran by or with the backing of........those in the pet food industry. :-k:-k :idea:


No, they didn't do the study .... just the interpretation posted. 

I expect to see loads of references to that study, though, and in fact already have. Look how fast _Petfood Industry_ got it into print. :lol:

You are correct about HillsPet (Hills, Science Diet) funding the big majority of the nutrition programs of the vet schools, though, and being "corporate partners" with the AVMA and the Canadian VMA too.

http://www.vetschoolblog.com/2010/05/18/why-i-wont-be-heading-for-the-hills/

QUOTE: _I don’t like the unholy alliance they seem to have with the nation’s vet schools–teaching nutrition classes, providing free nutrition textbooks authored by Hill’s scientists, etc._

And he doesn't know the half of it. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I've delved into article authorship and dug and dug through layers and veils to find that the author was a Hills corporate officer or exec.


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## Steve Estrada (Mar 6, 2011)

I've noticed through the years how dogs of the same breed even can vary in what they can eat (successfully) in other words, two dogs can't eat the same thing. Would that leave me to assume they are genetically (DNA) different.
I feed raw but to throw something different that I can't find easily, I went to Orijin 5 fishes. Open the bag & thought I was going to have to put a sleeve on :-\"
Only feed it twice a week.


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

This study had my same response to others--duhhhhh!!! We live with the dogs and explore every feeding option possible. Wolves have 2 copies of the gene. Dogs have 4-30 copies--huge variance in tolerance??? I've had dogs that can tolerate raw and one that could not. With my bitches, they can't do daily chicken backs--constipation issue whereas there is no issue with the males. Check out: http://www.b-naturals.com/newsletter/dogs-and-starch-digestion/ if you want to see the start of the dog food marketing from this.


T


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## mel boschwitz (Apr 23, 2010)

You might have seen the news that a new study almost excuses the use of grains in dog foods, but don’t be misled by this study. Friend and pet food advocate Dr. Michael Fox shares with us his perspective on high levels of grains in pet foods.
Several pet food consumers quickly emailed me the news story when it was published (team work!), they all shared they were concerned Big Pet Food might use this new study as scientific reasoning why their pet foods contain so many grains. Turns out, our friend and pet food safety ally Dr. Michael Fox felt the same concern. His wife sent me the article below with permission to provide to TruthaboutPetFood.com readers (thank you!).
The Seattle Times wrote about the pet food study: _“A team of Swedish researchers has compared the genomes of wolves and dogs and found that a big difference between the two is a dog’s ability to easily digest starch. On its way from pack-hunting carnivore to fireside companion, dogs learned to love — or at least live on — wheat, rice, barley, corn and potatoes.”_
The Boston Globe stated: _” Dogs digest starches more efficiently than their wolf ancestors.” But they (thankfully) added information gathered from this study “might provide hints about the genes and biological underpinnings of modern diseases that have arisen with the shift from a peripatetic existence to a grain-based diet…”_
The BBC wrote: _“…it seems dogs have many more genes that encode the enzymes needed to break down starch, something that would have been advantageous in an ancestor scavenging on the discarded wheat and other crop products of early farmers.”_
You can probably see the open door that many are concerned Big Pet Food walk through using this study as scientific excuse for the use of numerous corn, wheat and soy ingredients in pet food. Now, here is Dr. Michael Fox’s opinion…
DOMESTICATION & DIET: DOG GENES & CAT GUT BACTERIA
By Dr. Michael W. Fox
_Swedish researchers in their comparative studies of dog and wolf DNA report that dogs show changes in genes governing three critical steps in the digestion of starch, first breaking down large carbohydrate molecules into smaller ones, then breaking these up into smaller sugars and then finally facilitating their absorption in the digestive system. Significantly there was so called gene duplication, multiple copies of a gene for amylase, produced by the pancrease that is involved in the first step of starch digestion. Wolves had two copies while dogs had four to 30. ( See Erik Axelsson et al 23 January 201 The genomic signature of dog domestication reveals adaptation to a starch-rich diet.Nature doi:10.1038/nature11837 )._
_While some dog food companies may be quick to jump on this research as scientific evidence supporting their continued and widely questioned practice of manufacturing high grain/starchdiets, they do need to pause and consider what these findings really mean. _

_They do not mean that it is OK to make starches a major dietary ingredient for dogs. But they do mean that many dog breeds are more omnivorous than wolves and can digest some starches as a consequence of co-evolved selection living in close association with humans for many generations. Humans also went through similar genetic-dietary changes with the shift from being gatherer-hunters (the Paleolithic diet) to grain-eating (and dairy consuming) agro-pastoralists. But just like with we humans, dogs show nutrigenomic differences, some developing exocrine pancreatic insufficiency when after being raised on a high grain diet, or diabetes, obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, skin disorders and even epilepsy. When these symptoms disappear when they are taken off high grain/starch diets, we have medical based evidence of the probable cause.The recent inclusion of genetically engineeered food ingredients in dog (and cat) foods, such as corn, rice, canola and sugarbeet, may aggravate these conditions and cause other health problems as documented in “Not Fit for a Dog: The Truth About Manufactured Cat & Dog Foods” by veterinarians Fox, Hodgkins & Smart. _
_This interesting genetic research revealing some of the differences between the wolf and domesticated dog genome shows how processes of adaptation operate through gene-environment interactions. These processes, in the realm of dietary choices and what kinds of foods are available, are epigenetic, but there are additional considerations. Dietary ingredients can alter the ‘microbiome’ of the digestive system—the numbers and varieties of bacteria and other microorganisms which play an esential role in the digestion of various foods and assimilation of nutrients, coupled with critial immune defense, metabolic and other regulatory functions._
_According to a recent study in kittens fed either a high protein low carbohydrate (HPLC) or moderate protein and moderate carbohydrate (MPMC) diet, levels of proteolytic bacteria (which break down protein) were higher for kittens on the HPLC diet and levels of saccharolytic bacteria (which break down carbohydrates) were higher for kittens on the MPMC diet. This illustrates how adaptive processes can operate it the level of the digestive system’s bacterial microbiome. (see Kelly Swanson et al, British Journal of Nutrition, Aug 31, 2012). They also looked at relationships between the diets and physiology. The kittens fed the MPMC diet had high levels of bifidobacteria, which was linked to higher blood ghrelin levels. Ghrelin is a hormone that stimulates appetite and thus may be linked to weight gain. At the same time, the bifidobacteria may promote better gastrointestinal health. Low levels in humans have been linked to inflammatory bowel disease._

_While pet food manufacturers still marketing both moderate and high carbohydrate diets for cats may applaud this study of a small number of cats, it should be noted that kittens on a high protein diet had higher levels of bacteria that break down protein. This study does nothing more than to demonstrate how diet affects gut flora/bacterial populations, and in no way justifies feeding cats and kittens a ‘balanced’ diet of moderate amounts of protein and carbohydrate. This study simply demonstrates how commensal and symbiotic intestinal bacteria are affected by different diets, just as the Swedish study comparing dog and wolf DNA reveals what one would anticipate in terms of genetic adaptations over generations in dogs to dietary changes associated with a domesticated existence. The cat study does not look at the long-term differences between obligate carnivore felines being fed biologically appropriate and inappropriate diets in terms of health and longevity, even though their changed gut flora may help cats adapt to a high carbohydrate kibble diet. The wolf-dog comparisons do not consider the long-term consequences of raising dogs on a more ancestral, wolf-like diet with little or no carbohydrates. This is a popular trend today, and has some merits for those dog breeds and individuals (yet to be systematically identified) with low genetic duplication for pancreatic amylase production and therefore limited ability to process starches. The notion that too much protein in the diet can cause kidney disease is erroneous, lacking biological and clinical evidence to my knowledge, but that is not to dismiss the legitimacy of concern regarding protein quality and quantity when the kidneys are actually diseased._
Thank you Dr. Michael Fox! Truth and clarification is a good thing.


(Truth about Pet Food, February 2013, Susan Thixton)


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## James Kotary (Nov 14, 2012)

Sorry I totally forgot to add that it is from petfoodindustry.com here is the link to the page: http://petfoodindustry.com/47789.html


Connie Sutherland said:


> We need to give a citation and link when copying and pasting text by someone else.
> 
> Thanks!


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## James Kotary (Nov 14, 2012)

It is not an excuse for the pet food industry to add grains to their foods because dogs can break down starches found in these sources. There are many benefits of grains for dogs such as digestion aids (fiber), vitamins and minerals that other wise have to be supplemented. Nutro puts the health of the pets first and research that the grain sources have positive impacts to a dog's health. There are those dogs who cannot handle grains and the research into a Grain Free formula by Nutro was extensive and started manufacturing it only two years ago.

Nutro also qualifies and buys direct from any source. They use no China products in anything they make. The chicken is American farm raised, Lamb from New Zealand, and Venison from Australia. The quality and safety of the food is of the up most importance. That is why they sought out the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) to audit the facilities for safety, cleanliness, that there are no co-producers, that each ingredient is traceable to the source, and that over 600 quality checks are performed. Transparency of the ingredients was also implemented meaning you can call them and they can tell you exactly where it came from. There are also tests done for light metals and toxins that may be present in grains. There are also extensive tests done to ensure there is no salmonella or other diseases present in meat sources. 

They do not pay for researchers to find things to make the foods look good but to make sure that is good for our pets. They take the approach of not caging animals at their facilities. It looks like they are in home settings to get real results, not manufactured results from a lab, by using the Waltham Center. 

Do you think I could work for a company that has no conscious? If I had not seen first hand the change it did in my own dogs I would not be here today talking about the company. If they had some one else making it and slapping their sticker on it, I again would not be an employee. If they just made foods that meet AAFCO expectations and not exceed theses expectations... down the road I go. This is not a full time job I hold there. I work weekends for them and have had many opportunities to leave and demo video games and even the new I-Phones (Apple trademark). But here I am. I love my dogs, they are not animals or tools to me. They are family. I can't afford raw feeding 4 dogs so I spend $50 every two weeks on 30lbs of kibble and they are healthy and happy. It has even gone as far as fur growing over the scars my female rescue had and clearing up watery stools.


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## mel boschwitz (Apr 23, 2010)

$50.00 for 30lbs of kibble?? That's way out of my price range! Glad I feed raw! It's a lot cheaper!!


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## susan tuck (Mar 28, 2006)

mel boschwitz said:


> $50.00 for 30lbs of kibble?? That's way out of my price range! Glad I feed raw! It's a lot cheaper!!


My thoughts exactly!
:lol:


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

The article is in a respected (very respected) peer reviewed scientific journal and the authors do not appear to have pet food affiliations.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11837.html

I do feed a kibble that has antibiotic free (and because they are US, hormone free) poultry as well as antibiotic free grass fed beef,lamb,and venison....(multiple varieties)

It does have grain (millet) but it does not have legumes to artificially pump up the protein numbers and millet is gluten free so I will accept that the 30-38% protein source is primarily from meat. 

As I expand my own sources for foods of this quality (including organic chicken which is NOT in the food) for myself, I hope to eventually get back to feeding raw.by acquiring butcher grind, and less desirable portions from local natural food processors 

...but think a good kibble with small amounts of carbs (which are needed for manufacturing) to be a better option for me at this point in time. Also figure 30# kibble equals about 100# of raw when you do the math. I used to get chicken leg quarters from Walmart or Aldi at bargain basement prices (better than what I could do for frames at the local poultry plant in 40# boxes) and figured I would have to do a heck of a lot better than that to feed raw.

The article does give me some comfort in saying - hey honest they really are a bit more of an omnivore than we thought...(but they still have no salivary amylases like we do...they are definitely not designed to eat much)


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## mel boschwitz (Apr 23, 2010)

Nancy mentions 30# kibble= 100# raw. I havent fed kibble in 15 years, so I dont remember how much I used to feed. Anyone know the approximate numbers for conversion? 

I feed my hard working 75# bloodhound approximately 2lbs/ day of meat. If I fed her a good quality kibble, how much would she need? She is very trim. (Not that I am switching, just curious). In the raw world, 1.5-2% of body weight/day is average for feeding. 

I typically pay $1.00/lb or less (chicken, turkey, pork, beef).

Just curious, not arguing.


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Between my two dogs, each 75# I go through about 27lbs of kibble in two weeks. About $120 per month. But the meat is of the varieties mentioned. Hormone free/antibiotic free/ and grass fed for all but the poultry.

One dog is young and athletic, the other a senior who eats about half what the younger dog eats. Now I am not at all discounting the value of a fresh raw diet, because actually I think some is lost in the cooking- but am considering that the quality of the meat used should be like for like for a fair comparison.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> The article is in a respected (very respected) peer reviewed scientific journal and the authors do not appear to have pet food affiliations.
> 
> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11837.html


Yes, absolutely. I even read up on each contributor's bio. The article is authoritative and "clean" of the kind of veiled authorship I see practiced by the HillsPet/Science Diet crowd (and some others).

About the kibble manufacturers:



Connie Sutherland said:


> *No, they didn't do the study .... just the interpretation posted. *
> 
> I expect to see loads of references to that study, though, and in fact already have. Look how fast _Petfood Industry_ got it into print. :lol:
> 
> ...









Nancy Jocoy said:


> .... they really are a bit more of an omnivore than we thought...(but they still have no salivary amylases like we do...they are definitely not designed to eat much) ....


'Zackly.

I have never called canids obligate carnivores. They are not. (Cats, for example, are). Canids are scavengers, and can survive on some really random diets. 

But their system is designed to flourish on a diet that's way over on the carnivore end of the omnivore scale.


JMO!





For me, one of the paper's most fascinating parts was the co-evolution aspect.


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## James Kotary (Nov 14, 2012)

That is every two weeks I spend on kibble $50 bucks for four dogs. My Bandit is a 120# Rottweiler and my female is 80# plus two ankle bitters a Shih Tzu and a Peek a Poo. So I can feed them raw cheaper? Please tell me how and I will switch immediately.


mel boschwitz said:


> $50.00 for 30lbs of kibble?? That's way out of my price range! Glad I feed raw! It's a lot cheaper!!


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## James Kotary (Nov 14, 2012)

Nutro only uses high quality meats of the animal. No heads, feet, intestines, bones, feathers, or fur are used. They actually go to the farms and qualify the ingredients before buying them. 
The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF) feeds the Natural Choice High Endurance formula that is 30/20 protein to fat ratio with a fiber content of 3.5%. 


Nancy Jocoy said:


> One dog is young and athletic, the other a senior who eats about half what the younger dog eats. Now I am not at all discounting the value of a fresh raw diet, because actually I think some is lost in the cooking- but am considering that the quality of the meat used should be like for like for a fair comparison.


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## Jill Lyden (May 25, 2011)

Of the first five ingredients listed in Nutro Grain Free dry food I see only one is a meat source - "turkey meal". That's meal not even just plain turkey. I don't think so.


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

I have a 60lb bouvier and I can feed her on raw or a homemade diet easy for $10 a week. My corgis would be even less. I've never been anti-carbohydrate. However, I've always been no corn, no wheat, no soy. I've fed just about every high end kibble on the market and bottom line have seen improved dogs on a raw/homemade diet. Dogs live and do fine on some kibbles but its a personal choice. There's junk kibble and there's decent kibble.



T


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

James Kotary said:


> Nutro only uses high quality meats of the animal. No heads, feet, intestines, bones, feathers, or fur are used. They actually go to the farms and qualify the ingredients before buying them.
> The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation (SDF) feeds the Natural Choice High Endurance formula that is 30/20 protein to fat ratio with a fiber content of 3.5%.


Right now I am feeding Nature's Logic and have been happy with the results and blood panels I am getting and the philosopy behind the food. I am actually not to keen on brown rice right now with the arsenic concerns.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

James Kotary said:


> That is every two weeks I spend on kibble $50 bucks for four dogs. My Bandit is a 120# Rottweiler and my female is 80# plus two ankle bitters a Shih Tzu and a Peek a Poo.* So I can feed them raw cheaper? Please tell me how and I will switch immediately.*




You're a commercial food rep and the only reason you don't feed raw is because of price?  

Just pickin' on ya, but you might to rephrase that next time. :lol:




Anyway ..... 

This is VERY rough and oversimplified, but it covers the main ideas:

The cost of raw is driven mainly by your per-pound cost of RMBs, and to a lesser extent, of your added MM.

So say your Rottie eats about 2.75 to 3 pounds a day. If you have tracked down a per-pound cost in the $1 range, then your dog's daily cost is around $3. If you're in the $2 range, of course, your cost doubles .... and so on.

Produce is negligible in most cases (celery tops, outside romaine leaves, summer-frozen zucchini guts, and most of the other vegetables I give are in the almost-zero price range; blueberries, OTOH, might run me a couple of bucks a week; I freeze them when they are plentiful and cheap, as I do zucchini guts and other seasonal-glut items).

Long story short, on the RMBs, some people hunt or know hunters, many people buy from restaurant supply houses, and so on.

I don't really consider the fish oil and the E to protect/support the PUFAs in oil supplements because I'd give both even if I fed kibble.

Again, this is very oversimplified, but it's roughly how it works.

MHO is that a good varied raw diet is about as expensive as a top-level kibble for many folks (maybe a little more). The people who have those enviable sources of $1 per pound or less RMBs and MM are really not the average raw feeder, IMHO. But averaging $1.50 per pound is common, I think.

In 2008, I did a survey of 136 raw-feeding folks across the country (on a webboard) for their per-pound costs, and under $1 was not uncommon at all. I very much doubt that this would hold true in 2013. :lol: (Of course, kibble too has increased in cost.)

It's also probably universal that the cost is higher as you start, because sources are developed as you start chatting up the butchers at ethnic markets and (in my case) a small locally-owned natural-food chain (where the butcher at the store near me keeps a baggy in his freezer for me of organic SmartChicken backs that he adds to when he does the common cut-up packages of 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs, 2 wings, and 2 breast-halves; I pay $1 a pound for this and am thrilled to pay it for that quality), talking to the fish sellers at the local farmers' market about what happens to the trimmings when they fillet their just-off-their-boat non-salmonid fish, asking the guy who sells his own small-flock lamb chops and so on where HIS trimmings go and how much I could pay him for them at 6 pm, when he'd rather sell them than pack them up, checking with the same farmers' market produce sellers about the boxes with outer leaves, stems, bruised items, and so on, at closing ...... 

There's so much more, like co-ops, hunters, etc.

But these sources take some effort and time to develop, usually, so the beginning per-pound is probably the highest per-pound, overall.




You probably have about 230 pounds' worth of dog, right? That would probably come to around 5 pounds a day of food if they are healthy, average-activity, etc. If you managed a $1/pound average, then your every-two-week cost would be $70 rather than the $50 you pay now. It's not really doable to compare the bulk of the ingredients kibble-to-raw without knowing which line/formula you're giving. And of course, there is no pound-for-pound comparison without a PITA dry-matter conversion. Your statement of a two-week cost (or a one-day cost, or anything like that) is the simplest and most useful basis for comparison.


Nutro Ultra, for example, is significantly above average in content. 

Nutro Max, though, such as Large Breed Adult Natural Chicken Meal & Rice Recipe, for example, is what I call crap-in-a-bag. The top ingredients are Chicken Meal, Ground Whole Wheat, Wheat Flour, Ground Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, and Rice Bran. Mostly grains and grain fractions, including wheat (represented heavily) and including _corn gluten._ 

Two forms of wheat precede the rice, which makes even the name of it a little slickety (IMO). It's more like "Chicken Meal & Wheat Flour, with Gluten to inflate the protein content." JMO.


So Nutro _Ultra_ can claim a better-than-most I.L. Nutro _Max _is pretty much junk, IMO, but I've seen much worse junk. There are kibbles whose entire first ingredients (the main recipe) are total junk. Purina Dog Chow, for example: whole corn, poultry _by-product_ meal, corn gluten meal, animal fat ....

Alpo, Kibbles n Bits, the whole Purina line, Ol' Roy, Pedigree, Hill's, Beneful ..... and many many dozens more ..... are based on stuff like grain fractions, often alcoholic beverage manufacturing waste, rancid restaurant Fry-O-Lator fat, some soy here and there, etc.





Jill, I'd rather give regular ol' "meat," too. For kibble, though, a named meat meal is really "meat without water," which means it has a couple hundred percent (two to three times) the actual meat that whole fresh meat does. "Chicken" (like other fresh meats) is mainly water. Unless whole named meats are three of the first four ingredients, then a named meat meal is needed to make the meat content moderate (as opposed to extremely low), in most cases.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

James Kotary said:


> Nutro only uses high quality meats of the animal. No heads, feet, intestines, bones, feathers, or fur are used.



Purina Dog Chow, OTOH, has a meal made of this stuff (and unnamed fat) as their only animal-product ingredients in their top 4** *ingredients. And people pay money for it! ](*,)


** *whole corn, poultry by-product meal, corn gluten meal, animal fat


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## Rachel M. Reams (Nov 29, 2012)

To add on to what Connie has said already, which is excellent information:

The best way to save money and feed raw is through buying in bulk and storing your food in a chest or upright freezer, either from a raw food co-op who contacts the slaughterhouses directly, or through an independent butcher, or from restaurant supply, etc. You will never come out ahead by trying to shop the grocery store, unless you get really lucky with some loss leader sales.

I have my Ridgeback (90lbs) and my Canaan Dog (40lbs), so collectively 130lbs of dog. Not as much as the two rotties, but still, not like I'm feeding ankle biters either. I have a friend with a Min Pin and her monthly food costs kill me, in the "I am so jealous" kind of way. In general, I'm feeding about 1.5 pounds of RMBs and 1.5 pounds of MM per day, so for a month we'll call it 45 pounds of each.

All the following math is back-of-envelope; my actual costs per month fluctuate depending on sales, etc.

My RMBs are generally always poultry, either chicken leg quarters or chicken backs, and usually duck backs. Leg quarters from a local butcher are 79 cents/pound normally, and chicken backs are 59 cents a pound. When they go on sale, it's usually the leg quarters and they drop to 59 cents a pound. Leg quarters and chicken backs I buy in 40 pound cases.

Duck frames I source through a raw food supplier out of New Jersey, and they run me about $1.35/pound, but they only come in 30 pound cases. I usually end up buying 1 case of chicken a month, and every few months I buy a case of duck, and I rotate that in every few days until I run out and need to buy a new case. 

MM is hard to find anywhere close to $1/pound around me, even less-desirable meats like heart or tongue. My usual source ends up being my raw food supplier, and I end up picking up beef and pork and turkey, and it runs me around $1.50-1.95/pound depending on what I buy and what they have on special from month to month. The supplier offers a few ground blends that include organs and veggies, and I always buy a little of that, just because I think the dogs appreciate the variety.

In any given month, I end up feeding a mix of chicken, duck, turkey, pork, and beef, and in the winter months I try to pick up venison trim and rib cages from hunters, which I can normally get for free. Not always, but usually. 

My estimated cost any given month is around $110 to feed both dogs. I do take a peek through all the grocery store circulars looking for sales -- last year one store ran a loss leader on leg quarters for 59 cents a pound, and I picked up 50 pounds after a discussion with the meat manager (the sale was normally limited to 10 pounds per customer). Pork shoulders and roasts can be found for $1-1.50/pound every few months, so I'll grab 30 pounds or so when that happens. But if I had to feed only from a grocery store? I'd go broke.


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## Steve Estrada (Mar 6, 2011)

Great dialogue & as always Connie is great resource but other than than platitudes I have to ask (embarrassingly) are you feeding M&M's, I couldn't do that as I'd be eating them (which I don't need) so what is MM? ](*,)


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## Jessica Kromer (Nov 12, 2009)

Steve Estrada said:


> Great dialogue & as always Connie is great resource but other than than platitudes I have to ask (embarrassingly) are you feeding M&M's, I couldn't do that as I'd be eating them (which I don't need) so what is MM? ](*,)


Muscle Meat 



James Kotary said:


> That is every two weeks I spend on kibble $50 bucks for four dogs. My Bandit is a 120# Rottweiler and my female is 80# plus two ankle bitters a Shih Tzu and a Peek a Poo. So I can feed them raw cheaper? Please tell me how and I will switch immediately.


I have a 120 lb Rott and two 70 lb labs, so 260 lbs worth of dogs. I feed all three on a touch over $100 a month... 

I get whole chicken from a restaurant supply company for about $.49 a pound. I supplement that with supermarket meats like pork, beef and other "stuff" for anywhere from $.69/lb to $.99/lb on sale (and there is always stuff on sale at one store or another). The most expensive thing I buy is tripe for $1.29/lb in bulk. And we hunt, so I often get free trimmings and organs, but I leave that out of my estimated monthly total. ;-) 

I have a chest freezer in the garage, so I do buy in bulk to cut costs, fyi.

Even if I bought only supermarket meat I would still be under $150/month for the same dogs and I have a lot more dog weight than you do...


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (about eating all the dog's M&Ms).....


RMBs still have the digestible bones inside. MM (in raw-speak) is boneless. 

The diet is based on RMBs; that's the most crucial part.


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## James Kotary (Nov 14, 2012)

Turkey meal is precooked before adding to the mix. If you add the meat and cook the food you lose protein and that should be lower on the ingredient list. If you precook and add the same amount you are adding 6X's the protein. So basically 1lb of turkey meal is richer in protein other wise lost through processing than turkey meat cooked through the food. 


Jill Lyden said:


> Of the first five ingredients listed in Nutro Grain Free dry food I see only one is a meat source - "turkey meal". That's meal not even just plain turkey. I don't think so.


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## Rachel M. Reams (Nov 29, 2012)

Prey model raw (which is what I use), abbreviated PMR, can be summed up in one of two ways:

80% muscle meat (boneless meat, ground or whole) -- MM
10% bone
10% organs (not including heart, which is a muscle, and half of this should be liver)

or

50% muscle meat
40% raw meaty bones (cuts of meat, with bone, that are intended to be consumed) -- RMB
10% organs (see above)

*These are two different ways of saying the same thing*, because the ideal raw meaty bone will be, well ... meaty. Chicken leg quarters, for instance, poultry backs (the part that's left of the bird after limbs, head, and breast is removed), poultry necks, pork neck bones, cuts of bone-in lamb, etc. The weight-bearing bones of large ruminants should be avoided, because they are extremely dense and are a risk for tooth breakage. My RR has a slab fracture off one carnassial because we gave him a beef marrow bone ... Raw meaty bones that are very bony, but not very meaty, should be compensated for with additional muscle meat. However, the ultimate guideline for how much bone your individual adult dog needs is his poop: they should be very firm, well formed, but not constipated or crumbly. When left in sunlight for a few hours, they should turn white and dry. If the dog has loose stools, feed more bone, which is itself a firming agent. If the dog has powder coming out of his butt ... feed less bone. (Puppies generally never need more bone -- juvenile dogs cannot regulate their uptake of calcium as adults do, and too much calcium is a bad thing in growing puppies ... but so is too little).

I am not very good at estimating how much bone is in a chicken leg quarter, or a chicken back, so I use the second equation rather than the first, but they are the same thing when all is said and done. All raw meaty bones must be fed raw. Poultry bones are pliable and safe to feed when raw, but become hard and prone to splintering when cooked. That's why it's a "raw" diet, because of the need for bone consumption (which is an important source of nutrients and fiber). There's no reason why you couldn't cook the muscle meat and organs, if you wanted to, but I figure why feed half of it raw and cook the rest? Far easier to just chuck raw stuff into their bowls.

Organs are any secreting organ: liver, kidney, pancreas, and so forth. Ruminant stomachs are generally referred to by tripe, and they are a large smooth muscle, not an organ. Heart, also, is a muscle and not an organ, for the purposes of a prey model raw diet. The preference is to feed "green" tripe: tripe that has been removed from the cow or lamb (or goat, I guess), and rinsed out, but not bleached. It stinks to high heaven, and the dogs go MAD for it, and it's very good for them to eat. I've never known a dog to turn their nose up to green tripe. It cannot be purchased from human food suppliers, because it's not approved for human consumption. Strictly pet feed. 

Half the amount fed in organs should be just liver, which is extremely nutrient dense, and the rest should be made up of other organs, as available to you. I would recommend feeding a small amount of liver daily, rather than making a large liver meal once a week. Liver is very rich, and feeding a large amount at a single sitting generally results in a night of the runs. Kidney is generally very easy for me to find, so my dogs eat kidney and liver; pancreas when and if I can get it, but I don't stress it when I can't, which is most of the time.

PMR food amounts are calculated based on the body weight of the adult dog. Generally speaking, you will feed between 2-3% of bodyweight daily, adjusting up or down as needed to maintain an ideal body composition. For puppies, you feed either 10% of their current weight, or 2-3% of the anticipated adult weight (which also *generally* works out to be the same amount), adjusting as necessary to maintain a slow, *lean* growth rate. 

Meat sources should include no fewer than four different animals (so ... pork, chicken, beef, turkey, as an example) and should rotate through different cuts of meat as much as possible. This is because different animals and different cuts contain varying percentages of essential amino acids; by building variety into the diet, we ensure that the animal's complete needs are met over time. Meals are not balanced, and do not need to be balanced, but the diet will balance itself out over time, as long as you are careful to maintain variety in the diet. In general I find that steaks are very expensive, but ground meat is very cheap ... so I feed the steaks to myself, the ground meats to my dogs. :-\"

Prey model raw does not use vegetables or starches, save what might come included with the green tripe (and is thus pre-digested). That's not to say I don't give my dogs some blueberries here and there, or a bite of cooked squash, etc, but I do not make a point of including vegetables in their diet. One of the ground blends I buy is 7% fruit and vegetable by volume, but I buy it because the dogs like the flavor (I suspect it's sweet to them), not because I think they need the vegetables. Other raw diet models DO include vegetables and grains, and more power to them. I personally don't make a point of including them.

Supplement (or not) as you desire, but most people add some form of supplementation. When I remember, which is not 100% of the time, I chuck in some fish oil and some vitamin E (if you use fish oil, you should also use vitamin E), and a scoop of Solid Gold's trace mineral green blend they sell as "Seameal." If I forget ... oh well. 

I give beef "knuckle" bones as recreational chewing items, and I give a raw chicken foot daily as a treat. Chicken feet are heavy in tendon and cartilage, making them a good natural source of glucosamine and chondroitin. 

Where people get into trouble with raw is from an incomplete understanding of the dog's needs: they feed just raw chicken breasts and rice, for instance, and then tell their vet that they're "feeding raw." Which then leads the vet community to assume that all raw diets are dangerously imbalanced. Taken as a whole, though, the whole thing is very loosey-goosey: if the dog is skinny, then feed more. If he's fat, feed less. If he's having loose poop, then feed more bone. If he's constipated, feed less. If you feed a lot of chicken this week, then feed less chicken next week. If you can't find heart this month, then just make sure you feed it next month. Just like we don't make sure every single meal we feed ourselves is balanced, there's no need to balance every individual meal for the dog. *Balance over time.*


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## James Kotary (Nov 14, 2012)

There has been a lot of concern with arsenic in rice because of the way it is grown. It is a light metal that leeches into the bogs where rice is grown. There are tests performed to make sure that it is not present in our sources. 


Nancy Jocoy said:


> Right now I am feeding Nature's Logic and have been happy with the results and blood panels I am getting and the philosopy behind the food. I am actually not to keen on brown rice right now with the arsenic concerns.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Very good recap, Rachel! 

But a canid left to himself is not going to eat only RMBs, muscle meat, and the secreting organs listed. He is going to devour small prey in its entirety. 

Quote:
_"The preference is to feed "green" tripe: tripe that has been removed from the cow or lamb (or goat, I guess) ..... it's very good for them to eat."
_

Not only is it very good for them to eat, but it supplies micronutrients that are "required" list items for canids. If it's NOT provided (and what percent of prey model feeders do provide green tripe?), then several micronutrients listed as "required" by the nutrition manuals (as well as AAFCO) are not supplied to the dog without adding produce (or,of course, a multi; I prefer to feed the food itself when I can). It's a small amount of produce, but it's not optional, IMO.

This is where the "prey model" sites shirk a bit on research of actual nutritional requirements.

The crucial calcium-to-phosphorus ratio is covered in every prey model diet I've seen, but not "what to do if you don't provide green tripe."

This, IMO, is a problem. So while b.a.r.f. may over-concentrate on produce, "prey model" (every site I've seen so far) misses the boat by a little bit.

All JMO!

This quote: _"Prey model raw does not use vegetables or starches, save what might come included with the green tripe (and is thus pre-digested). That's not to say I don't give my dogs some blueberries here and there, or a bite of cooked squash, etc, but *I do not make a point of including vegetables in their diet*"_ is fine IF you do give green tripe.

Prey model outlines, IMO, are deficient unless they make up for "no green tripe."


That is,


Connie Sutherland said:


> "Prey model," you may know, no matter what any web site may tell you, does not mean just clean cuts of meat in a plastic supermarket tray.
> 
> Wild canids eat something like a rodent in its entirety, contents of the gut included. In addition, as has been described here a few times, the Gray Wolf has often been observed eating young tender waterside ferns and ripe berries --- even in times of plentiful prey. This in addition to the contents of hares, birds, field mice, etc.
> 
> ...


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

QUOTE:_ "Where people get into trouble with raw is from an incomplete understanding of the dog's needs: they feed just raw chicken breasts and rice, for instance, and then tell their vet that they're "feeding raw."_

Yes indeed. Nothing about a raw, no-calcium, MM diet is superior to balanced kibble. And no-calcium is THE biggest problem with random "raw diets."

We've had thread after thread here about this, and have had had actual members learn the tragic way what we're talking about ..... when their growing puppies' bones start to fracture during normal play.

The more often this comes up, the better, IMO. THIS is enough right there to make a vet leery of owner-devised raw diets. 

JMO!


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

Jessica Kromer said:


> Muscle Meat
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Agreed. Maybe its geographic area. I buy out sales. The butchers are my pals. For 10 lbs of chicken leg quarters, the cheapest on sale has been $3.90. There's a store I go to that fluctuates $4.90--5.90. The highest is currently $7.48. My problem with raw though is our bouvs have had some sort of aversion to raw poultry. Khira will eat a leg quarter on day 1. Day 2, she'll leave it in her bowl. She is never finicky and lives to eat. Thor wouldn't touch them or raw turkey necks for that matter.

T


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

Connie Sutherland said:


> QUOTE:_ "Where people get into trouble with raw is from an incomplete understanding of the dog's needs: they feed just raw chicken breasts and rice, for instance, and then tell their vet that they're "feeding raw."_
> 
> Yes indeed. Nothing about a raw, no-calcium, MM diet is superior to balanced kibble. And no-calcium is THE biggest problem with random "raw diets."
> 
> ...


 
Agreed. My friend and I can't even discuss diet. She insists that the quacks on her raw feeding list say its fine to raise a growing large breed puppy on chicken parts not balanced in CA/Phos. I also think intact bitches are better with a good carbohydrate source.

T


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## Rachel M. Reams (Nov 29, 2012)

Connie, don't you want to come live next door to me and be my doggy neighbor, so we can sit on my patio and agree with each other on so many things?   



Connie Sutherland said:


> Not only is it very good for them to eat, but it supplies micronutrients that are "required" list items for canids. If it's NOT provided (and what *percent of prey model feeders do provide green tripe?*), then several micronutrients listed as "required" by the nutrition manuals (as well as AAFCO) are not supplied to the dog without adding produce (or,of course, a multi; I prefer to feed the food itself when I can). It's a small amount of produce, but it's not optional, IMO.


You know, that's a really good question. I've never seen a conversation about raw come up that didn't mention green tripe at some point; I've always kinda thought most people did feed it. It's one of those things that every one kinda agrees is complete awesomesauce and so everyone I personally know (not over the internet know) feeds it. We all agree it's gross, but the things we do for our dogs ...  It's also usually really inexpensive, so I think a lot of people include it for that reason as well.

Lew Olsen, in _Raw and Natural Nutrition for Dogs_ has this to say about vegetables:



> With all the focus over the last decade on eating your fruits and vegetables, not to mention the campaigns against meat, it can be difficult to re-orient yourself to the fact that dogs just can’t make use of the same foods that are so instrumental in keeping us healthy. Some of the things we know about human nutrition hold true for dogs (raw, unprocessed, fresh food is good for them) but some things are completely different (they need animal protein and fat, and can’t make much use of vegetables).
> 
> Like their ancient wolf ancestors, dogs are not designed to digest foods that need fermenting or further breaking down. Their bodies are designed for animal proteins and fat. These are thoroughly digested in the stomach and then proceed to the small intestine. There the essential amino acids are removed and broken down from the protein and the lipids from the fat. Additions of significant amounts of plant materials like grains, vegetables, fruit, and fiber simply cause gas and large, smelly stools. A few vegetables in the diet are acceptable, but they should only form a small part of their diet, ideally no more than twenty-five percent for most dogs. (See “Part II: Feeding Your Dog the Easy Way” for recipes and more information on feeding your pet.)
> 
> Olson, Lew (2010-09-07). Raw and Natural Nutrition for Dogs: The Definitive Guide to Homemade Meals (Kindle Locations 309-318). Random House Inc Clients. Kindle Edition.


This, of course, was written before the recent Swedish study ... 

Lew provides four sample raw daily meal plans; one includes 1/4 cup of ground broccoli, and another includes green tripe. She strongly believes that grinding (or blanching and then mashing) vegetables is necessary to break down the cell walls to make the nutrients available for the dog. She also is a big believer in supplementation, and recommends that a green blend be given daily with EPA fish oil and vitamin E. She also stresses that these are just *sample* plans, and like everything else, should be rotated for variety and completeness.

It's a pretty comprehensive book from a diet POV (includes chapters on cooked diets, diets for puppies, diets for pregnant and lactating bitches, diets for individuals with health issues, a chapter on deciphering kibble ingredient lists ...) and it's got an extensive list of sources for those who want to dig in to the real meat and bones of canine nutrition. (See what I did there?  )

A good friend of mine keeps a food scraps bowl going in her kitchen while she cooks; all day long anything that is safe to go to the dogs gets tossed in the bowl, and then divvied out to her gaggle of dogs with dinner. Mine get bites of whatever I'm eating -- a bite of tomato here, a bit of green stuff there ... 

I've often thought about ordering a tray of rodents from one of the reptile sourcing places online, but never actually gone through with it!


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## Rachel M. Reams (Nov 29, 2012)

Terrasita Cuffie said:


> Agreed. My friend and I can't even discuss diet. She insists that the quacks on her raw feeding list say its fine to raise a growing large breed puppy on chicken parts not balanced in CA/Phos. I also think intact bitches are better with a good carbohydrate source.
> 
> T


There's a certain corner of the PMR feeding community that over-emphasizes reliance on poultry (specifically chicken) that I find very disturbing. I get the sense that it's out of a desire to make transitioning to raw easier for people, but I think it gives neophytes the wrong idea about a raw diet, because it de-emphasizes the importance of variety in the diet. I am always careful to point out that wolves eat whatever they can catch, and there aren't vast herds of free roaming chickens as a primary prey source on the American Great Plains...


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Rachel M. Reams said:


> Connie, don't you want to come live next door to me and be my doggy neighbor, so we can sit on my patio and agree with each other on so many things?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Lew Olson and Mary Strauss, both of whom I've emailed with about special-diet-needs chronically ill dogs, are IMO the two best canine food writers on the 'net.

Lew's book is terrific and I recommend it all the time.

But no one agrees on everything, and I have two bones (see what I did there? :lol: ) of contention with them.

I don't consider some form of produce (in small amounts) to be optional, and I don't advocate feeding kibble with raw.

Both have been covered here over and over in the last 7 years, but I doubt that anyone's mind has been changed on either. :lol:


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

_"I've never seen a conversation about raw come up that didn't mention green tripe at some point; I've always kinda thought most people did feed it."_

Really? 

Lots of people talk about it, though. :lol: :lol:

I have a very dicey and unreliable supply of it myself, but I do make up for it as well as I can.


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## Rachel M. Reams (Nov 29, 2012)

Mary Strauss, when she was still involved in the K9 Nutrition mailing list, was a major factor in my switching to raw with my GSD mix way back in the day. The woman is fanatical about citing her sources, which I like VERY much!


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

_"Like their ancient wolf ancestors, dogs are not designed to digest foods that need fermenting or further breaking down. "_


Absolutely correct.

This is why b.a.r.f. folks process produce extensively (if they can't give green tripe or very young tender shoots and ripe berries).

In addition, as we've discussed extensively here recently) within a couple of weeks), the "gassy" produce like the cruciferous family are bad choices for any bloat-prone animal.

As you said, there's more to it than chicken breast and rice! 


There's a learning curve, yes, but it becomes pretty simple if we focus on replicating a true prey diet (not the RMBs, MM, and secreting organs alone, although that's most of the job!).


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Rachel M. Reams said:


> There's a certain corner of the PMR feeding community that over-emphasizes reliance on poultry (specifically chicken) that I find very disturbing. I get the sense that it's out of a desire to make transitioning to raw easier for people, but I think it gives neophytes the wrong idea about a raw diet, because it de-emphasizes the importance of variety in the diet. I am always careful to point out that wolves eat whatever they can catch, and there aren't vast herds of free roaming chickens as a primary prey source on the American Great Plains...


It's pretty hard for _many_ people to provide the right amount of digestible bone without poultry or rabbit RMBs (or a barn full of rodents).

But for me, relying heavily on chicken for digestible bones means that NONE of the added MM is chicken. 

Emphasis on poultry RMBs may well be triggered by fear of low- or no-calcium MM diets (like the infamous ground-beef diet).


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## Jill Lyden (May 25, 2011)

I'm so glad this conversation is going on like this. It's helping me cement my approach. I do feed tripe, I'm still in the "mainly chicken" part of the transition but have started to add in other protein sources in the form of RMBs. I am still also feeding some kibble (in separate meals at least 12 hours apart from feeding a raw meal) mainly because I'm not sure how I'll handle feeding raw on the road or when I have to kennel them when I occasionally have to travel for work. I really appreciate your guys' expertise and willingness to share it and your time like this. 

It's good to read that I'm not the only one having some difficulties estimating percentages of bone to muscle in a piece of meat. But it's good to see continually enforced that balance over time - variety in the diet is really the goal.


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

Prey model and emphasis on wild canids is highly over-rated--for me. We have nothing that says they necessarily need variety. I always look at my experience with the dogs I've owned as guidance. I have never changed protein sources or fed with the variety theory in mind. I have raised dogs that lived 13-15 years with little to no veterinary intervention and without health problems on one kibble and relatively one protein source. The same with raw and/or homemade. Wolves eat what they can get. It doesn't mean it was good for them or that it is a requirement for dogs. Wolves feed primarily on large mammals--when they can get it. If the environment doesn't contain it, they eat something else and they adapt. How the environment influences species evolution and adaptation is interesting. 

For me the #1 concern in dogs [and people for that matter] is the increasing prevalence of cancer. I think the food and water source plays a significant role in that. Profit drives the food industry. In the name of profit, they will do what they can get away with. The dominant producers will utilize contaminated sources as long as they can get away with it. Look what we've seen in the pet food industry. Just think if the public boycotted non made in America and non-organic and/or without contaminants. We might see food on the shelf without arsenic. Baby food woudln't contain arsenic or melamine. Nothing like dreaming of utopias. 


T


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Jill Lyden said:


> I'm so glad this conversation is going on like this. It's helping me cement my approach. I do feed tripe, I'm still in the "mainly chicken" part of the transition but have started to add in other protein sources in the form of RMBs. I am still also feeding some kibble (in separate meals at least 12 hours apart from feeding a raw meal) mainly because I'm not sure how I'll handle feeding raw on the road or when I have to kennel them when I occasionally have to travel for work. I really appreciate your guys' expertise and willingness to share it and your time like this.
> 
> It's good to read that I'm not the only one having some difficulties estimating percentages of bone to muscle in a piece of meat. But it's good to see continually enforced that balance over time - variety in the diet is really the goal.


Bone to muscle is fairly simple:


The adult dog's raw diet should be about a third to a half RMBs (digestible raw meaty bones, not recreational bones; raw meaty bones are soft enough for your dog to eat and digest completely).

A third to a half may sound a little vague, but here is a simple way to further define that: If your RMBs are bonier (like chicken backs and necks), you could make them a third of the adult dog's diet. If they are less bony and more meaty, like chicken quarters or thighs, they can be half.

This balance can certainly be over time, rather than meal by meal, but for someone looking for simplicity and very little figuring, making each meal a third to a half RMBs can streamline the food planning.

If the MM added to these RMBs are other meats, that's where the protein variety comes in, which provides different amino acid profiles.

This protein variety turns a possibly limiting amino acid source into a "eh, the other sources make it up" instead of a potential continuous nutritional issue.


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## Jessica Kromer (Nov 12, 2009)

Connie Sutherland said:


> ...(and what percent of prey model feeders do provide green tripe?)


Havok gets two pounds a week and the Labs each get one pound. It comes out to about 10% of their diets, give or take. :wink:


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## Jessica Kromer (Nov 12, 2009)

Jill Lyden said:


> ...I'm not sure how I'll handle feeding raw on the road or when I have to kennel them when I occasionally have to travel for work.


I travel with dogs regularly, and it is just as easy as feeding at home, but a bit more expensive. I feed ONLY supermarket meat when on the road. Just go in a local grocery store and buy a carton of quarters, a "picnic cut" or a half a chicken along with a pork chop or two, and my dog is happy. I am usually on the road for a week at a time, and I don't mind them going off their normal diet with organ and tripe for that short a period of time. Since I am out of my home environment, I don't always get the best deals, but for that short time it is no big deal. 

As for kenneling, I have not had an issue with them feeding my diet. I just prep each meal in advance in an individual Ziploc bag and freeze it. they can thaw it in advance or feed it frozen (I do this at home so they are used to it, gives them more of a "chew" and slows them down). If I lay the bags very flat before freezing, they stack well and I can even write the dogs name and meal (AM or PM and even the day) on the bag so it is fool proof. it is not much more complicated than scooping a specific brand of kibble for the kennel workers.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Jill Lyden said:


> I'm still in the "mainly chicken" part of the transition but have started to add in other protein sources in the form of RMBs.


How? 

If chicken is your RMBs (remember, this means raw meaty bones that the dog consumes and digests, NOT recreational bones), then how are you adding variety from other protein RMBs? I ask because I suspect that there's a mistake in terminology there. 

A common raw diet is poultry (or rabbit) RMBs with variety added in the form of MM from other animals.

In general, this is what I do, too. 

The MM I add is never more chicken, because I rely so heavily on chicken for the RMB part.


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## susan tuck (Mar 28, 2006)

Originally Posted by Connie Sutherland 
...(and what percent of prey model feeders do provide green tripe?

My 3 GSDs get a half pound of green tripe 6 mornings a week and on the 7th morning they get organ meats and heart. It's from all grass fed cattle (no feedlots), and is organic.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

*OH COME ON! * I know you guys do!

I meant _regular_ people!




:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:



How many "prey model" feeders across the country are also feeding green tripe?

Eleven? 


(OK, slight hyperbole. :lol: But take a guess. If it was a third, I'd be stunned and amazed.)


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## Jessica Kromer (Nov 12, 2009)

Hahaha!!! 

Curiously, many at my old club fed a diet very heavy in tripe. Greentripe.com has a product called Xcalibur. They feed it as an almost standalone diet. I take advantage of them buying hundreds (thousands?) of pounds of that stuff by throwing my paltry (when compared to their's) tripe and organ blend and still getting the bulk pricing :grin:

Eleven?!?! Hahaha! :lol:


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## Rachel M. Reams (Nov 29, 2012)

Connie, in my circle of dog friends, all the raw feeders also feed green tripe. In my greater circle of "people who show and I also know are raw feeders" I would have to ask to be certain, but I'm sure they all feed green tripe as well. I was serious when I said I've never had a conversation about raw where it didn't show up!

Jill, when we're traveling to shows or events, my dogs stay on raw; we take a cooler that's specifically for the dog food (and another one with our drinks and snacks and such). Pre-made ground blends make this really easy, one of those all-in-one meat, bone, organ, and veggie grinds. I pre-portion it into as many meals as I will need while we're on the road into ziplock bags, then flatten the bags and freeze. Then they go into the cooler, and are covered with ice.

The small dog food cooler will travel back and forth with us from show site to hotel room, so that I can use the hotel ice maker to refresh the ice every day, or if the room has a freezer that's large enough to hold the flattened bags, they go into the freezer. 

At home, I keep 15-20 pounds of at least one all-in-one blend on hand just so I have it available for travel. I've done it the other way too, by bringing my own RMB and MM supplies with us, but that takes up more room, which means a larger cooler is needed for the dog food. 

I have never kenneled my dogs, given what I know about how kennels are run when owners are not around, but I have had them pet-sit by people before, and I did the same thing of pre-portioning an all-in-one ground blend for while I was gone. As far as the pet sitter was concerned, it wasn't any different from feeding canned food: open tub of food, dump into bowl, walk away.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Rachel M. Reams said:


> Connie, in my circle of dog friends, all the raw feeders also feed green tripe. In my greater circle of "people who show and I also know are raw feeders" I would have to ask to be certain, but I'm sure they all feed green tripe as well. I was serious when I said I've never had a conversation about raw where it didn't show up!
> 
> Jill, when we're traveling to shows or events, my dogs stay on raw; we take a cooler that's specifically for the dog food (and another one with our drinks and snacks and such). Pre-made ground blends make this really easy, one of those all-in-one meat, bone, organ, and veggie grinds. I pre-portion it into as many meals as I will need while we're on the road into ziplock bags, then flatten the bags and freeze. Then they go into the cooler, and are covered with ice.
> 
> ...



I do raw traveling too, with THK and RMBs.

I see no one has any problem traveling with raw. 



My only caveat to a beginner is to get the dogs accustomed to the different food (if it's different) before you hit the road. Then, ROAD TRIP!  :-D  :grin: 

We need a smilie with a scarf blowing behind, like Snoopy.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

_"I was serious when I said I've never had a conversation about raw where it didn't show up!"_


Oh, me too! It's talked about lots! :lol:



And I'm thrilled that this discussion is happening, because the following, without this talk, is my whole problem with so-called prey model:


_"Prey model raw (which is what I use), abbreviated PMR, can be summed up in one of two ways:

80% muscle meat (boneless meat, ground or whole) -- MM
10% bone
10% organs (not including heart, which is a muscle, and half of this should be liver)

or

50% muscle meat
40% raw meaty bones (cuts of meat, with bone, that are intended to be consumed) -- RMB
10% organs (see above)"
_


*
Great discussion!
*



And now that you guys have insisted that all your prey-model friends feed green tripe regularly, could we go over again what the profound difference is between b.a.r.f. and "prey model"? (Since as far as I know, b.a.r.f. folks use green tripe in place of veggie glop when they have it.  )

I don't name what I feed, because it's neither b.a.r.f. nor what passes for prey model way too often (not here on this thread: in the rest of the world  )but its name would be "as close as I can reasonably get to a canid's natural diet in great prey conditions." 

I talk about what the bowl of food looks like because this, for me, gives a much better visual of the diet.


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## Rachel M. Reams (Nov 29, 2012)

Back in the day, Billinghurst's BARF products included cooked grains. Is that still the case? I believe BARF also uses a fairly high percentage of fruits and vegetables. I haven't looked at his products in many years, though, so take that with a healthy dose of sodium chloride.

PMR generally says "try to get as close as you can to the diet of a wild canid" with varying definitions for "as close as you can" and "diet of a wild canid." It spans everything from "no fruits and vegetables at all" all the way through my friend with her bowl of scraps that goes in with her MM and RMB (and I guess I'm somewhere in the middle with my ground blends and green tripe and a tomato here, a blackberry there, here have a broccoli floret ...) Generally speaking though, I'd hazard that besides the green tripe, most PMR dogs get very little in the way of fruits and vegetables.


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## susan tuck (Mar 28, 2006)

Connie Sutherland said:


> _
> I don't name what I feed, because it's neither b.a.r.f. nor what passes for prey model way too often (not here on this thread: in the rest of the world  )but its name would be "as close as I can reasonably get to a canid's natural diet in great prey conditions."
> 
> I talk about what the bowl of food looks like because this, for me, gives a much better visual of the diet._


_

I agree._


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Rachel M. Reams said:


> Back in the day, Billinghurst's BARF products included cooked grains. Is that still the case? I believe BARF also uses a fairly high percentage of fruits and vegetables. I haven't looked at his products in many years, though, so take that with a healthy dose of sodium chloride.
> 
> PMR generally says "try to get as close as you can to the diet of a wild canid" with varying definitions for "as close as you can" and "diet of a wild canid." It spans everything from "no fruits and vegetables at all" all the way through my friend with her bowl of scraps that goes in with her MM and RMB (and I guess I'm somewhere in the middle with my ground blends and green tripe and a tomato here, a blackberry there, here have a broccoli floret ...) Generally speaking though, I'd hazard that besides the green tripe, most PMR dogs get very little in the way of fruits and vegetables.


You mean Pitcairn? Even Pitcairn was dumbing down his own standards, trying to talk people into feeding real food, _even if_ they had to include some cooked grain for financial reasons. He was softening his stance in order to "gentle" owners into trying a return to real food rather than the kibble of the time (which was awful ..... ). The cooked grain Pitcairn talked about adding to real meat and bones was nothing compared to the junk that was kibble in the late 1950s and the 1960s. 

Also, I don't have a heart attack over healthy dogs (scavengers!) consuming some grain sometimes (although I don't feed grain). It's the daily grain-based diet that is the real nutritional evil for an animal designed to eat mainly "such things as muscle meat, bone, fat, organ meat and vegetable materials" (to quote Billinghurst).

Pitcairn, Lonsdale, and Billinghurst were pioneers who were ostracized and ridiculed. 

And Billinghurst, who is the name behind "BARF," is in no way a grain pusher. 

QUOTING Billinghurst from his BARF-World: _"The philosophy behind using BARF is that the diet a dog .... evolved to eat - over many millions of years of evolution - is the best way to feed it. ..... [not] a diet based on cooked grains, no matter how persuasive the advertising .... They are not what your dog was programed to eat during its long process of evolution. .... [The food should] contain the same balance and type of ingredients as consumed by those wild ancestors .... such things as muscle meat, bone, fat, organ meat and vegetable materials and other foods that will mimic what those wild ancestors ate."_


_
"I'd hazard that besides the green tripe, most PMR dogs get very little in the way of fruits and vegetables."_

But that's great! This presupposes green tripe as part of the diet! 

My problem is the passing (at best) reference to green tripe (or some kind of replication) on most of the "Prey Model" sites I've seen. 

It is not possible to meet the dog's micronutrient requirements, whether you get the list from AAFCO or any canine-nutrition handbook/manual, without green tripe or some kind of produce replication.* It is not possible to do it with "80% muscle meat (boneless meat, ground or whole), 10% bone, 10% organs (not including heart, which is a muscle, and half of this should be liver), or with 50% muscle meat, 40% raw meaty bones (cuts of meat, with bone, that are intended to be consumed), 10% organs."

You yourself feed green tripe and so do all your friends. Why isn't it in that recap? 

And this recap is what is presented as a prey model diet on many many web pages. If someone reads on, down a long way past all the reasons for prey model, they _might_ come to a passing mention of green tripe or well-mooshed produce.

This is my issue. 

This is why I refer to these sites' recommendations as "the so-called prey model diet."

It's true that mammals can survive and even flourish with micronutrient deficiencies. And the amount of produce needed is so small .... maybe that's why it is viewed as "optional" by so many raw feeders.

But why start with built-in deficiencies in the description of the diet? 

BTW, JMO, and my argument is not with your protocol (or that of anyone else here) ..... it's with what is so often described as "prey model."



* or a vit supplement, and I personally prefer to feed the real food


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## Jill Lyden (May 25, 2011)

So, for my 60lb young mal ill give a chicken back and small breast, one egg, some tripe though my supply is spotty right now, and some yogurt in one meal. Another might be a turkey leg which seems kinda meatier than a chicken back and it's fairly large. Ill give him half a can of sardines in water with one of his meals a couple times a week too. Some meals may be all mm- a chicken breast. And for recreational bones he gets oxtail or ribs. I aim for close to 2lbs a day and I've only recently started recreational bones with some meat attached.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Jill Lyden said:


> So, for my 60lb young mal ill give a chicken back and small breast, one egg, some tripe though my supply is spotty right now, and some yogurt in one meal. Another might be a turkey leg which seems kinda meatier than a chicken back and it's fairly large. Ill give him half a can of sardines in water with one of his meals a couple times a week too. Some meals may be all mm- a chicken breast. And for recreational bones he gets oxtail or ribs. I aim for close to 2lbs a day and I've only recently started recreational bones with some meat attached.


I know you'll get detailed advice, but more info is needed first:

This isn't too meaningful (to me anyway) because of the lack of weights or proportions. 

I don't know how that chicken breast stacks up against the RMBs, for example. And I'd much rather use a different meat for added non-RMB MM. 

I don't know what "some meals" means. 

And I also don't know (from "young Mal") if this is a growing dog. Is he?

A growing dog does not have the calcium wiggle-room that an adult has.

Are you including the eggshell? That could mean an 1800-mg calcium difference.

_"I aim for close to 2lbs a day" _means without recreational bones? (Recreational bones, or bones that are gnawed on and not consumed, really don't belong in the diet recap .... they confuse the issue, for me, because they're not really food, if we use the term the same way.  )


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## Jill Lyden (May 25, 2011)

Thanks - and I'm sorry to turn this into a "Help Jill feed her dogs" thread. But I'm not shy, I'll totally threadjack! O

60lb Mal - 2yr old male in training, fairly high energy needs to gain about 5lbs and is gaining on this regimen pretty steadily.

And I say "some meals" because I'm still feeding kibble sometimes once a day sometimes every other day is a kibble meal so roughly half the time they get a kibble/egg/yogurt - I guess I'm scared I'm not balancing this correctly. 

I totally leave out any recreational bones from the daily allowance of feed. Even when they start out kinda meaty. 

The chicken boneless chicken breast I feed with the back is maybe 1/3lb in weight
When it's a mainly MM meal the breast is much larger - 1lb or 1 1/4lb

Once a day or every other day I'll feed about 1/4 - 1/3lb of chicken giblets/hearts or beef liver but again, only just starting to vary the protein source

The chicken back weighs about 1 - 1 1/3lb or I give two smaller ones 

I am including the eggshell. 

The tripe is really a very small amount of the total meal as is the yogurt, maybe 1/2 cup in any one meal - given maybe 3x week.

I do have a 6mo old female mal on basically the same, fed eggs more often

I also have a 4yr old IG that is showing some amazing progress with her oral health - I basically cut off a piece of something I feed to the older dogs in roughly the same proportions to feed her. She won't eat eggshell though so I crack it for her and throw the eggshell away - thought of adding it to the 6mo old's bowl but worried I may overdo the calcium.

Sometimes it's chicken quarters or legs and not backs - but you get the gist. I imagine any one of these meals would eventually be fed twice a day or a bigger meal fed only once a day once I wean myself off of kibble. I need to stock up on organ meat and include more of it and get a better source of tripe and add more to the diet too.


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## Dave Colborn (Mar 25, 2009)

James Kotary said:


> That is every two weeks I spend on kibble $50 bucks for four dogs. My Bandit is a 120# Rottweiler and my female is 80# plus two ankle bitters a Shih Tzu and a Peek a Poo. So I can feed them raw cheaper? Please tell me how and I will switch immediately.


Go to your butcher during deer season. They'd be glad to give you the scraps. Throw a chicken or rabbit or two that you've raised in there every now and then and some kibble once in a while and it is WAY cheaper.


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## Steve Estrada (Mar 6, 2011)

Dave Colborn said:


> Go to your butcher during deer season. They'd be glad to give you the scraps. Throw a chicken or rabbit or two that you've raised in there every now and then and some kibble once in a while and it is WAY cheaper.


Personally it's not always about "cheaper", it's about better. Working for a company I'd think you'd get it for nothing or close too? I supplement with Orijin 5fish which runs about $84 & I get it abt $62, connections :grin: so it's abt [email protected]#
I feed it twice a wk the rest is raw. The benefits I see are long term health & for me cheaper isn't better. Honestly I sacrifice some for them. In fact they eat better than me. They get MM & I get M&M's #-o
Trying to respond to James screwed it up... Again


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## James Kotary (Nov 14, 2012)

Oh no I pay the same as every one. But worse I do get 20% off M&Ms! lol. 



Steve Estrada said:


> Personally it's not always about "cheaper", it's about better. Working for a company I'd think you'd get it for nothing or close too? I supplement with Orijin 5fish which runs about $84 & I get it abt $62, connections :grin: so it's abt [email protected]#
> I feed it twice a wk the rest is raw. The benefits I see are long term health & for me cheaper isn't better. Honestly I sacrifice some for them. In fact they eat better than me. They get MM & I get M&M's #-o
> Trying to respond to James screwed it up... Again


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## James Kotary (Nov 14, 2012)

I live in an area where you butcher your own deer. The only other butchers are store employees. I tried to work on a farm but I could not get over that they were food sources so I do not think I can raise a rabbit or chickens and then feed them to my dogs. I would get attached and they would become pets then I would have a farm with no income because I couldn't sell off the animals for food to make money...lol (Yes I cry even when one of my fish die!)


Dave Colborn said:


> Go to your butcher during deer season. They'd be glad to give you the scraps. Throw a chicken or rabbit or two that you've raised in there every now and then and some kibble once in a while and it is WAY cheaper.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

James Kotary said:


> But worse I do get 20% off M&Ms! lol.



I would be in trouble.

Not my favorite chocolate but 20% is 20%. :lol:


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## Jessica Kromer (Nov 12, 2009)

Connie Sutherland said:


> I would be in trouble.
> 
> Not my favorite chocolate but 20% is 20%. :lol:


I have to agree.... This could be very bad....


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## Jessica Kromer (Nov 12, 2009)

James Kotary said:


> I live in an area where you butcher your own deer. The only other butchers are store employees.


So... Buy from a restaurant supply or on sale...I told you how _I_ did it cheaper than you with a little effort... It is not as hard as some seem to make it. Didn't even include the free meat I get as a part of my monthly bill. I assumed that I got NO free meat (and I can get a lot if I ask for it ;-) )


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## Rachel M. Reams (Nov 29, 2012)

I was thinking about this thread this morning when I wrote out my blog post talking about what the dogs would eat this month, especially what Connie has been saying about vegetables. This month they'll have (among other things) a beef blend that is 20% green tripe, and a ground duck blend that is 7% fruit and vegetables, plus Solid Gold "Seameal" meatballs. That's pretty normal for the dogs, so even while I say I don't make a point of feeding vegetables, in reality they're getting more than I realized. Good to know!


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## susan tuck (Mar 28, 2006)

I've joined a raw feeding co-op, which really helps. For example, today I'm picking up a 50lb case of sardines. Each fish is whole and separately flash frozen, (for human consumption so no taxes), and they run an average of about 4 fish to a pound. The cost of the case is $80. ($1.60 per pound) plus a gas donation. All my dogs love the sardines and the collective buying power of the co-op puts the fish within my price range so I'm able to feed them a couple times a week.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

susan tuck said:


> I've joined a raw feeding co-op, which really helps. For example, today I'm picking up a 50lb case of sardines. Each fish is whole and separately flash frozen, (for human consumption so no taxes), and they run an average of about 4 fish to a pound. The cost of the case is $80. ($1.60 per pound) plus a gas donation. All my dogs love the sardines and the collective buying power of the co-op puts the fish within my price range so I'm able to feed them a couple times a week.


That is A W E S O M E ! 

Sardines are great, IMO, for variety for dogs, and I too don't know any dogs who don't love 'em.


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## Steve Estrada (Mar 6, 2011)

Wish I knew where to get them in So. Cal #-o


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## Jessica Kromer (Nov 12, 2009)

If you are willing to join a few groups, this link shows a number of raw Co-ops in California (as well as every other state) with links. Dog Aware - raw groups


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