Raw dog food

[oxymoron02]

I checked the tags, and there were a lot of comments in posts about a raw dog comm that no longer exists. I'm looking for recipes, and general guidance. Anyone have any recommendations for me? Websites preferred, but books are good too. My preference is to keep cost down by mixing our own, but recommendations for raw food I can purchase are

Comments

[leeneh]

I have no ideas when it comes to raw food, but living with both cat and dog, I know a bit about feeding them both, and keeping them from stealing each other's food

[shalimar_98]

rawdogranch.com was what I used for a lot of my early guidance when I was feeding raw. Currently working on getting the cats to go raw as the number of recalls on kibble make me nervous.

If I recall raw becomes almost the same diet for cats as for dogs. The taurine exists in the raw meat but gets lost in processing which is why kibble adds it back into the cat food.

Good luck.

[devious_angel3]

I have been feeding raw for a little over three years now and once you work out what portion sizes your dog needs it becomes easier than buying kibble. What you want is an 80-10-10 mix. 80%meat 10%bone and 10%organ. For the purpose of feeding raw heart meat counts as regular meat not organ. You want 3 different types of meat to be worked into their diet, but it doesn't have to be feed at each meal. My dogs get fowl, beef, and pig within the week.
To work out the amount that your dog would need per day take 2% of their ideal body weight (you may have to tweak this number a bit after a couple of weeks if they are gaining to much or losing to much weight) Then you break it up into the 80-10-10 amount. So as an example my dogs get a chicken leg quarter each plus about a 1/4 of a pound of organ meat or heart.

It is a lot of information to take in at one time, but if you have any questions please feel free to pm me.

[devious_angel3]

Also leaving the bone intact will help with keeping your animals from getting tooth decay. As long as you are using uncooked non weight bearing bones is totally fine for your pets. You just can't let them chew on things like leg bones of large animals. Ribs are a great bone to let them have.

[amazonvera]

I liked Dr. Pitcairn's stuff. He has a website, but you can get all of the information in his book, which also has a bunch of natural remedies and good general health info. Some of his dog recipes involve grains, but I think some don't and that he offers conversion info for the others. The cat recipes are different since they have different nutritional needs, but I think you could do a lot of exactly what you're describing, i.e. mixing the meat and bone meal/eggshell powder and other stuff and then dividing.

[sonya_08]

I always recommend balanceit.com to pet owners because it allows a lot of customization, you put in the pet's weight and age and any special conditions and it gives you recipes. They give both recipes using the supplements they sell and using OTC supplements. However, I am not 100% sure if they have raw diets or only cooked ones.