Results: First week feeding raw.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Results: First week feeding raw.

    So far so good. Kane has gotten accustomed to eating chunks of meat and bone as opposed to his pellets Big Smile. One strange observation though. For the first five days, he was being fed chicken and he had loose stool for four of those days. Last 2 days I've been giving him red meat (Lamb shoulder/neck) and his poop was pebble sized, firm and completely odorless. Any input from the other raw feeders out there and what is a good, relatively inexpensive red meat source with a good meat to bone ratio. The lamb shoulder was about $1.30 a pound and he only consumes about 8-10oz. a day. Thank you all!

    • Gold Top Dog

     What you want to do is keep a diary for a month or so - possibly even two months - before deciding what he does best on and what he doesn't do well on.  Remember that you fed him the chicken while he was still adjusting to the new feeding method.  The gi has to develop a whole new system, if you will, to handle this kind of food and it can take up to three weeks total to make the change entirely.  I'd hate for you to reject raw down the road because you erroneously thought he could only handle red meat, and it's a cost prohibitive approach.

    The direct answer to your question:  I bring down the cost of feeding my dog who truly can't handle poultry, by feeding beef heart (about $1.19/lb here), ground beef by the case (around 99 cent a pound) and ground lamb that I can get from farm culls.  I combine this muscle meat with cuts of consumable bones that bring the total ratio up to where it's supposed to be.  Bones I use are pork ribs, pork neck, lamb neck, lamb and pork shank, pork feet, pork and lamb head, oxtails, and crosscut beef shank or humanely raised veal shank.

    • Gold Top Dog

    have you tried pork? I have a dog who can't handle raw chicken (pukes it up) and she eats a lot of pork. Pork necks and pork butts and pork feet all quite cheap.

    • Gold Top Dog

    That sounds ideal. What's a good meat to bone ratio for a meal?