Describe your raw feeding pattern.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Describe your raw feeding pattern.

    I'm planning to start raw soon, have done the research, and have decided that I am going to go with a prey-model raw diet. Just curious to know what other raw feeders do. Do you feed a certain type of diet (Barf/Billinghurst/prey-model/other?)? What types of meat do you feed? Do you personally grind or feed whole meat and bone? Discuss!

    • Gold Top Dog

    I have a diet that I  have designed for each dog that is balanced with other fresh foods and supplements.  Each dog eats a variety of raw meaty bones and boneless meats, plus organ meat, over the course of a week.  It's the same every week.  If I make any major change (other than just one week or so), I'll recalculate the diet. 

    • Gold Top Dog
    I use the prey model diet and use Morigins (mainly), HPP, and hare-today (beef gullet, green tripe). they get fed randomly once a day. They get a marrow bone every other day. They have been on this diet since February '08. Its basically the same diet my agility instructors use for the past 13 years.
    • Gold Top Dog

     I bag up their meals for a week at a time.  Like Becca, I feed basically the same thing each week, varying things daily.  I feed mostly chicken and pork for rmb and beef for extra meat depending on what bones I get.  I use beef liver and tripe when I can get it.  They snack on chicken hearts and gizzards, but I think that is muscle meat rather than organ so I just use it sparingly.  When I can get it I toss in some deer meat, or other kinds of fowl than chicken. Oh and fish, salmon or sardines normally.  And frozen eggs as "Get out of my face treats".

    I have two crates in the freezer for the dogs.  I put Onyx' food in one, and Crusher's food in the other.  They eat once a day from the freezer and snackys and egg treats whenever I feel they deserve it.  They eat their meals frozen as well, so no thawing here.

    • Gold Top Dog

     I feed a prey model type diet.

     They get a variety of different meats. I try to prepare food for at least a week at a time. They get whole animals, meaty bones, ground meat, meat without bone, it doesn't really matter to them. 

    • Gold Top Dog

    I don't follow a particular model, although I guess it's closest to Billinghurst's. I whack together a minced meat and vegie mix on the go. I usually use pet grade chicken mince, which is ground chicken frames, and pet grade beef mince. For the vegies I put a bag of cheap mixed vegetables in the food processor usually with some garlic, extra peas, beans, carrots, or some sweet potato, or chinese leafy greens. Sometimes they get spinach. Sometimes some fruit. I vary it. It gets put in little boxes in the freezer and I get one out each week. I also add cottage cheese or yoghurt to the mix when I dish it up, and sometimes kelp powder and brewer's yeast. Normally I add some fish oil and Penny gets glucosamine.

    I'm feeding once a day at the moment as that's what the dogs seemed to want. So they get mince mix one day, then on the non-mince days they get chicken wings, lamb breast, or kangaroo tail. Sometimes I buy them roo shanks or lamb shanks or lamb forequarter pieces. If I see pork hocks I get them because they are Penny's favourite. I give them fish occasionally, but it's hard to get something small enough. They don't really like sardines, but if I can get small whiting they are into that somewhat. They are not wild about fish, though.

    Once a week they get an organ meal of liver and kidney. Sometimes some heart as well, although I guess that's muscle meat. Kivi has never been very keen on kidneys, but he eats them anyway.

    Kivi gets a dried pig's ear if he seems to need something to chew. I gave him part of a dried pig trotter once and he got a bone wedged between the top rows of teeth. He was very distressed and it was in there pretty tight. That was the first and last time I gave him a dried bone.

    • Bronze

    I feed a prey model type diet.

     Chicken: WHOLE CHICKENS. Buying a whole chicken on sale and cutting it up into appropiate sizes for your dog is a GREAT money saver. I also give them chicken feet and necks. Oh and of course- eggs! They love raw eggs.

    Beef: Ground organ blend. Green tripe. Marrow bones. Knuckle bones. Rib bones. Most beef bones are just for recreational purposes, since they're so hard and big.

    Pork- Liver (I can get it super cheap, so sometimes I suck it up and feed the whole organ). Ribs. Necks. I dont feed a huge amount of pork.

    Fish- Canned salmon and sardines. Salmon oil. Tilapia fillets.

    Turkey- Necks. Quarters, if I find them on sale.

    I don't feed ground meats much. The only thing I buy pre-ground is the beef organ mix and green tripe I buy online. It's much easy for me (and the dogs), because it already has the heart, liver, kidneys, lung, gullet and trachea incorporated and I don't have to deal with cutting up messy organs. Same goes with the green tripe.

    • Gold Top Dog

    Im not sure if i follow a certin type of raw diet, but i guess i'd say that i feed mainly BARF. I get whole prey whenever its available. My ferrets are on raw too, and they get live mice 1-2 times a week. Bailey doesnt get live prey but i give him whole chickens/turkey which he loves. Im trying to find somewhere to get whole prey for him, that i can afford. So for right now he just gets bones and raw meat. Chicken & turkey (whole, or with sides of heart/liver organ meat) beef ribs, beef marrow bones, beef liver, beef heart, lamb ribs, pork ribs, pig feet, pork hocks, goat, salmon, & raw eggs. Im hoping to get some whole rabbits to give to him, but they're expencive and usually only come in bulk...