Prey Model

 It seems to me the meaning has changed a lot in the last few years. The more popular the method gets, the more the ideals are starting to slide, in my opinion. Now it almost seems that anything goes, as long as you don't feed veggies.

To me, it simply means intact parts (Not ground of or cut up), and no plant matter. Just started mine last night.

RaceProfessor

To me, it simply means intact parts (Not ground of or cut up), and no plant matter. Just started mine last night.

See, and that's where big mistakes can be made, IMO.  Things would be soooo easy if I could just throw my dogs a chicken leg or two a day and be done with it, but they would not get everything they need from that.  That's not prey model, that's just raw feeding, and not balanced by itself like prey model should be.   A whole animal, as far as I know, should be completely balanced.  The bone:muscle:organ meat:fur etc ratios should be right on for optimal carnivorous nutrition.  And that's I guess why I'm asking.  Have I been wrong all this time?

 But how is that modeled after a prey animal, RaceProfessor?

From what I've read, an ideal prey model diet should include the entire carcass i.e. head, feet, fur, feathers, entrails, etc. Since I dont have access to whole carcasses I just feed him whole chickens with the head and internal organs intact.

 These threads may have what you're looking for; this one is by Becca; http://community.dog.com/forums/p/82424/644532.aspx#644532'

and this thread about raw prey model one has some posts by her;  http://community.dog.com/forums/p/27643/366499.aspx#366499

if you're not feeding the entire animal, fur brains innards eyeballs and all it's not prey model. Ground up or not doesn't matter.

mudpuppy

if you're not feeding the entire animal, fur brains innards eyeballs and all it's not prey model. Ground up or not doesn't matter.

Amen to that.

Here's something for consideration. Here's what a prey model diet can do for a canid.

That's a gray wolf. In rehab, brought in because of malnutrition. The prey model is not "perfected" by evolution. Canids have incredible reserves that allow to endure malnutrition for a long time. This wolf was one of a breeding pair brought in for medical rehab before being released. They go the wolves' numbers back up by feeding kibble. If I told ya'll which brand, you would just get angry - er.

ETA:

Don't worry about the lack of fur on the legs and the spotty fur elsewhere. This is during spring blow.

Prey model as most people practice:  a certain ratio of meat to bone plus organ meats, no supplementation or vegetable matter, nutrition "balanced" by as much variety as possible, over two to three weeks' time.

True prey model:   what predators would eat in the wild.  Ideally, species appropriate, entire carcass (so rabbit and small ruminants for canids, bird and rodents for cats).  In practice, the closet I've ever seen is people who feed mostly whole ground rabbit or poultry ($$$), and farmers who have fed this way for generations, throwing culls to their farm dogs.  Hunters get very close during hunting season, also.

What I've seen many people call "prey model" but isn't by any stretch of the imagination: so many pounds of whatever is cheapest that week, plus maybe organ meat and maybe not.  I say it's not even "prey model" because it's not even vaguely close to the ideals of prey model feeding - by no means would a wolf or coyote eat their fill of chicken quarters, pork leg picnic, and lamb shoulder in the wild.  Most predator crave organ meat, eat heads like they are candy (brain is delicious), and even will choose rabbit or large rodent feet over haunch.  Anyway, Monica Segal calls these people "meat and bone feeders" because she feels it's a more accurate description.

What I do: I call it modified prey model.  Prey model purists would probably hate I even call myself a prey model feeder, but it's an easily recognizable name for what I do - I say prey model and people know I don't feed those dogs any veggies, kibble, or major carbs.  I call it modified though because I've run the numbers through my nutrition value spreadsheet and to the best of my ability have added custom supplements to each dog's diet to make up deficiencies.  My prey model dogs need many more different supplements than my combo diet dogs, interestingly enough, though their diet is closer to what seems, intuitively, more "natural."

So why is that?  Ron is correct.  A "natural" diet is one adapted for one purpose:  survival and reproduction.  Since a canid can reproduce starting around a year old, that's a pretty low standard.

The rest of this I just posted on another board, for someone who had very much the same question:

First, dogs/canids are scavengers or opportunistic and have a fairly large tolerance for their nutritional needs. In other words, a canid can survive on a wide range of nutrition represented by the difference between six pounds of whole rabbit and one quarter of an elk leg - even survive and reproduce, which is the adaptive litmus test. Which brings us to the next point.

Our goal for our pets isn't survival, it's the best health possible. We consider not only the ability to reproduce, as nature does, as a measure of success, but also quality of life.

Prey model as most people I know do it, isn't truly up to the standards of feeding the entire animal. It's "close enough" - often missing vital pieces that provide significant quantities of things like zinc or selenium. Not to mention the fact that it's based on farm animals easily obtained in the grocery store, rather than game meats. Not all meat is created equal and feedlot raised meats are sadly low in many nutrients.

Hope this helps. 

Excellent info Brookcove, thank you much.

 You are quite welcome.  My concern is that as more people do this, and don't pay attention to at least the ideals of prey model (which include meat to bone ratios and organ amounts and types), that vets will begin to gather data on dogs that come on with nutritionally related problems, from people who feed in this random way.  What we don't need is a concrete reason for vets to discourage home prepared diets and raw feeding in particular.  I've often bemoaned the fact that pet food companies have spread the notion that you can't feed your dog yourself, without a PhD in small animal nutrition.  It would be a shame to prove them right!  The information for putting together a sensible diet for our pets is easy to find - and one can be very casual, or very precise about it.  The important thing is to have some system, rather than just "whatever."

by no means would a wolf or coyote eat their fill of chicken quarters, pork leg picnic, and lamb shoulder in the wild.

The word would in bold should read "could."  I meant to say, "By no means could a wolf or coyotes eat their fill of chicken quarters, etc, in the wild."  Of course if a wolf stumbled across a pork picnic just sitting out there he'd eat as much as he could (probably the whole thing, since Ben can eat one in two sittings).

Brookcove, can you share some info with me as what I should do for my 30lbs. boy? What supplements, what type of meat parts, etc. to keep his diet balanced and healthy. I don't really have access to a butcher so my choices are somewhat limited to the local supermarket. I've tried Rawdogranch.com but their site is down. Maybe I should go back to premade and supplement with some fresh RMB's.

brookcove

I call it modified though because I've run the numbers through my nutrition value spreadsheet and to the best of my ability have added custom supplements to each dog's diet to make up deficiencies. 

Would you be willing to share your spreadsheets?  I'd love to have something to kind of "go off of" in regards to making my own.  When I first read that you did that, I thought it was a great idea and I think I would benefit greatly from one.  I do my best to get everything in, but I just keep feeling like I could do better.  I still think that I'm doing better than dog food companies do, but that's not a very high standard, either.   

I, too, wish that I had access to more than just the grocery store stuff, but there just aren't really butchers around here, so I'm kind of stuck with what they have.  Rafe has been flourishing on his diet, though, and I'm very happy with that.  His breath is 100 x's better (I used to hate it when he would pant anywhere near me, but now I don't mind!), he looks better overall, and he's not itchy anymore (he used to get a pink tummy and get the itchies, but I haven't noticed it since a week or two after I switched him over).  So, I think I'm at least doing a decent job.  :)

The ratios to aim for are outlined here, as is a more complete discussion of prey model's ideals.  I might note that there is no scientific backing for several claims on this site, and in fact nutritional analysis shows that this statement is just plain incorrect: "supplements (which are unnecessary in a prey model diet because all requisite nutrients already exist in whole foods."  They may exist, but it's pretty clear that dogs don't benefit from nutrients that they don't eat, or don't eat in sufficient quantities.  This is a wishful thinking approach to nutrition.  But the ratio information is fine as a starting point.

If you don't have access to an extremely wide variety of "parts," or like me, feel uncomfortable relying on random parts to offer a complete nutritional profile for my dogs, you'll want to come up with a diet plan.  When you do this, you start with the ingredients you'll be able to obtain reliably, store easily, and that won't cost so much that you are discouraged from your plan.  If you wish to follow the ideals of prey model, or have to, as I must with Ben, these will include only meat, raw meaty bones, and organ meats and other animal offal. 

Next find out what your dog's nutritional requirements are.  I got my information (or rather recently updated it), from the new Monica Segal book Optimum Nutrition.  To start, I didn't worry about every single vitamin and mineral - I'll mention the reason in a second.  The biggies are balancing calcium and phosphorus and ensuring no overages (very easy to do with a prey model diet), the major antioxidants A, C, E (and selenium), the Bs, and the Big Three mineral trio: iron, zinc, copper.

Next figure out your diet, and the dog's needs, over a week's time.  This is a convenient time period because you can spread out various food items and calculate them all together, and the supplements are easy to obtain in doses that will work over a week's time.  You can also count extras easily like yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs, and feed these on just one day, or just one meal, or whatever.

Now the most tedious part, but once you've done it you've done it.  I use a spreadsheet but you can use a diary or whatever.  Figure out the nutritional value of each food item.  For prey modelers, MS's books have nutritional analysis for many meat and bone items.  For anything edible by humans, nutitriondata.com gives very complete information.   I standardize everything into 100 grams, and work from there.  So for anything I am likely to feed my dogs, I have the nutrition data for 100 grams, and then I figure out how much I need to feed over the week to provide the kcals I'm aiming for.  I don't worry about how it affects the nutritional balance yet.

Then I plug in the dog's weight and my spreadsheet figures out the imbalances.  There's a web site called BalanceIt that does something similar but I've always been a bit suspicious of whether, first, they use the updated NRC data, and second, the fact that they sell the very product that you'll need to balance your meals according to them.  Plus, it doesn't tell you when you aren't being sensible, like if you want to feed your dog 6 cups of rice and three ounces of ground pork and make up the difference with their supplements.  Anyway, I'm a control freak.  It's a weakness and I freely admit it.

Once you know where you are lacking, you can fiddle with the meats and see whether that helps (good if you have a calcium/phosphorus imbalance or excess), or you can start working on providing supplements.  I use human grade vitamins, good quality brands rather than Cosco or Walmart, and chelated minerals.  You'll want everything in capsule, powder, or pill form as you will grind/crush/break these and combine them for a week's worth of supplement.  Vitamin E and fatty acids wlll not be available in these forms, so I keep them seperate.  They are unstable anyway so best kept in a cool dark place until they are added to the dog's daily meal.

I feed two meals - one chopped muscle meat (heart is what I mainly use), tripe, and organ meat  - and a second meal of bones.  I put the supplements in the muscle meat meal and they disappear lickety split!

All right, let's say you are a Nervous Nellie like me or that you just don't want to go through all this.  Time to call in the experts.  There are a few veterinary nutritionists that are willing to eke out some time for you, and Monica Segal and Mordanna at Better Dog Care provide very through services where they will hold your hand every step of the way.  Mordanna in particular is extremely flexible about working with what you can obtain locally and the length you are willing to go to find obscure ingredientss (like for me, not so much - pass the chelated copper, please!). 

I went to all the trouble of developing my own system, however, in case I need to change anything as Mordanna is very busy (as I imagine Monica is also), and to facilitate the process of switching everyone, since I can only afford one consultation every couple months. It's also very cool to whip this out and show the vet if they question whether your approach is a good idea.