What’s 4 Dinner Doggie - Page 3

Raw grinds are basically like hamburger meat with everything mixed in. The kind I buy is intended to be a complete balanced diet with at least 2 kinds of meat(right now its beef and salmon), green tripe, egg, all mixed together so you just weight it and feed. Feeding one dog the Titan brand is not too bad, It's about $60 for 40 lbs.

I've always also given Springtime Inc.'s Longevity supplement that includes Glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM, some other stuff. Recently also added Tumeric with ginger since she had back surgery, supposed to help with arthritis and inflammation.  Also make bone broth in the slow cooker, I leave the fat and meat that falls off the bones in it and give a couple scoops in every meal.  

 

Alberta~ Yes, getting a good meal prep routine is essential lol ! My first attempt today was a disaster 😩,,,,I imagine I as go I will get a more organized program down. You mentioned you get green tripe in a can? Is that from the grocery store? I didn’t see anything like that today while I was there.

8lu3~ “with the fur”,,,,😮 “If she wants more geeens she can help herself to the grass outside”..lol that was funny! You have an interesting menu for sure! 😊

Koots~ I actually went out today and bought some premade raw at the pet store. It was a bit pricey, but it’s nice to have on hand. It is much more economical for me to make my own, but what I found today is it can be time consuming !!

Nan~ I researched the bone meal a tiny bit yesterday because it seemed like a really good option. What I saw was basically making sure the ratio of calcium isn’t too high. I’m going to revisit researching it a bit more when I get the time. I have a Whole Foods store right down the road and I was thinking about stopping to see what was available because the pet stores don’t seem to sell it.

Jessi~ About the bones !! lol I just can’t and I’m sure the likelyhood that my concerns would be realized are slim, but I just can’t !!

Thanks for the info on the bone meal that’s good to know! Organic grass fed butter! Good info because most of the ground meat in the chubs at the grocery store are very lean meats!

I am laughing thinking of the craziness that was going on in my kitchen earlier today !! My cutting board looked NOTHING like yours did !! It was not a pretty site, but it’s a work in progress I suppose 😬...

And let me add that your male is very handsome and is very well muscle !! I’m quite impressed.

Mrdarcy & Jesse~ The difference is that when a coyote, a wolf or a wild dog has a bad run-in with a bone it lays down and dies and no one cares!

In my case I’ll be sick with heartache over my dog, and my pocket book😩 !!!! It’s just not worth that in my opinion 

I’m investing in a grinder ASAP! 

😊

 

Astro~ bone broth! Bought some today in the frozen section of the grocery store for $7.00 only to find it has onion listed on the ingredients !!! I’m going to have to make my own!

I vowed to never feed any of my dogs/cats kibble a while ago.

I like to change up what I feed. Variety is the spice of life. You don't have to worry about every meal being "100% complete". Over the course of a week with variety you can usually cover all the bases.

Right now I am using the Titan grinds. There is ground up bone in there along with muscle meat, organ and tripe. No fruits or veggies.

You can add your own protein source to premixes. The Honest Kitchen and Sojos are two examples. There are others out there. I have never personally used a premix. As a starter raw feeder it may be easier to begin this way and then as you get better at it you may choose to do it all on your own.

I use freeze dried raw foods when I go camping.

Hope you have a big freezer. Makes things a lot easier.

ZweigGSD~ I found a brand called Instinct Raw and it too has the ground up bones! I literally filled the whole bottom of the freezer and thought to myself, I need a bigger one!😮

So today was my first rodeo !
I bought 8 lbs of Instinct Raw Chicken which wasn’t cheap, but had 95% meat and a 5% fruit/veggie ~
5 cans of pink salmon
4 lbs of ground turkey
I small bag of frozen broccoli 1//2 bag
1 small bag pea/carrots 1/2 bag
I can pumpkin
Places it all into single serving baggies to freeze!
Whole milk Yogurt to dress each serving!

It cost about $80 and it looks like it’s enough for about 21 days.

And it looked nowhere near as appetizing as Jessi’s !! 😆

Good on you Ruger!
If your dogs aren’t used to raw, you might get some soft or runny poops at first.

Once you are feeding raw, always check the poops... super important! If they are too soft, add more bone and if too hard, add more organ meat.

ZweiGSD is correct...you dont have to feed everything need all the time...it can be spread out over a week. But you will really need the right configuration over time. For example I dont see any organs in your mix. You have to add in rotation liver, kidney, pancreas, spleen, tripe (not white bleached tripe...only fresh green tripe or frozen), lung...etc...(add: I just saw you mixed with Instincts Chicken Formula...I guess that has organs)

You can feed raw chicken backs without fear. The dogs will chomp on them about 3-4 times and swallow. It’s what all dogs do. The chicken frames are from very young birds and have soft small bones that do not splinter. Don’t use chicken legs, as that is the bone you are probably worried about.

I don’t prep any food. It is WAY too much trouble to prep and portion it into feeding size bags to freeze. Years ago I tried it...it is a nightmare.

I have a plastic tub in the icebox that I fill with about 2-3 days worth of frozen meat/organs/bone packaged in the Supermarkt package still. It takes about 24 to thaw enough to work with it, so I just pull out the packs and use what I need for each meal, making sure it is all gone in max. 3 days. Always adding more packs as I need them, knowing they need 24 hours to thaw enough. I don’t give them frozen chunks...I know some do, but I don’t. I always have Vegis at home in the bin anyway, and sardines in water in the can. The vegis go into the magic bullet blender and take literally 2 minutes to make. If you have home grown eggs, you can just throw them (washed) into the bullet whole, the shell and all, for calcium. Since I’m not totally anti carb...maybe once every 7 or 10 days I will make a small serving of either oatmeal or buckwheat, or some german dark bread or steamed sweet potatoes to put into the food as well.

If you have local deer from neighbors hunted and killed, great...but always freeze for about 3 weeks first to kill pathogens. Same with fish. There are online shops that sell whole frozen rabbits as well. Many feed the rabbit with fur, as they believe the fur cleans out the colon and acts a roughage. I haven’t gone that far and feed them whole rabbits, my heart goes out to the critters. Silly, as that is nature. I would love to find more goat....I think goat is excellent, but I can’t find it around here.
I do get pigs ears, and they are a favorite chew snack for the dogs.

The store bought premixed raw is great for the alternative proteins you cant find like lamb, rabbit or kangaroo whatever..to use about once a week or so....but, if you use it all the time, you will quickly be shocked at the expense to feed a german shepherd.

I could write more, but I’m always concerned this PDB editor will conk out on me, as it sometimes does...and everything is gone. So I will post this now, just in case.
 

PS: carefull with ground turkey as 99% of it is seasoned and has sodium and rosemary. It’s on the small print on the packaging. Some dogs do not do well on the rosemary added to the turkey during production. I think they add rosemary because ground turkey has a very gamey smell, to try to disguise it...but not really sure as I never googled it to find out why exactly.
Also, any ground meat has a higher chance of bacterial contamination than large cuts of meat. For that reason, I’m not fond of it. I always wash the larger cuts of meat before cutting them up. I have given them ground turkey very very rarely, when I’m out of other stuff.

Now that everyone’s eyes are glazed over...I’ll end for now.

Jessi~ Wow, such a good post with some really good tips! I appreciate all the information you’re willing to type! 😊

I wasn’t sure about the rosemary either when I read it on the package, but then I recall seeing it in the ingredients listed on some type of dog food something or other. Here is an interesting bit of infortmation.

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/is-rosemary-good-for-dogs/

I will definitely lean towards leaving more of the meat chunked rather than chubs ,,,I am getting grinder and a blender ASAP! I would
much rather make my own ground meat then buy store bought and also the very important benefit of being able to incoperate the bones too!

My parents live in the country and have many Amish neighbors. They will sell you just about anything you ask. I am able to take advantage of fresh eggs and probably just about any other type of farm animal parts😮😩🤪,,,, I am a whimp when it comes to this eating animals thing ,,,I can assure you Damien will never get a taste of bunny fur under my watch !!!

This green tripe remains a bit of a mystery.
All they had at the store was white! I went to Walmart yesterday because I needed a bilzllion other things, so I will check the local grocery store which has a very nice variety of meats and such as well as the Whole Food store down the road. We have a huge West Side market minutes for our home right in the major city here too! I suppose as I think about it I have a lot of options for resource!
It’s the creative mind I am lacking in 😕...

Sardines is a good suggestions and what about other caned fish ? Do you have any opinions on other types? I just assume that salmon is the best as far as fish goes?