All Natural Raw Diet - Page 4

Great response, Michele; it must be awesome to be you and to have everything all figured out.  Critical thinkers never stop challenging their conclusions.

Well, she has a point....there are no adequately documented BAD effects from feeding raw, certainly not more than tainted kibble that gives dogs kidney failure. 

Time Consuming-




Not time consuming-

Shelley, when I used to do that mixing thing, grinding and blending and chopping and measuring and pulping, washing dozens of bowls, plopping glop into loaf pans, wrapping, filling the freezer.....my god, most of it was on the walls. I WISH I had taken pictures!

And the time consuming part was them eating it. Poor dogs. They looked at me like my head was on fire.

PS. I keep going back and looking at those two photos...what a story they so eloquently tell!

I like to feed raw/barf. I've been feeding like this for 18 years, actually since I've been on my own. Had to prep and cook for someone. lol

I've got it down pretty good now. I meat prep 4 times a year each of chicken, beef, and veg prep through out the harvesting months. I smoke extra meats and rawhides often ... usually every 3rd or 4th time I fire up the smoke house for jerky.

I freeze the veg prep in gallon buckets. Dehydrate maybe 1/16 of all the meats as cubes and seal it in a large trash can for a kibble type food for travels. I used to grind the bones, whole eggs, garlic and brewers yeast... then calk and smoke em', but my grinder took a crap and I can't seem to find another like it. Darn it.

All the meats I prep for the dogs is fit for a king, I kill, prepare, cut, slice and package myself and you couldn't tell the difference of dog or human if you peeped in my freezers, there is no difference...  The veg prep buckets are in a freezer of their own.

I have never had a health problem with any of my dogs, no eye problems, no allergies, no nothing but old age related illness (teeth falling out, old, wobbly, hair loss and nutzd up, fur turned white) .... Zorro lived to 16 years, Spudzy 18, Michael 17, Dugan is 15, Granduer is 3, Sara is 4. I PTS Zorro because someone public camping one time complained to me my dog needs a vet because he's wobbling when he walks and loosing color. I decided the best thing I could do was put him to sleep, before I was charged with something or someone took him away from me. I often wonder wether he would still be with me if I didn't PTS.

Nowadays you can go to auction and buy 12 live chickens for about 6 dollars or 40 peeps for about the same .. so I just buy loads of peeps and hens for the hen house and pick from there. Beef I have. Turkeys and Deer are wild and seasonal hunts.

I made all my own baby-food for my son though too. I'm weird like that. Here's a picture of a chicken prep.

BE,
That is very interesting and that chicken looks good.  I buy a 40 # case of leg quarters at a time, costs about $23.  I also buy beef liver and heart by the case and chopmeat.  I puree broccoli, spinach, carrots and peas and freeze that.  I do use venison when I can get it also.  I feed my male 2 1/2 - 3lbs a day and my female about 1 1/4  - 1 1/2lbs.  I add the chicken quarters whole, skin removed, liver, heart and some chopmeat.  Chicken is probably 70%.  Once or twice a week I add the veggies in along with a raw egg (in the shell).  I also add yogurt every day, plain whole milk (4% fat yogurt, not lowfat).  I add fish oil, VIT C and E.  I will sometimes add fish and tripe whenever I can get it.  That's pretty much all I do.  I do freeze all the meat and only take out what I will use in a couple of days.  It thaws in the fridge.  It definitely helps to have a second fridge in the garage.  But it does take up some of the room for my beer.

Jim

BE, you are the QUEEN. Holy cow. If only I could give my dogs homegrown meats.
 

Jim,

You are a good shopper.  40 pounds for 23.00 - wow!

  Baby Pharaoh and his first encounter with whole pieces of chicken at eleven weeks old.

Michele

HI,
I,for my part will never go back to kibble. Only time when they get kibble is when on a trip, and then only high quality kibble.
What I can say is, since I feed raw my Vet bill decreased big time. Ear infections gone, skin problems gone,( I will leave it uo to you to decide, whether this is because of feeding raw, thing is, the change happened to my dogs, and I was there when it happened !) basicly the Vet see's us only for the yearly shots.
I admit, I have the luxory to order frozen meat, allready in portion. It contains beef of different bodyparts and very important, green tribe and is grated as meat for human consumption. That is all I feed. Once a week a whole egg, every now & then a complete turky neck. Pretty easy for me, and not timeconsuming at all, only thing, you have to remember to get it out of the freezer !! I useually order around 100 pounds at a time, and they deliver to my doorstep. And yes, it is cheaper than buying Canin Royal !

Anyways, just one little thing about our dogs eating choclate or grapes, yup you are right, it is harmfull to our dogs, BUT ONLY, if they eat vast amounts of it. No harm done if a GSD eats a Mars choclate bar ! In order to harm a GSD with choclate, the dog would have to eat around 3 pounds ! How is that gonna happen ? Same with grapes, no harm done as long as they dont get into a couple of pounds.

Annother thing is, our dogs still have the same amount of ripps, teeth and organs as their ancester, the Wolf. It makes sense to me, to therefore try to provide my dogs with the food that comes the closest to what a Wolf would consume in the wild.
Ulli