Raw feeding (dog) questions...

My rabbits are due to be bred, but i know I won't have the freezer space for all of them come processing time... I want to go ahead and get all 4 does bred, though, to keep things functioning and their reproductive organs healthy. I was talking to a new friend/acquaintance today after dog sitting her Great Pyr for an hour or so - (long story short the gate was open, dog was gone... she ran to check the shelter down the road while the kids played on the play ground figuring it was a shot in the dark. Came back with her dog! Yay! BUT she was already late for a doctor's appt. so I offered to keep her at the playground while she went. Sweetheart of a dog - totally in love). I know she believes in healthy, organic eating so I asked if she fed her raw. She said she would like to since she doesn't seem to like the kibbles anyway, but hasn't tried it yet. She was interested in some rabbit for her! So... what would be the best way to get her started for a dog that size (currently only 9 months, so still growing). Are 8 week olds enough, or do they need to be bigger? I remember Akanes post on her snake and the nutritional differences of animals depending on age, but since bones are pretty well formed by then maybe there's not much difference? How is it best to process them? I was reading the other recent thread about feeding raw and there are a variety of options... not sure which would be best for starting out? Whole, skinned, pieced, with or without certain organs, etc.???

This has probably been answered a number of times on here, but migraines are limiting my computer time so I figured i would just start something new...

When I was feeding all of my dogs raw using rabbit I would feed 6 - 8 week old rabbits. All I did was dispatch and then skin the rabbit. My dogs got the entire carcass, including head, minus the pelt.

That kept the 45 - 55 lb dogs fed for about 36 hours. If I could have raised the numbers I needed to feed them all I would have fed each dog about 4 a week.

However, many dogs that have not been fed raw before really don't know what to do with a carcass. So, cutting them up may be necessary for a while.

I fully endorse feeding organs and the head whenever possible.

There are a plethora of raw feeding websites and Facebook groups unfortunately they all have different ideas on the "ideal raw diet" and some are quite fanatical about it.

The most moderate group I've found is "raw feeding community" https://m.facebook.com/rawfeedingcommunity/ this group has files you can read to help understand the basics

How much you feed depends on age and weight and roughly a 9 month old large breed pup should be fed 3% to 5% of their body weight of a complete and balnced raw

Thanks for the info! I am going to go ahead and breed them... gives both of us about 3 months to research and decide on a game plan. I am going to pass along this information and let her decide what she wants to do for her. It looks like that facebook page will be helpful! I know she has FB so she could probably join to get more specific information as well. Thanks so much! Any other information is appreciated as well I figured it was a pretty open topic with a variety of answers, but am thankful to have at least a starting point...

Problem with great shepherds is that through the evolution they weren`t really accustomed to high quantity of meat and often their digestive tract doesn˙t do well with exclusevly meat diet (in fact, that goes for all dogs, but shepherds really stand out).

On the other hand, you can`t really go wrong with different sort of raw diet - whole prey, different kinds of BARF..Dog will like it all. The easiest in my opinion is whole prey model (80% meat, 10% bones, 10% organs in which there must be not more than 5% liver). Here there is no need to calculate if the dogs get all the vitamins and minerals he needs. Only rabbit diet is not reccommended since this is "plain" white meat, so she will need to add red, fatty meat. Starting with raw is not just tossing a rabbit in the bowl but it needs to be gradually, esspecially if the dog is only accustomed to kibbles. One front leg today - see how it goes, second frond leg the day after tommorow - see how it goes.. The organs are last on this list, because they often causes diarrhea (don˙t believe that when starting with raw it is ok for the dog to have diarrhea in the "cleaning the system" way, it is not true). If he wiil eat furry animals it is ok, my dog won˙t and if he accidentally does he then throws up furrballs, not fun at all :roll: I am not "fluent" in your lbs, so my 50kg dog eats 1,5kg meat per day - if we say that in rabbits, one whole rabbit per day. But he is a senior now, so 10% of bones don˙t ho well with him and he easily get constipated if feeding too much bones (note 1: all dogs are different and you can see in their feces what is the best for them). Don˙t feed the "carrying" bones (legs of a cow or a pig), because they are too hard.

It is very interesting to me that in whole prey model, dog should eat 2-4% of their ADULT body size per day, it doesn`t matter whether is 2 months old pup or 5 years old adult, the amount is in theory the same (note 2: all dogs are different ).

Oh, and keep it simple - you don˙t need to feed only raw, it is ok that one meal is raw and the other kibble, or one cooked and one raw. I feed one week kibble, second raw, third cooked, fourth mix of all.. Kibbles give you a manevour place so you don`t have to complicate with vitamin deficencies, because all of the basic needs are covered. Additional plus is also dog˙s stomach of steel, he can drink a bottle of oil or eat a 4 day old dead mouse and his stomach could handle it