couple of questions on feeding dogs (partially) raw

[JessiL]

Hi folks.

I've been through a few years' worth of old posts on the subject of feeding dogs raw diets, and have learned quite a lot. But I have a few specific questions/issues that I hoped to get some good advice on.

First, if I were to start feeding raw, I think I'd start by just adding raw rabbit to my dogs' kibble (they currently get Costco's grain-free kibble or Taste of the Wild if I haven't made it to Costco recently, sometimes supplemented with a little grain-free canned food or a splash of raw milk or its derivatives). We don't keep enough rabbits to be able to feed our 70 pound spinone (Italian wire-haired pointer, an avid hunter who burns a lot of calories) and 50 pound red Queensland heeler, and I suspect I wouldn't have to worry as much about vitamins and minerals if at least some of their food is commercial. My idea is that I'd give everything that I don't keep for our use, such as heads, feet, tails, guts, and rib cage/spine/pelvis after parting out, to the pups.

With that sort of strategy, does anyone have any tips on how to actually do this without spending a fortune on ziploc bags or other materials to keep the portions small enough to thaw reasonable amounts at any one time? We tend to breed so that we butcher in batches of a dozen to two dozen rabbits, and so will end up with large buckets of extras. And would I want to give the dogs a little bit of everything at each raw feeding, or could I serve guts one day, heads the next, feet the next, etc.?

I do already give them frames after deboning, and occasionally give them the good organs like kidneys and livers if I can't finish them fast enough before they spoil, but never have offered guts. The spinone is surprisingly slow at accepting new foods - any tips for introducing the weird stuff? It's embarrassing when strangers want to offer him a dog biscuit or something like that - if it's a type he doesn't know, he'll take it, drop it and sniff at it suspiciously like he thinks he's going to be poisoned, and more often than not just leaves it behind. At least I'm pretty sure the heeler has never found a "food" he doesn't like. He will attempt to eat cans or plastic bags that smell like food, and I'm convinced that if I keeled over in the house, he'd barely wait for my body to cool before starting to gnaw on it!

Finally, any thoughts or tips on how to get the hubby to approve this sort of thing? He is surprisingly resistant to the idea of raw feeding, mostly because of the thought that it's unsanitary. The dogs are house dogs, and we live in northern Nevada where we have serious cold seasons, so it wouldn't be very practical to put them outside for their meals. But he is at least also bothered by our current "waste" of much of these rabbit byproducts. Some of it we give to the chickens, but they can't keep up with the remnants from butchering more than three to four rabbits at a time.

Thanks in advance for sharing your collective wisdom!

 

[Celice]

my dogs get a rabbit about once every 2 weeks (maybe) and I just skin the rabbits and give them the carcass. the dogs do a good job of only eating what they want, any wast I give to the chickens but most of the time they are out of luck. the dogs do a good job of eating everything.

I never had any problems with my family not liking it. They are mostly on the same page I am, it's better for the dogs then any of the commercial dog food. (they often bring up their own deer that they find, who knows where, and chew on that) you can try to give it too them frozen and see how that works.

it could be size too my dogs are about 90-100 lb.

 

[akane]

All the excess parts you don't use will not make a balanced diet. It would be fine as a supplement to kibble. If you want to feed a significant amount of raw the ratios usually followed are 80% muscle meat, connective tissue, and fat, 10% EDIBLE bone, 5% liver, 5% other organ meat. Organ meat for raw feeding purposes is not the same definition. Heart and intestines are muscle meat. Lungs and kidneys are organ meat. Basically anything that can contract and move is muscle meat and anything that is passive filtering or excreting is organ. You don't need it to balance over a day. You don't even need to balance it over just one week for an adult dog. We were more careful with a growing puppy. Otherwise we feed what is convenient at that time and I've always just had this ability to keep track of what's going into an animal's diet over time. You'll also notice what is and isn't disappearing in the freezer. Also if you are feeding lots of raw you should feed multiple types of protein. Especially with rabbit. I found over about 60% rabbit in the diet they would start having skin and coat problems from the lack of fats.

The most space effective storage is to freeze in portions. Lay out your portions on freezer paper (some will probably permanently stick to the food) or a cookie sheet you can fit in your freezer. When they freeze scrape them off, shove them in a bag together (I often just use grocery bags cause dogs don't care if it's freezer burnt), and do another round. I've tried all sorts of ways to keep things from freezing together without tons of individual packages and I haven't found something that really works to freeze it all at once.

Getting a dog to eat random parts and straight organ meat can be difficult. Difficult to the point I gave up. I freeze the organs in the chest cavity and feed the whole thing frozen or I puree it and mix with ground meat to get it in the dogs. I don't feed head, feet, pelt (feathers in the case of poultry), intestines... because they just make a mess. Other people do not have that problem and their dogs crunch anything and everything. We just feed on fleece blankets over the wood floor unless they are having issues with each other and someone wants to run off with their food. Then we send one or all to their crates to eat. Fleece wicks liquids down in to the fabric and withstands washing including on very hot settings quite well. It's also real cheap off the bolt. We just get 2 or 3 yards cut with no finished edges. Sometimes it does eventually pill too much but we are talking after years of use and hot washes that we often add vinegar to.

 

[Zass]

I don't feed stomach or intestine because I find it gross. Aside from that everything goes.

My own are more fussy about fur. Maybe because I tan pelts, I think they learned somewhere that things with fur on are untouchable. They do crunch up skinned heads like candy though.

 

[HendricksHearth]

Yay about feeding raw! Before I talk more about it, let me just share a story about one of the many reasons I love it. My dog was on kibble again because I hadn't had any litters and my local raw source closed. In June he suddenly started coughing one Saturday night and breathing fast. At the emergency vet he was diagnosed with bronchitis and given an antibiotic and allergy medicine. I knew that it wasn't bronchitis and long story short, we ended up at a canine cardiologist by the teaching hospital an hour away and my dog was diagnosed with DCM and heart failure. He was given IV diuretics and other stuff. Once stable, he was sent home with a mountain of medicine. He was much better, but started declining again within weeks and stopped eating his kibble. Mind you, even when feeding kibble, we go with top of the line lamb-based food without fillers. We started with quality canned food mixed in until he wouldn't eat that. Then basically anything soft from my fridge with lower sodium until he was completely just done with kibble. He was literally wasting away before my eyes, which the specialist said was due to the heart failure. We were in and out of the vet office and in August, the cardiologist said my dog would live MAYBE a maximum of 2 more weeks. I started cooking him a home-based diet with rice, a variety of cooked meats with the fat drained, etc. He ate that for a while and then he stopped eating again. The vet ordered an appetite stimulant, but my dog had that look in his eyes every time I had to pill him and I knew the end was upon us. I had fed raw before as I said, but he was so compromised and ill that I worried about the bacteria in meat from the grocery store previously. This time around I said screw it (because what was the worst that could happen? he was already dying) and went to the grocery store. I picked up raw ground chuck, went home and dumped it in his bowl. He immediately gobbled it up and looked for more. I repeated later that day. After a few days of this, we discontinued the appetite stimulant and he just kept eating everything raw I would give him. I added organ meat, tripe, etc. and he was ravenous for it.

So the short version of this is that he was supposed to be dead in August. He is still curled up at my feet right now in December. The vet can't believe it. He maxed out on all of his heart medications back in August, so no other variables besides the raw diet have changed and he has been happy and even gained some of his weight back along with a shiny coat. Now he is declining again this month, but he is still eating- this feels like the natural progression of the diagnosis (which is terminal), not the horrible version of it back when he was on kibble. I am SO glad I decided to throw raw ground beef in his bowl because it literally gave me months longer with my beloved velcro dog. One of the reasons I jumped back into raising rabbits since was to provide meat for my big guy.

I know that was a super long story, but I sincerely believe raw animal parts is what dogs are supposed to eat, not the processed crunchy brown bagged stuff. In addition to saving his life, my dog's teeth have never been cleaner since he went back to raw, lol.

That said, I would hesitate to add raw to your dogs kibble. I say that because they digest at different rates as far as I can tell. My other dog has gotten into kibble after eating a raw meal and vomited both times afterwards, though normally never does. It looked like water-logged undigested kibble and mostly digested meat (sorry, gross, I know).

If you want to save one bags, you can freeze portions individually and then dump them into one huge bag to store in the freezer together. Just try to get as much air out of the bag as you can. When I have ordered tripe in bulk or frozen whole animals in the past, they both come in a huge bag, but the individual pieces aren't stuck together so I can just grab a handful or one animal to thaw out.

I personally think variety is the key to a balanced raw diet. I don't measure anything and switch it up frequently- I just look at the dog's body weight/muscle/coat and add or subtract accordingly. When feeding rabbit, I personally don't feed the liver/stomach/intestine either, but I do feed beef liver/tripe/kidneys,etc.

As for getting the hubby to approve, I ordered this and we read some of the sections together that covered his concerns:

Proof was also in the pudding- when my husband saw the total positive change in my dog that literally saved his life, the concerns went away.

Best of luck and sorry for the novel!

 

[akane]

Whether feeding kibble with raw causes problems is a huge debate. I've found no issues. Most just feed one in the morning and the other in the evening. It's especially not a problem if you are just given excess parts like heads as treats. I've always got some small raw something that I feed any time of the day irregardless of kibble consumption. Right now it's chicken feet and turkey tails.

 

[Zass]

Yeah, I do like Akane mentions. I try to feed one raw meal and one kibble meal. I find that if I feed raw for breakfast they often are not hungry for kibble at dinner time, and if I feed raw at night I often find them not hungry for kibble until later in the afternoon.

Their body condition is very good, even a bit on the plump side IMO, so I allow them to self regulate.
But... I find that many people do not understand what a healthy weight for a dog is. I do have to deal with concerned people telling me that they believe my dogs are two thin, despite the fact that not a single rib is showing on either animal.

My elderly pitbull is arthritic, and the younger Newf just doesn't need the extra strain on his joints. I can't see any advantage to building up more of a fat reserve on them.

 

[JenerationX]

I had a dog that had serious issues on any kind of dog food I tried. As soon as I switched to raw it all cleared up. Well... except for the gas that could peel paint off the neighbor's walls. I got up several times when he was a puppy, woke up from a dead sleep from the smell and went looking for the poop I was sure was there. Nope... just his gas.

 

[akane]

If you go to the raw feeding facebook group anything that doesn't have fully visible ribcage and hips is too fat. I think they take it a little extreme the other direction. Maybe it's a problem with lack of muscle tone. A dog that does a lot of work is going to be lean but have good muscle over it. Then the people with dogs who don't exercise enough try to get the same look minus the actual muscle.

 

[JessiL]

Thanks for all of the input!

I really love the idea of the washable fleece blankets for feeding, thanks for that! That is part of the cleanliness issue - we've already seen how they'll take big chunks of food from their bowl and drop them on the floor nearby. Although it's linoleum where we feed them, we still would prefer to wash a blanket versus mop up... And I see how it could work out to feed one meal raw, one kibble - they already get 2 meals a day. Our spinone is a big guy (not huge, but still considered large breed and is definitely deep-chested) so we have switched to two meals a day instead of the daily meal we used to offer to dogs.

Funny you mention condition, Akane - we tend to think that most people keep their spinone too fat. Ours is a hunter whereas most others in the US are show dogs. He looks rather like a German wirehair or pointing griffon. Even then, he goes on occasional "hunger strikes" where he just won't eat for a week or two, and even I start to get nervous.

Ok, have to post a pic or two!


Serchio with his first chukar partridge!


Boomer the best hunting heeler in Nevada.

 

[PSFAngoras]

I don't mean to hijack the thread but what would "safe" bones be considered as? I'm very interested in feeding my two raw, but haven't found a great source for the info and won't join Facebook just for that. The book I have on natural dog and cat health care suggests just throwing the dog a full half rabbit a day, making sure they get the other half the next day so they get all parts of the rabbit, but also mentions dogs on kibble loose the ability to digest bones the longer they're on kibble. They also don't suggest how to start slowly feeding raw for them to tolerate bones again, so I'm kind of at a loss. It is a vastly outdated book though, even if it's from a credible author.

 

[Dood]

You need to worry about dogs cracking teeth on the hard leg bones of beef and pork so I remove those once they've licked out the marrow

My dogs raw eat bones of all species.

My new puppy was already on raw so I didn't need to switch her over. With my other dogs I started giving them small pieces in their kibble and monitored their poops for constipation or diarrhea but it went smoothly

I feed kibble and raw togeather (about 25% kibble to 75% raw) so my pups can be feed just dry when I need someone to watch them for me and the sitters don't have to deal with raw food in their fridge or floors - the dogs can be very messy and I feed them outside in the summer and in cages in the winter. They also use their feet to hold and manuver the bones so they get stains on their paws - but they are pretty good about licking them "clean" :x

 

[PSFAngoras]

Thank you, I guess that's why my book suggest feeding all parts if the rabbit, those bones aren't large enough crack teeth! Ours do get a lot of raw meat while were processing and while were prepping for cooking (any bits of bruising, belly flaps, and that moment of 'okay, yes, your cute enough to have some!') but I've always been hesitant about bones.

 

[Schipperkesue]

I have a livestock guardian dog who will not touch any live animal but considers it her due diligence to clean up any carrion she finds. During calving time she hauls all sorts of calf parts back to the farmyard. When I lose a chicken or a duck, I give it to her. When a rabbit is doing poorly I dispatch it for her. She eats the whole animal from ears to tail. It usually takes several days.

Here in Alberta you cannot sell meat unless it is processed in a government inspected facility so all the rest of the rabbits are processed for consumption. When I bone one for a meal the big dogs get the legs and the little dogs get the rib cage and backbones which they happily enjoy.

 

[JessiL]

Just to report back... I've been more aggressive in feeding post-meat extraction carcasses to the pups. Since I typically give them canned food on top of their kibble, I figure it's not a big deal to throw a couple of limbs or ribcages on top of their feed, and they don't seem to mind.

Next big step will be the organs. I thought that the spinone was good with "people" organs, but yesterday he daintily pulled a liver off his feed, set it aside, and proceeded to eat all the kibble w/o touching the liver. _I_ would have eaten that liver if it wasn't a few days old! Picky boy!

I guess I'm more into it as a supplement to their normal food, and a valuable use of what otherwise is a by-product for us. Yes, I do make stock from carcasses, but we produce way more carcasses than I can render and then use.

 

[akane]

All raw bones can be fed but it will depend on the dog. Some dogs will crack teeth on weight bearing bones so some say never to feed these. Plenty of people have more cautious eaters in particular if they started raw as puppies and do not have that risk. Some dogs do not do well with small bone. They will swallow chunks too large for the stomach to dissolve in time. Usually this is not an emergency like it would be with cooked bone. They will vomit up the bone chunks they can't digest but there might be some blood. I haven't had to take a dog in to the vet for that. You have to watch the dog with a new type of bone and notice their mood when they take a bone because sometimes a dog that doesn't normally swallow bone chunks will decide it's hungrier or more bored than usual that day so it will do something unusual. Small prey like rabbit, rodents, and poultry are good whole, half, or quarters because the entire thing can be eaten as one. There are no bones big enough they can't be chewed or dissolved easily in the stomach.

 

[sunrise]

Sometimes I lose a kit or very small rabbit. Does it need to be skinned to raw feed my doberman? (Little more difficult due to small size)

 

[Dood]

Sometimes I lose a kit or very small rabbit. Does it need to be skinned to raw feed my doberman? (Little more difficult due to small size)

your pup can eat the whole rabbit but some don't like the fur and will pluck it off, others don't recognize a whole rabbit as food so you may need to cut it open for your pet to figure it out, some people don't want their pets to see kits as food in case they decide to help themselves :mrgreen:

 

[skysthelimit]

My dogs eat whole rabbits fur on.

Hasn't caused them to help themselves to live ones, but they will snatch a pelt I am pickling if I am not fast enough.

On rare occasions, they consume the rabbit and leave me with a clean pelt.

 

[Honey]

If you go to the raw feeding facebook group

We raw feed our 7 great pyrs. I LOVE it. Such healthy dogs. We're working to raise enough rabbits so they have them as an alterantive source and I can save some more money and freezer space.

I would love to know about the fb group. Do you have a link? I'm http://fb.com/AmandaHoneyRowland if you have adding privelage.

Honey