just curious about feeding

[lunamus]

I was just curious to hear, how and with what, you feed your dogs..

I live in Denmark.. We've just started rawfeeding again after a good year on kibble.. I just couldnt get her weight down on the kibble, so I put her back on raw..

This time we have a lot more items to use.

I buy from a supllier close by.. They've made a "ring" of suppliers in Denmark, called "realdogfood". The food is imported from Germany and called Pansen Express

Luna is fed meat (with about 10% bones in it) and RMB every day.. She gets 7.06 ounces of meat and 8.82 ounces of RMB every day.. Well sortish.. a bit more one day, and a bit less another.. depends on the size of the RMB

I don't feed veggies anymore.. I'm trying without..

Our RMB products are: Turkey necks (Bought from Sweden), turkey thighs, bones from wild animals (I guess deers and that kind - also bought from Sweden), chicken in all parts.. (necks, thighs, carcasses), pigs tails, pigs ribbs, bones from oxe and cow, small chickenlike birds, duck thighs

Our meat products are: lamb, venison, duck, crabbe (haven't tried that yet), salmon (she doesnt like that), horse, tripe and liver/heart/kidney from oxe

The meat is chopped.. I DO buy whole cow stomachs, if I can.. But as I live in an apartment on the first floor, its not really the best place to sort out tripe LOL

Luna weighs about 64 pounds and is speyed.. And VERY lazy.. Her height at the shoulders is 22 inches.

So can I hear about your feeding? Do you fast? I don't, cos Luna is running in my heels every time I get up, and I have the spine of an earthworm.. :embarrass: :embarrass:

[4yelloweyedogs]

I just started feeding raw back in March, first time ever. I have 4 Labs. I feed chicken , turkey, beef, lamb, pork, fish and whole eggs, and I've just ordered tripe. I feed all different body parts, so we get the whole prey mode of feeding. I don't weigh out the meat anymore. I can tell by watching their body weight if they are getting what they need. They get recreational beef bones that will last them a few hours, of just chewing on them. I don't give any type of supplements either.

When I first started feeding raw I weighed everything meticulously. After awhile I can tell by just looking at the proportions. All 4 of my dogs bulked up. I cut back for my female, and kept the others where they were. It's really easy to keep their weight where I want it.

[Baloo317]

Do you fast? I don't, cos Luna is running in my heels every time I get up, and I have the spine of an earthworm.. :embarrass: :embarrass:

You and me both! :embarrass: I do try to vary feeding times a bit, which is kind of a really watered down version of the fast.

I feed muscle meat and organ meat in the morning (plus any extras I may have laying around. Some yogurt, berries, cranberry juice etc) and RMBs in the evening.

For muscle meat I use:
Chicken
beef
tripe (I know it's not technically a muscle meat, but that's where I group it)
fish
bison
sometimes turkey

Organ meat is usually calves' liver or a beef offal blend that I get pre mixed. Sometimes I'll use chicken livers.

RMBs are:
Chicken quarters
cornish hens
quail
rabbit
fish
chicken/turkey necks/backs/carcasses

I'm considering introducing pork sometime in the near future. I've been afraid to, because of various bacteria it can carry, but I want more variety. Especially in the RMB area. I'm going to try to find cow tails, the only ones I've been able to find so far are cut up already, which is no good.

I also supplement here are there (bee pollen, milk thistle/dandelion, sometimes fish body oil, aforementioned cranberry juice), as I feel that we live in a world that has many toxins (both food based and environmental) and I want to try to make up for that a little. If I lived in an area where I wasn't as worried about environmental toxins like pollution, poor air quality, etc, I probably wouldn't. If I could get my dogs the same quality of animal they'd be feasting on "in the wild" in said un-tainted environment, I probably wouldn't. But, c'est la vie. :death:

[lunamus]

My kitchen weight is my best friend :embarrass:

I'm a slave to it.. I have a lot of problems keeping her weight down... Luna is very lazy, so doesn't run much, unless pushed by other dogs in play, or if I try to run or take her biking (which she hates)

I wish I could just feed by eye measurement, but I'm chicken LOL

She's just finished a big beef-bone and is now sleeping on the couch

I feed organs once a week.. Its a mix of heart, liver and kidney. I have a place, where I can get whole cow tails.. ooh boy, they are HUGE :surprise: There's about 3 RMB meals in one tail.. For Luna anyway..

The turkey necks are also huge.. about 2½ rmb meal in each..

Do you feed the same amount (or sortish) every day?

I've heard so many different things: fasting, feeding once a day at a different time a day (noon one day, morning another.. and so on), feeding twice a day..


But i can see a change in her muscle tone after taking the veggies away.. I guess I just gotta keep at it..

[4yelloweyedogs]

I do NOT fast my dogs. They have suffered from the empty stomach syndrome during the night, .... their tummy gets too empty, because meat digests faster than the kibble they used to get. So they would throw up bile in the middle of the night. It was recommended to me that they be fed at a later time in the day or give them a bedtime snack. I give them a snack before bed, even if it's just 1 raw egg with the shell. It prevents them from throwing up bile.

I feed mine 2 x's a day. 4 am and again at about 4 pm because that's my schedule. Then they get their snack before bedtime usually around 9 or 10 pm.

I don't feed ANY veggies or grains. We had issues with allergies to wheat and oats so I cut those out. I use a rice flour when I make their treats. I use the flour and peanutbutter and milk and baking soda, and that's it.

Hope that helps.

Melissa

[lunamus]

Thank you, it sure does

Its kinda interesting to see how different we all feed

[Jackie]

I wasn't having much luck finding variety or decent prices locally, so I just started ordering online. I found a place that sells bags of animal "chunks" - a whole animal is cut up into many pieces and random pieces are put into a 5 lb bag, that comes somewhere close to approximating a whole prey model. They also sell whole ground animal - including the bones, organs, heads, fur/feathers, etc. I ordered about enough food for a month or so, and I'll switch out some of the meats when I place the next order, so there will still be more variety on a rotating basis. So right now I'm feeding the whole ground animal in the morning (currently pig, turkey, and cow) and non-ground animal in the evening (currently goat, chicken, whole fish, tripe). I throw in a raw egg including shell a couple of times a week, though Piper usually eats the egg and leaves the shell behind. I don't supplement and no veggies or grains.

Since I do my approximation of "whole prey" by feeding a variety of random parts or whole animals, I don't measure out the bones/meat/organs. I do try to feed about 11 oz in the AM and 8 oz in the PM to maintain Piper at a healthy weight (she's very small for a Lab at 40 lbs), but I'm not too picky about those weights and will easily be an ounce or so off at any given mealtime.

Piper gets marrow bones fairly regularly as a treat - just the smaller soup bones sold in the grocery store. My local farmer's market has someone who sells elk (for human consumption - very yummy!) and also sells fairly large elk bones for dogs. Piper has been chewing on that bone for about three weeks now and still isn't tired of it.

[lunamus]

Oh yes.. Luna also gets an egg a couple of times a week. She eats most of the shell aswell

[Apollopuppy]

Giuli, may I ask you something?

How would you feed, if a lab needed to lose a bit of weight.. Or atleast get the fat changed to muscles?

I have left out veggies, and I think it helps.. I've made a thread in this forum.. "Curious about feeding" (I think that's what I called it), in there, you can see how much I feed Luna every day and how much she weighs

I've got to translate it from grams and kilos to ounces and pounds, so I thought it would be easier to direct to the thread, where I already have done that

I'll understand if, you don't have the time or wish to help

Well I will be honset I have MINIMAL experience raw feeding dogs (but a TON of experience with raw feeding cats and ferrets) My understanding is that a lab should recieve 1-2% of their body weight daily and that puppies (dogs under 1 year I think are classified as puppies?) should eat 1-3% of their ADULT body weight. I would assume that if your dog is getting chubby and you are feeding 3% of their body weight, maybe cutting back to 2% of their body weight will help to take the pounds off? I have been told that labs are supposed to be between 70-85 pounds (not sure how to convert that, sorry).

I dont mind helping at all, but I am afraid I cant be of much help (due to my lack of experience feeding raw to dogs). I only raw fed my lab for a few weeks before my ex and I broke up (and he took the lab, because it was his dog).

Maybe some of the members on here that have experience with raw feeding dogs could toss in their $0.02? I know Jlab and Fallriver are pretty knowledgable.

[Apollopuppy]

Sorry I cant be of more help. Now if you have/had a cat or a ferret that you want to switch to raw I would SO be able to help you more lol