Thinking about feeding raw? Suggestions?

Thanks! She has eaten some raw bones and oxtail but she isn't given raw on a regular basis and she has a sensitive stomach so I will be careful with feeding it to her. I'm going to give her RMB's and stuff for her teeth (and I do brush her teeth 3 times a week as well) but I didn't want to pass this stuff up.

Yep, I always take free food

I switched over to raw about 2 months ago and both Phoebe and I are thrilled with the results . She inhales her food and I am happy with the way she looks and since the intro of raw, certain health issues have improved.

I never feed veggies with her food, but do include dirty beef tripe with almost every meal, which I feel is a good source of veg.

Actually, ground turkey is one of the 1st muscle meats you can introduce. It's more mild than pork or beef. I wouldn't worry about bacteria, your dog's stomach can handle anything that would be in ground meat. Think about dogs that eat rotting meat out of the garbage and cat crap out of the litter box!

Ground turkey is not muscle meat, it's just meat. Gizzards are muscle meat.

I'd only be worried about the bacteria load if it was a dog who was totally new to raw. You never know if a dog's system can handle it at first. Ground anything has a much higher bacteria load. It's not a huge deal, maybe just some loose stool if the dog can't handle it, but I'd rather avoid that if possible.

What do you think they grind the meat out of? Isn't a turkey breast a muscle? Isn't any meat on an animal muscle meat?

You face the risk of loose stools anytime you introduce a new raw food to your dog. If bacteria were the case, then why does a dog that is fed raw chicken, inherently a high bacteria food, not have loose stools after a day or 2? It's getting used to the food that is the issue, not bacteria.

Sorry, you are right on the muscle meat thing. I had heard elsewhere that muscle meat were things like gizzards. I apologize.

I realize that bacteria is not the issue, but there is a much higher amount of bacteria in ground food than in whole, and I'd rather start with something easier on a dog's system than ground. Ground doesn't give the stomach muscles much time to know that food is coming, and therefore prepare itself for the food. For a dog who's had raw before I wouldn't hesitate. For a dog who's never had raw before, I'd start out slow or skip the ground until they are more used to raw food. Just my opinion, of course. There's no wrong or right answer here.

Homeless people eat out of dumpsters all the time, but I certainly wouldn't want to...

I think his point was that dogs' digestive systems can easily handle stuff like that.

I see where you are coming from Wiggle regarding ground meat. Many of the resources I've read on raw feeding recommend ground turkey as a mild source of food to introduce after the 2 week "chicken" phase, so that's why I mentioned it. You really have to read each dog individually, one might do great on turkey and another might not.

Well today I just started her off on some chicken. Just a piece of boneless, skinless, chicken breast. She ate it fine, she did scarf it done but I sliced it into pieces and the only big piece that I left for her she did chew. She is doing fine so far, but I gave it to her at 10 this morning so we should know by tonight if she's going to get sick from it or not. She's eaten boiled chicken and broiled chicken (with marinade) and hasn't gotten sick. I know she does alright on chicken meal dog food so I think she will be ok with the chicken (fingers AND toes crossed). It's gonna be FUN to clean up if she can't handle the chicken though!

feeding meat only will eventually lead to some pretty loose poops. Just FYI, so if she's a little loose, it might just be from that, not that she's sick or anything.

Put it this way Juliefurry- I'd EXPECT your dog to have loose stools after their 1st raw meal. Probably 2-3 days as the dog's system gets used to the new richer food. Tomorrow feed her something with the bones in it, and the skin on. It's all good for them.

Yeah I would like to take back my beginning statement of her NOT being sick. We just went out to the yard and her poop was regular at first and then it became basically water. It might be because Mark gave her a nature's variety raw bone though today too. She's going to get some chicken leg quarters tomorrow, we're picking them up from the butcher in the afternoon. I still have some of her Evo, we actually picked up another bag incase she just could not switch to raw (didn't like it, or could not tolerate it) so she will get her Evo tonight for dinner. It looks like I'm gonna be taking her out a lot today and tonight and she'll be sleeping in her crate (so she doesn't get make a big mess all over the house.

Chicken leg quarters are Hannah approved!

Well we got the chicken leg quarters today and Hannah LOVES them! She ate it slowly, did not scarf, and she was not food aggressive (which I wasn't really worried about but just checked anyways). She ate 2 pieces, in about 15 minutes. Now she's laying around by my feet. Her stool did firm back up agian this morning, but she also had Evo for dinner last night too. So we'll see what happens with this new chicken. It was so gross bagging the chicken up though, it just came in a box with ice and that was it. I had no idea the pieces were so big though.

I've had to lay off on the idea of feeding raw due to Tony's accident and not having money to spare right now. Hopefully we can pick up on it in a few weeks though.

Yeah I'm sorry about that. This will just give you more time to research though. I'm still researching myself but I'm just getting Hannah used to raw foods though. Hope you guys can still feed the raw in a couple weeks though because I think your two will love it.

I'm sorry, for you & Tony. Don't worry about it! Just make sure he gets better!

You also have plenty of time to research the heck out of Raw, and make meal plans and such. I'm so sorry if it's already been posted, but these two books are awesome! Just click on full text, and you can view the book for free.

http://www.rawmeatybones.com/book.html

http://www.rawmeatybones.com/book-ww.html