Quick Quick Help on Raw

hiyya guys!

Heading to the grocery store in like, two minutes, and i need to know what kinda raw to buy for Milo.

I think i'll start with chicken. I've heard more meat than bone is better? I'm thinking like, legs? Chicken breast? He weighs 17 pounds, i can't do math, how much do i feed him (he's full grown)?!?

I'd start with chicken wings or chicken necks. Those would be a great size for him to try out first. Good luck!

This site helped me when I first started feeding Ella raw.

http://www.rawdogranch.com/rawdietbasics.htm


Your doggy is so tiny, I wouldn't know what to tell you to start with chicken-wise.
Maybe chicken wings??
Boneless chicken breasts?
Ground chicken?


If you're worried about calcium, I use ground up eggshells. It's 1/2 tsp. per POUND of meat. Using that website, determine how much your dog needs to eat per day. Ella needed (according to that) 1 lb. 3 oz. a day. Of course, because I was only feeding her meat, she wasn't keeping weight on well. So I had to up that to almost 3 lbs.
You should feed 20% of your dog's weight.


Have you researched raw feeding? Have you got a guideline?

Good luck!
Just wait until you get to add ALL the different meats you want.
Your dog will LOVE you.

Starting out, I'd recommend chicken wings or backs. Drummettes (little bitty chicken legs) are wonderful, if you can find them. You may have to bust them up a bit with a hammer until your little one learns to chew them properly.

Thanks for the advice, but unfortunately the grocery store trip didn't work out as planned.

My mom said feeding raw is "gross, discusting, unnessecary, he'll get sick, it will get everywhere, if i do it outside it will attract unwanted animals". I pretty much wanted to slap her.

She said if i show her some of the websites that say how much better raw is, she'll consider it.

Just for the record, wings and backs aren't meaty enough in my opinion. I would start with leg quarters, breasts, or whole, cut up chickens.

Here are a few of my favorite raw feeding resources.
http://www.rawfeddogs.net/
http://www.rawlearning.com/
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding/

well..

Wrigley is 16 lbs and eats a diet that Mordy made up for me (raw meat but including veggies, vitamins ect that I process in a food processor)...but when it comes to the end of the batch I generally take a few days to make a new batch. In the meantime I will feed something like a chicken quarter in the morning and a thigh in the evening and it seems to be enough for him (with a few treats)--but then again that's not long term so I probably don't know well enough!

Wrigley crunches down the bones with no problem and eats it in his bowl--he has never tried to carry it around ect. I have never had a mess and generally just wipe his face off when he's done if it is something extra messy.

But wouldn't you think that those pieces would be too big for her tiny dog?

Wouldn't a 17 lbs. dog have a hard time chomping down on a leg quarter?
I'm genuinely asking because my dog is so much bigger than that so I have a hard time picturing in my head an actual 17 lbs. dog.

Birds come with meaty parts and boney parts, as do most animals. The ideal diet is the complete animal, so you want a balance between raw meaty BONES, and muscle meat.

I would start a dog this size, as stated before, on wings, necks, or backs if you can find them.

Wrigley has no problems on quarters--legs, thighs, backs ect--Generally I would say more often I have fed him a leg and a thigh instead of an actual quarter--but that's what a quarter is so I wouldn't see a problem.

My 6 lb dog (before we knew she was allergic) could eat a wing or leg although it took her awhile! LOL

Well, you can tell your mom that I have had no issues feeding my dog the RMB outside; I certainly don't have a sudden influx of wild animals raiding my lawn. Meg doesn't leave enough behind to feed an ant!

I do all RMB outside, because Meg likes to take hers off and work on them a while; the one time I tried them in the house, she wanted to take it onto the living room carpet. If it's too nasty for her to eat outside, I do a meal of muscle meat or prepared raw in her bowl inside. It works out pretty easily for me, and I was pretty grossed out by the idea of raw meat in the house at first, too.

See personally I will NEVER let Wrigley have a RMB outside again--this is because after I let him chew on it and then brought it in and threw it away he was obsessed with the spot he chewed on it on---the grass got all ripped up and he would get dirty every time nosing around where the bone had been (even months later)....eventually we had to put a slab of rock over the spot as we couldn't figure out what else to do.......just a warning--especially if your dog is food obsessed (as Wrigley is)

This is a small dog, and if he/she's never eaten RAW before, necks are the best, I'd say 2 necks see how it goes. Otherwise he/she might choke. Boil them lightly (1 min) till the meat turns pale for the first feeding and dash lightly with garlic powder to ease the belly. Milk afterwords. He/she will love it. JMO.

My 12-ish pound Chinese Crested has no problem eating legs and even chicken quarters. Her favorite meal is a whole "cornish" bird! But she's a long time raw feeder, from puppy hood. I started her on wings, with a little handful of kibble to make up the diff in protein.

For a beginning it's no problem to just give her a joint of a wing to begin with, instead of maybe half of her kibble meal (or less). This may help the rest of your family accept the idea - seeing it more as a snack or treat than changing the way she eats.

When it's obvious that your little tiny raw bone has not turned your pup into a savage beast, contaminated the house, or drawn wild animals to your yard - then you can start demonstrating the benefits of a diet that is more fresh-food based.

Please do learn all you can about this, however. You will have to learn to do math, lol. It's important to be able to calculate ratios such as that between calcium and phosphorus, and keep track of the calories your dog requires to stay in shape (and what foods provide that and how much). I'm terrible at math too but I can do all this stuff in my head, pretty much now, after eight years of raw/home prepared diets.

It's not rocket science but it does require a bit more thought than plunking random chunks of meaty bones in your dog's dish.

I highly recommend rawdogranch - I think it's one of the best sites I've ever seen on raw feeding.

Have fun!

Milo is 11 pounds and he loves chicken necks, drumsticks, wings, and backs. At first I was so panicky about it, and there were some scary moments, but both of us have learned so much. He really takes his time now and chews the bone well.

I supplement the bony stuff (necks, wings) with boneless meat. This allows for variety since he can't really handle other kinds of bones. So, he'll always pretty much eat chicken bones and then boneless lamb, pork, or beef.

Hope you have a kitchen scale!

The math is that your dog will generally need between 2 and 4% of his body weight in raw food. Most people start with 3% for a few weeks and see if it makes their dog gain or lose weight. Lots to read on this topic. Good luck!

Well, my dog is 20 pounds and he has no problem with any chicken bones. They are pretty soft, actually.

I don't know what style of raw feeding you are going for, but if you are feeding prey model raw, you should go for about 80% meat over all. A diet consisting of chicken necks, backs and wings would probably be 50% meat. All those parts are very boney and I would imagine that you would get very chalky poops feeding that much bone. I guess I should say that wings and back are fine, as long as you are adding extra meat to the diet as well. JMO If you aren't feeding prey model, then totally ignore me. lol

My pomeranian is 3 lbs and he eats raw ground beef, ground pork sometimes, raw green tripe which he goes ballistic for and raw eggs. I dont and wont do raw chicken anything with him he is too small his head is the size of a large egg and face the size of a small egg at the very largest. He nearly choked to death two nights ago from a chewey so I wont ever feed him bones of any kind. He gets a meat marrow bone from the cow's leg, that he cant swallow. But I think necks and wings will be fine for your size dog.