Who here feeds raw?

I had been feeding Steve raw, but it's time-consuming, annoying, and not cheap, so he's back on kibble at the moment. Other than the (needed) weight-gain on raw, and the improved teeth, I really don't appreciate any difference in him between raw and good kibble. He was eating a pound of raw a day, give or take (40 lb dog). He's eating about 2 1/2 cups of grain free Earthborn Holistics kibble and maintaining.

Pool. Poop is much better on raw.

My dogs however never seem to gain weight as much as get cleaner muscle cuts on it.

LMAO....

I do it because that's the way I had always seen others do it I guess? Never really thought of it to be honest...

We feed raw too. Riley was hard to keep weight on until he hit 2 years old and then he leveled out. Aura only seems to put on weight after her heat.

Riley (90lbs) gets 2lbs a day
Aura (55lbs) gets 24oz a day

I find the cost a bit better than high end kibble. Especially during hunting season when we can get free venison and moose trim!

I want to feed Moose!!

Raw is not time consuming for me....a bit more than just grabbing a bag of kibble but not much. The main time is driving to get it as I have several different places I get it from. 12 more weeks til deer season here lol, love that free deer!

When I was doing frankenprey it was time consuming for my to divvy up stuff (there's not much that comes conveniently in 2-4oz chunks ), but I really enjoyed putting meals together and packaging everything.

Now the only time consuming part is waiting for it to thaw and then throwing it into different tupperware containers. If you can call that time consuming lol

When I get my OES (roughly 10 years down the road ) I plan on doing frankenprey again, but I think it will be way less time consuming than Frodo was because a few ounces difference at a mealtime isn't a big deal when you're feeding 60-100+ pounds of dog. If Frodo gets an extra ounce then he's getting 25% more than normal :lol-sign:

Thats true...I do variety over time so each meal is not a bunch of different components. I just thaw a bag/box of whatever and feed that to them til it runs out, and then the next. Liver I will add to some meals but mostly, because Ivy is so bratty about it, I give it to them ground in tripe. Quke and Marley can both handle a whole liver/organ meal though with no issues. And yes, when my amounts are 2.5-3.5lbs for Ivy, 3-4.5lbs for Quke, and 1.5-2lbs for Marley there is a lot more leeway. I dont ever actually measure anything

I feed raw, have been doing so for about 6 months or so now and am more than happy with the results. While on kibble he was losing patches of fur, but now everything has grown back in, he has not had any allergic reactions (he had lots of them to various things before), and he looks to be in great condition. I noticed he also has quite a bit of tartar so I am also hoping his teeth become better with time

I still wish I could find a more affordable way to feed raw though, it is so so expensive for me. I am lucky to get a discount at work right now which is making things easier but it is definitely not cheaper than kibble in my neck of the woods if you don't have a giant freezer for bulk purchases.

I can't WAIT for hunting season to start back up.. I got so much free venison last year, that's basically all my guys ate for months!

It is time consuming! Lol we go to Woodys for our cat food... I hate thawing those tubs and putting it all in separate containers. Its not exciting like prey model.
And my 12lb cat goes through 10lbs every 3 weeks. The jerk.

I used to feed Juno raw but my awesome family put a stop to that. I liked feeding it because IMO that's what they should eat, but I didn't notice a difference in her aside from the size of her poop. But the kibble she's on now gives her pretty small poops too lol so were happy again.

Harley was eating 8oz a day and was losing weight (which she needed). IIRC, that's like, 1/2lb a day, or 3.5lbs a week. Kibble is much easier on my wallet

I wish I knew some hunters, so I could get free vension!

As for time consuming... I don't find it to be very time consuming. Granted, I'm used to having to take an hour to prepare Revy's food twice a day, so throwing raw into a bowl isn't any harder.

Im in Lake Charles, do you know where that's at?

Yeah I have family there , bout 4 hrs west middle lane of I-10.
I live right outside New Orleans so doubt if any hunters i know could help. sorry.

But it is cool to have another louisiana girls around!

Haha, yup. This place has its charm but I can't wait to move away....lol

I don't know any hunters but processors will often save the scraps and other unusables for you.

Like, what do you mean? Idk what a processor is. Sorry if that's an ignorant question.

I don't feed raw so I don't know if it's a special raw codename for something XD

But around here it's where people take deer or cows and the person cuts it up into the cuts people are familiar with to take home and store and they get rid of the organs and stuff like that.

Yeah the processor does the cutting up part for hunters - I found one by advertising on kijiji - he was already familiar with raw feeding since they do rescue, and they also give trim to other raw feeders, so it was perfect. The trim I got was just scraps of meat and fat ground up. Most hunters leave the organs in the field unfortunately, because of the weight.