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Raw Diet Basics
Raw Meaty Bones
Muscle Meat
Organ Meat
Veggie Mush
Benefits
Drawbacks
Getting Started
Premade vs DIY
How Much to Feed
Feeding a Raw Diet
Grinding
Recreational Bones
Planning Orders
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Helpful Tips
Many dogs can be switched cold turkey without a problem. Wake up one morning and just start the diet. Some dogs have problems switching like that.
When
I switched my six dogs to raw – cold turkey - I had 5 easy switches and
the Switch From Hell. I had
planned out their diet for the week, had all the variety and everything in
it and started them on it Monday morning.
By Monday night my one German Shepherd had loose stools.
By Tuesday morning they were watery, STANKY stools.
And they stayed that way the whole week.
I would come home from work and dread opening that door.
The smell would hit me like a slap in the face.
Every night that week I came home from work, bathed him and
scrubbed out his crate. I
finally moved him to the bathroom so he could at least try to stay out of
the mess he was making. It
wasn’t his fault – it was mine. He
just wasn’t able to handle the variety right from the start.
The
other 5 dogs had no troubles. But
if it hadn’t been for them – and seeing how well they were doing – I
would have given up and switched back to kibble.
No,
loose stools aren’t necessarily life threatening. In fact, the look, shape, color and smell of the stool is
only a small key to the dogs total health.
But
coming home every night to that mess disheartened me like nothing else
I’ve ever experienced.
I
did some reading and decided to remove all his variety.
I was going to start him on just ONE raw item.
Once he adjusted to that, I would add a new raw item.
Using this technique I could slowly work him up to variety.
And
it worked like a charm!
So, here’s what I recommend to people when they want to switch their
dogs to the raw diet. Start
slow and add things when you see the dog is adjusted to what they are
currently getting. Since I have yet to find a reason NOT to start slow – it is
what I recommend.
I
like to start with chicken wings as the first RMB. They are readily available at most grocery stores (although
pricey). You can whack them
with a hammer to break up the bones at first to make sure the dog has no
problems chewing them. You
can hold one end of the wing when you feed it to make sure the dog
doesn’t gulp their food (please be careful if your dog has food guarding
issues). They
are easy to lightly sear if needed. They
are well balanced.
Start
by figuring out how much food TOTAL your dog needs per day.
Then feed them that in wings (or another RMB).
Keep an eye on their stools at first.
It may be too much bone for them and they may get constipated.
Or it may be that their system isn’t sure how to handle raw food
and they get loose stools and gas.
In
either case canned Pumpkin (plain pumpkin, not the pie filling stuff) works wonders.
It will firm up a loose dog and loosen up a constipated dog!
I
also highly recommend you use a digestive enzyme when first switching a
dog to raw. This helps their
system digest while it learns how to handle raw foods.
HTTP://WWW.HEALTHCONNECTIONS4LIFE.COM
has good products.
After a few days of wings, if your dog is doing great, try adding a new
item to their diet. The next
thing I would add would be the muscle meat.
Any type of meat without bones is muscle meat.
I use beef heart as it’s cheap and very good for the dogs. You could also use any steak, lamb, pork, etc.
I like to use a different meat source for my muscle meat than I use
for my RMBs. Since I use
mostly chicken for the RMBs, the dogs get beef products for their muscle
meat.
I
would start by adding the muscle meat in an amount that is just 5% of
their daily total intake. So
the RMBs would drop to 95% and the muscle meat would be 5%.
Slowly
increase the amount until you get to your desired percentage.
Mine is around 25-30%. You would now be feeding 70-75% RMBs and 25-30% muscle meat.
The
next item to add is the organ meats.
Beef liver is very rich and, if given too much at once, can cause
loose stools in dogs. Again,
start at 5% of their total intake and slowly increase to the desired
amount. That would mean you
would be feeding 75% RMBs, 20% muscle meat and 5% organ meat at first and
moving up to 65% RMBs, 25% muscle meat and 10% organ meat.
Although
I don't feed veggie mush to my dogs anymore, if you decide to add them to your dogs diet, they would come next.
Start with just a couple (2 – 3) different veggies in your mush
and slowly add variety there as well.
Be prepared for a dog to totally ignore veggie mush.
You can add ground meats to it to entice them to eat it.
I found that when I used a lot less veggie mush my dogs were more
willing to eat it.
I
have a section on how I prepared the Veggie Mush.
If
you decide to add grains to the diet they would be introduced last.
You dog’s body already knows how to handle grains – it’s what
kibble is all about.
Once
you have the dog on a basic, completely raw diet, you can remove the
digestive enzymes if you want and start adding variety by introducing new
types of RMBs (goose, duck, quail, rabbit, goat, lamb, ostrich, emu,
bison, etc.), muscle and organ meats.
Feel free to email me at info@rawdogranch.com if you have any questions!