Help! I am on information overload and need some help breaking it down. We are really excited around here because we have made the decision to start feeding our 2 dogs and the cat a raw diet. Except.. I am so confused how to start!!! You wouldn't think so after all of the wonderful information I have found on the boards here - but most, not all, conversations seem to be geared towards dogs that have been eating raw for some time now and are at a different stage then ourselves.
How did you guys and gals "start" your dogs on raw? What were your transistion recipes? We currently feed Avoderm and are coming to the end of yet another bag and would like to put my money towards some "real" food for them!
Just FYI.. I have an 1.5y Golden Retr. , 6.5 y Border and 3.5 yr old male cat. Thanks in advance for all your help and advice. I am sitting here with car keys in hand - ready to head to the local grocery - and hungry dogs staring at me ( I didn't feed them kibble tonight in hopes to feed them some meat )

Thanks in advance for all your help!

Chicken. Start with chicken.

Buy whatever's cheapest--whole chickens, leg quareters, backs, necks...whatever's at the store.

Bring it home, whack it into pieces and serve.

Once you're all comfortable with that, and have several days of nice poop, then you'll be ready to get more complicated and start introducing additional protein sources.

A raw diet doesn't have to be complicated. IMO, there are only a few "rules" and even those are just guidelines:

After the initial period, the goal is variety. Offering a wide variety (as much as you can reasonably find and afford) will help ensure your animals are getting good nutrition.

For dogs, aim for about 2% of the dog's ideal adult weight, in food, per day. Adjust up or down from that amount based on the individual dog's metabolism and activity level. i.e. 100 pound dog = 2 pounds of food. 50 pound dog = 1 pound of food. No idea about cats.

There are 3 categories of food in a raw diet:

RMB = raw meaty bones = edible bones with meat attached. Such as chicken parts, turkey parts, rabbit parts, etc.

MM = muscle meat = any meat with no bones in it.

OM = organ meat = offal, liver; kidney, brain, spleen, etc. fyi heart and gizzard are MM.

The diet should be *roughly* half RMB and half MM, with a small percentage of OM.

There. That's enough rules.

Good luck.

eta: watch poop. That's the best indicator of whether or not you've got the proportions of meat to bone right. Poop too hard = too much bone. Poop too soft = not enough bone. Runny poop is, in my opinion, more often caused by overfeeding.








Edited by Tracy Collins (02/15/2009 10:06 PM)
Edit reason: eta about poop

I started raw one summer evening, when we were grilling up some chicken.

I decided, the heck with it, I'm going to try this out.

I gave her a skinless chicken quarter in the yard to gnaw on.
She loved it (although I did take away the larger of the two bones... newbie jitters )

We did this a few times, until I was comfortable that it wasn't making her sick, she was handling it well, and didn't take half a century to eat.
Then we introduced necks and backs.
Then other meats.
I was still feeding kibble along the way.

After a nasty experience with mixing kibble and raw, we switched to totally raw.

I would recommend feeding The Honest Kitchen as a transition food, and not mixing kibble and raw, if you think the switch will be prolonged.


If I had it to do over again, I would go cold-turkey, and start with skinless chicken quarters, until poo was normal, and add from there.

Chicken. Start with chicken.

Buy whatever's cheapest--whole chickens, leg quareters, backs, necks...whatever's at the store.

Bring it home, whack it into pieces and serve.

ROFL :-) that were EXACTLY my husbands sentiments! He claims that I am WAY over-thinking the whole situation. Just out of curiosity, what kind of poo should I expect? Little nervous here.. are we talking emergency in the middle of the night kind of poo, or just anxious to get out in the morning kind of poo? I ask that with the understanding that every dogs reaction is of course different ;-)

Just regular, firm poop.

If there is diarrhea, you did something wrong. Either too much food, fat, or organ meat. Not enough bone will make for runny poop, too. That won't be a problem if you go with the advice given above.:smile:

Danke had her first real, firm poo once we started feeding raw.

Prior to that, she'd always been loose.

Like Michael said, if you get the skin off (very easy with quarters), you should be fine.

Forgot...I switched mine cold turkey. One day kibble, the next raw. My wife's older dog was a slow, gradual switch. Her case was not the norm, though.

Started with chicken necks, too.

For switching advice, there are just a few things to remember.

No organ meat, yet. That will be later, and built up to in very small increments.

Remove the skin and visible fat. After a few days, start adding it back in little by little, until you don't have to worry about it anymore.

For the first day or 2, it is O.K. to make the meals on the small side, IMO. It will safeguard against overfeeding. After you see a good poop, then go ahead and let them have a full meal.

That last one isn't a hard rule. Just something to give the dogs a little adjustment time, and too avoid one of the most common mistakes, overfeeding.

Above all, DO NOT GET IN A HURRY!!! They won't starve and they are going to get every piece of nutrition they need eventually after the switch is complete.

Good luck. Let us know what you find at the grocery store.:smile:

You are going to start with 2 meals a day, right? If you want to go to 1 later, you can. Right now, for the initial switch, 2 would be best.

Edited by Michael_Wise (02/15/2009 11:02 PM)
Edit reason: add question

I'd also concur with the cold-turkey switch, rather than a gradual mix of raw and kibble.

The only other issue I can think of that you may encounter (I did once) is that a kibble-fed dog may not initially recognize raw meat as food. It doesn't have the sprayed-on aroma and "flavor" of kibble. If your dog sniffs his chicken and balks, try hand feeding it the first meal. Once he figures out that it is food, they don't look back.

First let me say thank you so much for the info and support! It is very reassuring to know that I am not alone with some of my hesitations.

I do have another question... Is there a particular reason that most people start with necks and backs? Is it a nutritional thing?; a cost thing? a meat to bone ratio thing? Easiest to digest? The only reason I ask, is I have some thawed boneless skinless breasts out for dinner tonight and I am thinking of just tossing it into the dog bowl.

I also have 1.11 pounds of something called "ground turkey roll". I sent the hubby to the store late last night and they had a " misc." section and with cut misc. pork, recreational marrow bones;large livers and ground turkey rolls. The butcher was not in, so he could not ask what was ground in it. He bought it anyway ;-)... but I haven't seen it mentioned yet. It has the consistancy of smooth a sausage / hotdog. Any thoughts on this? I am considering giving it to the cat :-)

Thanks again everyone! - so much!

Mike,

To answer your question, yes... I will be feeding 2x a day. He (the golden) is such a chow hound - probably going to be a gulper - he couldn't last 23 hours between meals without driving US out of our minds :-) The border collie though is so neurotic, that she may never take to the raw thing - won't even eat kids yummiest of dropped snacks!

Do I need to adjust our training treats at first or factor them in? We train using Chummy Yummies - Salmon.