Where exactly do you feed your dogs? In a crate, an outdoor kennel, the kitchen, outside?
In their crates or in the yard. The crates are the best because they can drag the meat out of the bowls and make as big a mess as they want and all I have to do is wipe it down. I use "Simple Green" or something similar called "Advantage" that are both safe for dogs and babies if they decide to lick the ground...
Also, if they are in the crates any inkling of food aggression is a non-issue. For a dog that has never had raw meat, it can be a pretty high value food and some may react differently than when eating kibble.
One of my dogs is a gulper. I am afraid any chunks of raw meat with bones would be gone in a flash... So I am really concerned about impaction with that particular dog.
The larger the chunk of meat, the more they HAVE to chew it. If they swallow a piece that is too large, they, umm, bring it back up to chew it a little more...
As for the bones, the digestive enzymes really break down the bone more than the teeth. I think you would be surprised at how much. But like a chunk of meat that is too large, they bring up bone that way too. Actually, Hav tossed out some of the turkey leg from last night that was just a little too big. No harm, no foul.
Sometimes they make it all the way through and a few shards can be seen in the BM. Again, not that big a deal. With out all the filler that dog food has, there is not much to impact (an all meat meal will make for some very loose deposits) and very few bone shards make it through anyway.
But I have some ideas on how I help a gulper not gulp. First, large chunks. It is hard to swallow a half a chicken with out chewing... Adjust the size to the dog obviously, but the same rule applies. Second, take a hammer to the bones first if you are REALLY worried. This does the same thing as the dog chewing, breaks the bones in to manageable sizes. Third, and one I do all the time out of convenience... Freeze the meal. They HAVE to chew it up to eat it, so the whole not chewing thing is a non issue this way. This is GREAT for teething puppies and dogs that you want to have something to do for a bit. Let them chew a frozen chicken quarter instead of a kong for example...
Or you can do all three at the same time!!
Where do you get things like chicken backs and pork necks? I have never seen anything like that in any of the many stores I frequent. I have inquired many places about whether they can even get me things like organ meats, and other than beef or chicken liver, they say no. No hearts, kidneys, etc.
Honestly, I don't use chicken backs. I know they can be cheap, but I have made it work just fine with out for all these years...
When I first started raw I had an apartment size 'fridge and two Rotts. I would buy 10 pound bag (or two) of chicken leg quarters from a large chain grocery store. They store flat and are super cheap, usually between $.59 - $.79 a pound (so six to eight dollars each...) and are a good base to work off of. To that I would but a tub of liver (usually beef) for each bag of chicken quarters.
I would try to always keep one bag of quarters in the freezer. The other I would thaw, and portion out into zip-lock bags in one meal portions for each dog (I could re-use them very easily). I used the bottom drawer (veggie drawer) of the fridge for dog meat storage so if there was a leak it would not get everywhere. I sometimes used a bowl on the bottom shelf if I needed the drawer though. I would keep one or two days worth of food thawed in the fridge at a time and the rest in the freezer (ORRRRR, I would just take a frozen portion out of the freezer directly!
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The above was my foundation diet and from here I would add more, and most was just as easy to store. For example, a Couple of cans of sardines, a cheap cut of pork (I can always find these), a chunk of beef that is on sale this week, the steak I set out to thaw but didn't get to on time, a whole trout from the meat department, etc. You get the idea. I ALWAYS check the weekly adds to see what is on sale.
The one thing I buy from a distributor (greentripe.com, they ship, but there are many out there that may be closer to you) is my tripe/organ meat combo. It can come in small tubes that are easy to store in freezer door shelves, or smooshed into extra space in the back behind my food. But if you go to some ethnic grocery stores you can often find kidneys or heart fairly easy. Also some really strange and yummy items for the dog food. I can even get brain (!) at one!!!
I hope this gives you some ideas! Keep in mind that at first you have to go slow for some dogs. A whole frozen chicken will probably not work for a dog that has never had raw food before
Jessica
The Logistics of Feeding Raw
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