Oh great that's good to hear about the pork.

How come you give cooked eggs and not raw?

When I was feeding raw, I bought huge bags of frozen mixed veggies (broccoli, etc) from Costco. I blended it up with some water to make a green glop, and added some beano to it to help them break it down. No cooking because of the blending and the beano. I also added kelp powder to take care of any nutrients I might have missed. The kelp powder I bought had beef flavor in it, so I mixed this with the glop or the dog wouldn't touch it. (hell, I wouldn't touch it, broccoli is a vile weed).

A meal typically consisted of:

Meat/bones, whole raw egg, green glop, beano, vitamin A and E gelcaps, and some organ meat (omitting the vitamin A if it was liver). I switched it up with canned salmon once in awhile, cycled the different types of meats, cycled the vegetable mixes, etc. But, that was the core of it above. It worked out great. The only reason I stopped doing it was because I was traveling a lot and it was a pain in the butt to have my wife do the raw food when I was gone, and prices on the meats tripled. I started out paying 30-50 cents per pound, and now everything is all over $1.30/lb.

 Quote: Janessa Schmidbauer

How come you give cooked eggs and not raw?

An occasional raw egg is fine. But if you feed a lot of eggs, it's better to cook them--at least until the whites are hard.

It has to do with the nutrients avidin and biotin (Google if you want a chemistry lesson). A chemical in raw egg white "binds with" a B vitamin in raw egg yoke making it unavailable to the body. If you cook the white, it negates this chemical binding.

As I say, this would only be a nutritional issue if one consumed a lot of raw whole eggs. I keep a flock of hens, so my dogs eat a lot of eggs--so they get theirs scrambled. You can count cooked eggs as you would muscle meat in a meal, balancing it with raw meaty bone (or even eggshell).

Thank you everyone!

Right now I am feeding 10% of their body weight, and they are approximately 8lb's each. So I'm giving about 13oz a day each. I check to make sure I can feel ribs and i weigh them weekly. How do you all make sure your pups are eating enought?

Just to clarify...nose to tail means complete animal. Not envisioning an animal in the bowl. Some sources can provide that. I get a complete blend from a local butcher farmer. Includes ALL parts of the animal....

 Quote: Joan McMaster

Just to clarify...nose to tail means complete animal. Not envisioning an animal in the bowl. Some sources can provide that. I get a complete blend from a local butcher farmer. Includes ALL parts of the animal....

Thanks for clarifying. I imagine a pre-ground mix is a very convenient way to feed.

The point of my somewhat more detailed explanation of what constitutes a properly balance raw meal is for those who don't have access to this kind of product--or have no need for it. It's entirely possible to recreate the "spirit" of this nose-to-tail idea with raw meaty bones, muscle meat, and organ meat from different animals. And this provides an opportunity for more protein variety. I simply didn't want anyone to take literally the dictum that "unless one can feed a puppy nose-to-tail" they shouldn't attempt a raw diet. Because if that means only feeding a pre-ground "whole animal" product, or feeding whole prey, I don't share the opinion.

I've fed some of these whole ground products in the past--whole rabbit was the one I tried. I found them to be unnecessarily expensive. And I had no way of knowing exactly what was in them. Even if it is a bit more work, I like having control over the ingredients in the food--and can create the same balance in the end product. I also have to wonder what exactly is in a beef "nose-to-tail" product. Does it include the hide? long bones? spinal column? Intestines?

At any rate, we do share opinion on the important point: the balance of bone, meat, and offal in a raw diet is very important. And that balance is more-or-less the balance that nature provides in canine prey animals. There's just more than one way to get that into the dog food bowl.

The way you describe is exactly how I feed my adult dog. For years.

And I would of loved to keep feeding the pup that exact way. EXCEPT I was advised by my raw food mentor to NOT do it unless you have access to complete animals. This is critical for puppies.

Anyway, I trust her completely as she is an extreme raw advocate and teaches nutrition at a university level. I actually started feeding the pup dog food (which I can't stand) until this source came up on radar.

It is good that we are both raw diet supporters...it is just this one bit and no one agrees on everything.

Either way, the pup should get salmon oil and Vit e every day as well. tripe 1x per week. Colostrum is good as well.