Oh, Ali - another cost-saving tip for you.

Once you find your butchers and meat packers (wholesale places), ask around if there are any hunters. Chances are, hunters will have extra game meats on their hands and they're often willing to give away a lot of it for free!

A large portion of my dogs' raw diet has been FREE since early this fall. I made friends with a hunter who'd just killed a large moose. He ate moose burgers for a few weeks, then got fed up and gave me the rest of the meats - all nicely packaged up into 1 lbs portions

All I had to do was defrost the portions overnight and toss them out in the yard to my dogs at feeding time the next day. Even easier than feeding kibbles!

I also got huge supplies of wild deer meats and bones that way.

I also raise rabbits as a hobby and will trade them with another rabbit breeder friend. I kill the rabbits myself and feed them whole to my dogs.

Basically, the more you look around and the more imaginative you can get, the more money you will save in the long run.
(Back when I bought everything food-wise for my dogs, it cost me about 40-50$ a month - 1-2$ a day - to feed my two German shepherds. It's a lot less now - maybe 10-20 $ a month - now that I have a large supply of free game meats.)

Raw feeding does not have to be expensive

Edited by Yuko Blum (02/25/2007 06:18 PM)
Edit reason: Thought of more stuff to say, lol

 Quote: yuko blum

I've never had problems with weight-bearing bones.

I can't imagine a dog having trouble with chicken legs!! They're such soft bones, even for weight-bearing bones!

My pup used to gulp them down whole (or semi-whole) at 4 months of age and they came out COMPLETELY dissolved out the other end

I couldn't believe it - the whole chicken thigh went down one end, and out the other came this tiny little compact nugget of poop. Same for my older female.

That's when I first realized for myself just how much better dogs digest this "raw meats" stuff compared to kibble with all its grains and fillers

By "trouble" I mean that the weight-bearing bones digest more slowly than thinner or softer bones (obviously), and might have the centers pooped out. Again, unless you're using all back quarters, I wouldn't worry about it either. If you are, though, you might want to consider adding extra soft parts (backs) to make up for undigested bone-centers of thighs.

NJ Boxers, QUOTE: Weight-bearing bones can also be given (chicken legs/thighs), but they are a bit more difficult to chew (especially for a small animal). When giving chicken legs/thighs, remember to supplement with eggshell powder or bone dust, to even out the calcium/phosphorus ratio.END

But I think that's a potential issue only if you're feeding exclusively legs, and I'm sure you're not.

If you are feeding the whole bird (even over time), then it doesn't matter at all because you're feeding the soft cartilage as well as the dense weight-bearing bones.

I have two adopted seniors with less-than-perfect teeth, too, so that contributes to my decision to grind the thighs. Everything else is left as is.

Absolutely skip grains. I sometimes forget that not everyone has followed this site for years.

Yuko, you found FREE BACKS!? Man, I wish I could find free anything. No hunters, no free backs.... I gotta move.

And rabbits....... a GREAT thing to raise and feed! For the last two weeks in classes we have discussed efficient protein sources for dogs with kidney disease, and of course that meant efficient protein sources, period. Rabbit was way up on the list, with chicken and white fish.

Ok, that makes sense!

Yes, I definitely include soft non weight-bearing bones in most of my dogs' meals

I just remember Cindy writing that her 11 lbs. corgi had no trouble crunching up chicken thighs. I looked over at my then 50 lbs. pup and thought "if wee little Phoebe can do this, he certainly can!"

Aww, poor Connie, no freebies.

It took me time to find my free sources too. I spent entire days at the telephone calling every possible meat source in the city until I found that little place in the market, lol.

That's cool about the efficient protein sources! I didn't know about that. Is that a better choice for older dogs who might have trouble keeping their weight down?
I had to reduce my 11-year-old female's portions quite a bit to keep her thin (she has mild hip dysplasia). Would feeding her more chicken, rabbit and white fish help?
This efficient protein concept is kinda fuzzy in my mind, sorry

Haha! Raising rabbits is a lot of fun. However, I will disillusion many who might be considering this option by stating my own experience. It is IMPOSSIBLE for me to kill a rabbit that I've bred and raised myself.
It makes me sick just thinking of it.

I've resorted to making friends with another (pet) rabbit breeder. I give her some of my prettier young females to add to her breeding stock (I give away or sell my baby males as pets) and in return she gives me her excess males that she would otherwise be selling to pet shops.
Those are the rabbits that I kill and feed to my dogs - and even that's really really really really really really hard to do

I ended up keeping one as a pet - my mistake, I decided to keep it for a couple of weeks to "fatten it up" before feeding it to the dogs. I got attached during that time (damn his adorable fuzzy face and loving nature!!), named him, and he's now a happy plump pampered pet. Sigh. Hehe.

Ali, one last thing (I know I know, I write too much!!).

This is a good tip I received from my puppy's breeder. Though she doesn't have the experience of say, Cindy or Ed, she has raised 5-6 dogs on raw and has bred & weaned 2 litters of shepherds on raw. If this information is incorrect, hopefully someone with more experience can correct me

To figure out if you've got your meat to bone ratios right, you just need to look at the dog's poop.
The more meats and organs you feed, the softer the poops will be, and the more bones you feed, the smaller and harder the poops.

If you see yellow, very dry and powdery poops, you're feeding too much bone and it's a good idea to cut back quickly before your dog gets impacted (bones blocking the intestines).

If the poops turn white and disintegrate in the yard, then you're feeding the right balance of meats to bones.

If the poops don't turn white, but aren't too soft, then you're also fine.

If you feed a lot of organs one day, then the poops will be very soft. That's nothing to worry about as long as the poops return to normal when you go back to feeding muscle meats & bones.

Keep in mind that what works for an adult dog isn't the same thing as what works for a growing puppy. When my pup went through growth spurts, he'd suddenly start getting softer poops (even with the same bone/meat ratio) because his body was using up more of the minerals in the bones for growth.

I'd then increase the overall quantity of his meals (and add more bones) and his poop would get better. Once he was through with the growth spurt, I'd have to re-adjust his meals and reduce bone content.

Just a useful way to monitor ratios (you only need to take a quick glance at the poops, nothing complicated, lol). Certainly easier than having to weigh and calculate the meats and bones for each meal

 Quote: yuko blum

... I had to reduce my 11-year-old female's portions quite a bit to keep her thin (she has mild hip dysplasia). Would feeding her more chicken, rabbit and white fish help?

Yes, I think it does. As you know, protein is crucial to a dog, so a food that delivers more usable protein with all the amino acids and at a lower caloric "cost" is going to help with weight management.

Also, senior dogs usually lose some of their ability to metabolize protein, so they may require additional protein to compensate. Some, in fact, have been shown to need half again the protein they required in early adulthood.

Even a mild deficiency in protein can have a significant effect on a dog's immune function.

So again, the more efficient the protein source, the better.

JMO.

Wow! That's really good to know.

Thanks so much for the info Connie; Moka is also very grateful

Is there some test that I can ask my vet to perform to check whether or not she's deficient in protein?

How about proteases or other enzymes added to her food to help metabolize the proteins? I read (regarding human nutrition) that eggs are an excellent source of all the essential amino acids - are eggs also considered efficient protein sources?

Moka's immune function is extremely important to me! Especially as she's getting to be an older dog and is more at risk for cancers and such

This is a GREAT thread for a brand new raw feeder like me...Thank you very much Yuko & Connie!

Yuko, you mentioned taking a look at the poop to determine if you have the right balance of meat and bone. I'm feeding both pre-made raw (with ground bones) and a chicken back for the evening feeding only. I'm guessing the ground bone "counts" towards that balance. Can the ground bones, along with the chicken back, contribute to impaction or is it just whole raw bones that do that?

So far I'm seeing neither yellow, powdery poop or white poop. It's small and firm and he does seem to strain a little bit to pass a very small amount. Perhaps that's just normal given the complete change in diet?

Glad you're finding use for this very long thread, lol!

Yes, ground bones can impact a dog's gut. You don't have the risk of punctures in the event that the dog can't break down the bones, but the unused minerals from the bones will still sit there in the gut.

Your pup sounds fine. I've read that straining a little every now and then can actually be a good way to prevent the anal glands from blocking up (I read this a while ago, don't remember if the source was reliable so take it for what it's worth ).

Again, the more powdery the poop, the more unused bone minerals are being passed. As long as the poop stays brown or white and doesn't turn yellow, you probably don't have anything to worry about as far as impactions go

How long do you all figure that it takes for a chicken leg quarter or a pork hock to go from the mouth to a bowel movement? , I ask this question because my dog tends to have more of the "blow out" kind of poops after a meal of RMBs. From my completely amateur stool observations, I'm guessing that it takes anywhere from 10-12 hours. I'm hoping to time my RMB meals to minimize the possibility of overnight accidents in the crate.

Lately, I've been feeding him RMBs ONLY right before going to bed, and I've been waking up to a clean crate. (Hope I'm not jinxing myself.) And it seems that he has the big blow-out poop in the late AM, but I don't know if I'm making the correct observation.

I hope eventually his body will adjust and I won't have to worry about the timing of his meals, but right now this is a significant source of stress for me. It wasn't as bad in the fall when I could take the crate outside and hose it off, but now I have to clean everything inside the house and it's, well, gross.

Thanks in advance!
Joe