Quote: tracy collins

 Quote: linda patch

So even if your dog is consuming, on a daily basis, raw chicken that has been shown to be 80% contaminated with bacteria on a daily basis there has been no problem for any of you?

That is certainly the case here.

I'll even confess to thawing meat for the dogs by just letting it sit out in the open--in the basement usually, in a plastic tub. Big cases of stuff that's frozen solid might sit out for two days before I get to it.

Ditto. And my primary method of defrosting is usually in a big plastic bowl on the counter (I usually pop it in the fridge before it's 100% thawed...). In fact, we recently took 10 days worth of dog meals with us on holiday to Virginia, all initially frozen and packed into a styrofoam cooler with a few ice packs. The temps were in the 30s there and we left the cooler in the garage, dipping in to take a few meals out at a time for the fridge... for the whole ten days that cooler stayed in the garage, and while all the meat was most likely completely thawed by day 5 or so, it stayed chilled enough (with refrozen ice packs) to not get really nasty, and we fed every last drumstick without any ill effects. It was not an ideal situation, and I certainly prefer to not let the dog's food go "off" in any way, but Oscar could have cared less.

A dog's digestive system really is so different than a human's... it's hard not to apply the same concerns you would to feeding a person, but you can honestly get away with a lot more in terms of defining "freshness".

~Natalya

 Quote: Michael_Wise

Oh, its your lucky day.

Terrible video(for some reason my wife won't help video when I go get tripe), but here ya go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H3gn2RTFE0

Oh, I'm afraid. Very, very afraid!

 Quote: Michael_Wise

... Oh, its your lucky day.

Terrible video(for some reason my wife won't help video when I go get tripe), but here ya go.

That's good. If she did videotape the tripe runs, I'd figure that she was gathering divorce evidence.

 Quote: Michael_Wise

Terrible video(for some reason my wife won't help video when I go get tripe), but here ya go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H3gn2RTFE0

If you turn the volume all the way up, the sound effects are spectacular... really

I can't view video on the work 'puter, and my blackberry won't play it. Darn!

 Quote: Meredith Hamilton

I can't view video on the work 'puter, and my blackberry won't play it. Darn!

Maybe you can watch it during lunch.

Mwah-ha-ha!

Yo Whoa! Mike--if there is a Leerburg Raw Feeding Hall of Fame--that should be in it!

But thank you all again. My pattern is to consider a new idea, research, read, learn, ask, then over-think. The over-thinking leads me uncovering the last, niggling details that keep me from moving forward on a new path like this one. Once I put my final issues to rest satisfactorily, I'm good to go. My feeling is there are no dumb questions--even when the questions are dumb ! You all have helped me figure things out.

Now I have to find the threads here about how people made the switch--cold turkey, elimination diet, what meats first, etc. The searching begins.

 Quote: Linda Patch

.... Now I have to find the threads here about how people made the switch--cold turkey, elimination diet, what meats first, etc. The searching begins.

Use Michael's name in your search, because he has been wonderfully patient with helping so many posters make the switch.

Do you have access to chicken backs?

http://leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/256663/page/0/fpart/1

A start!

Thanks, Connie!

In fact, I just linked to a wholesaler in Boston who can get me 40 lbs at a time of chicken backs and necks, turkey necks, ground turkey, etc. He gave me the number to call next door for the beef products. Seems he does this for a number of dog owners in the area. Psych!