Hi all
We have recently changed feeding Fergal from a complete feed to a Raw meaty bone diet. He gets chicken carcasses, minced chicken with bone, Tripe, Turkey necks and wings, lamb ribs and brest of lamb. He gets a mixture of things each day but always has 1 or 2 carcasses. The question is his poos, they are very 'dry' to the point that today he was crying when trying to 'go'

Are we giving too much bone? Should we be doing anything else? He is loving the food, put on some much needed weight and looks great so we really don't want to go back to a complete food. Any ideas or suggestions would be welcome.
Regards
Spring.

Yep , that is a clear sign of a bit too much bone - give a bit more meat , making sure , there is plenty of fat with it and also perhaps more (ground up ) veggies . I have fed raw for 37 years now and , think , I've " seen it all " - I feed a lot of different meats , about 2/3 rds meat 1/3rd veggies/fruits usually , bones extra 1-2x week (some ground up in the meat or another form of calcium added ) , some chicken necks/backs but not every day . Good to hear that he is doing so well !

Verena said it all. We don't tend to feed bones as such because it triggers food aggression and it is too hard to seperate and supervise, but they get bone ground up in their meat and they do get chicken necks and the odd carcass. Cut back on the bone and give a bit more meat and maybe some some fish oil. Ours love tinned sardines. I'm sure his stools will soften up

Yep - dry crumbly poo's paleish in colour is def too much bone. Try what others have suggested increase meat and veggies and add some sardines in oil and will soon be sorted. Glad to hear that feeding raw is going well - there is no other way as far as I am concerned

Couldn't agree more with what everyone else has said, definately try some sardines or some other oily fish, mine love tinned Mackeral as well.

Glad to hear that im not the only one whos dogs diet is far more involved than my own!

Come to think of it , I feed 4-6lbs of raw, fresh meat to my dhs everyday ( all varieties , tripe and fish and bison and chicken and turkey and pork and beef ect) and am myself a vegetarian who won't even cook meat for guests....

hermitkat wrote:


I know the feeling - I spend far more time sorting out their food than anyone else's

I used to say that my dogs and horses get better food than my children and of course my self and my husband.

I didn't see this thread at first and I have started one new about raw food I hope some of you can give me answer of my questions.

This sounds great but where do you get the meat and carcasses from? Surely it's too expensive to get meat from the supermarket. I get bones for Loki from our local butcher to supplement his dry food and would love to try raw feeding. I'm just not sure if I have enough time to devote to it and I don't want to start and then be unable to keep it up because of time pressure or lack of availability or money.

Many people are able to get cheap (no pun intended!) 'waste' bits of chicken and turkey from local abattoirs. You can see if you have any local abattoirs from this site www.tracingpaper.org.uk/f...acer/abattoirs. If you can already get bones from your butcher, it's probably worth talking to him to see if he can supply you with anything else.

Unfortunately our local butcher buys in his stock ready butchered, so he has absolutely no offcuts or excess and we have no abatoirs nearby. I do occasionally buy meat and fish in the supermarkets if it's REALLY reduced.

We have used Landywoods (www.landywoods.co.uk) and the Dog Food Company (www.thedogfoodcompany.net/index.html) who both supply raw meat animal food. Both are fine and prices are about the same, although I prefer The Dog Food Company who are really helpful.

You do have to be quite organised. Landywoods only deliver to our area once a month, Dog Food Company are a bit more flexible. But you need to make sure that you order enough to get you to the next delivery, but not so much it won't all fit in the freezer! We bought a cheap secondhand freezer from www.preloved.co.uk (thanks to Mrs Mc for that one) specifically for the dog food. In retrospect it would probably have been good to get a fridge as well - it's a bit off putting to have 2kg of raw green tripe defrosting in your fridge next to the leg of lamb for our dinner

The cost was my worry too. However, it's not working out as expensive as I anticipated, particularly with the recent price hikes in dry dog food. A range of different raw meats is costing slightly less per month than the Burns dry food he was on before.

I hope my honesty hasn't put you off. It isn't that difficult, as I said you just need to organise yourself.

Sue

That's great Spot. Thanks for all your help. I have been thinking about it a lot. We have two butchers who give us bones. One in particular is really friendly and so I will probably ask him first.I could go to the fish market in Leicester once a month. They sell offcuts and cheap fish. There is a poultry farm not too far away too. Is there anything I definitely shouldn't feed him?

Oh, lucky you to have all that nearby.

As I said on the other raw food thread going at the moment, we haven't been doing this long, so there are others who have a lot more expertise. I know you shouldn't give offal too often, perhaps once or twice a week and introduce it slowly in small quantities. You need to get the balance of meat and bone right. Too much bone and the poo turns into bullets (that's how this thread started!) and too much meat leaves them deficient in various vitamins/minerals. Fergal isn't keen on raw fish, so I might try some cooked. He also occasionally has tinned tuna or sardines in oil.

We don't give Fergal fruit and veg, but if you do, I know they shouldn't have raw potato, raw onion or raw garlic. I think there maybe some fruits they shouldn't have but I'm afraid I don't know them off the top of my head.

We found this site really helpful www.krisannriorawfeeding.com/index.htm

Sue

Thanks Sue. I have spent all evening reading those sites and I think I need to give it a go. I have only just bought a bag of food so that gives me a while to get my suppliers sourced. Thanks for inspiring and motivating me to do this. I have looked at it in the past but dismissed it as being too difficult.

Ben has always had beef mince, brisket, lamb mince, breast of lamb, occasional lamb shoulder, chicken, lambs liver. I usually leave some biscuits down and an occasional tin of butchers dog food. Over the last few days he's been refusing to touch the raw meat and has only been eating the biscuits and tins of butchers. I find this most odd as up to now he's only really been interested in the meat.

Can anyone throw any light onto this strange behavior? Is it just that he wants a change or for some other reason?

We have been offered wood pigeon carcasses for Loki. Does anyone know any reason why he shouldn't have them?

He should be fine with them - our penny eat the brest of one ok,
i did watch her as the bones are verry fine, but they also feel soft,
she was fine with them, but i only gave her some ever once in a while.

Well so much for that then. He just sniffed it and walked away with that disdainful look that only a deerhound can perfect.

Coulda been worse, Purple! Ive mentioned this before but I gave Dougal kidney once. He took it in his mouth, spat it out then peed on it! Never again have I given him kidney! Gx

Well I suppose so but the only slight issue is that the butcher gave me a carrier bag full. They're taking up half the freezer!
I went to my local butcher who always has some goodies for us, usually turkey necks or chicken backs but yesterday we had a right assortment. It was like an anatomy lesson. There was a pair of lungs complete wih trachea - species unknown. I can work out the heart and liver etc but there were other random pieces of meat I hadn't got a clue about. Loki doesn't seem bothered what it is. It generally goes down ok. Obviously unless it's wood pigeon.