How many BARF'ers or RAW feeders are there? - Page 3

[thekimballs]

Originally Posted by caeden&connersmom

The dog we have now is a mixed breed, small dog. Sort of a corgi mix.

The coonhound we are adopting is a Redbone and she will be a larger girl. She is 6 months old right now. So 1-1.5 pounds a day of?? The mixed ground up stuff? Can I do days with just poultry?

Do I need vitamins also? I was telling my dh about the RAW diet and how it sounded really good, and he said he'll be fighting with the dogs when its chicken wing day! LOL

I guess I should get a book as this sounds like a really good thing for the dogs.

The best book in my opinion, the easiest for laypeople to understand, is Switching to Raw by Sue Johnson. www.switchingtoraw.com is the link.

A six-month-old bitch will be eating the most she ever eats. I would plan on 2+ pounds and be willing to go up. You want to feed the majority of her meals as raw meaty bones (chicken backs, turkey necks, etc.). A couple times a week you feed organ meats--the ground stuff above sounds great if it's made up of various organ and muscle meats. If you feed veggies (some raw feeders do, others don't), that's once or twice a week as well. So of 14 meals, about 10-12 will be various meaty bones, 2 organ meat, and an optional 2 veggies.

Some people feed vitamins, others don't. I personally don't, but if you choose to do so there is only one brand I recommend: Dog Bloom. I have seen Dog Bloom fed successfully with raw, and most other brands are designed to supplement kibble, not raw.

[myhoneyswife]

Good deal! My first dog was no kibble for a while, mostly chicken with a little table food. He's all picky now, he'll not eat plain stuff like bread or rice without sauce Then they both were raw... then I got pg and didn't want to deal with raw chicken for a few weeks... then I realized how much it was costing me to feed them, about $70/month, where $30 of kibble does it (Costco brand) and we're totally short on cash right now so they get kibble and about $10 worth of meat a month, plus lots of our scraps. I need to find a way to get them cheaper raw meat. The cat gets raw when the dogs do, plus she eats mice whole... I didn't think cats were supposed to do that, but she does and seems okay ~?~

[thekimballs]

$70/mo is huge--though I wouldn't feed Kirkland food anyway, so I can't compare. If I fed my dogs kibble, I'd be spending at least that, probably more, since I'd feed Solid Gold (appropriately named for the price).

Anyway, my cheap sources include: deer processors, custom slaughterhouses (ask them what they're currently throwing away, and offer to pay them for it), poultry farms, restaurant supply businesses. If you call one and they can't sell you chicken under fifty cents a pound (or beef under a dollar a pound), ask them where they'd look if they were looking. You'll get a lot of good leads that way. And you have to be non-squeamish; what you're pulling out of drums in the back of deer processors' barns is not going to be pretty (but it will be healthy and fresh). It IS very possible to feed raw very cheaply.

[myhoneyswife]

Originally Posted by thekimballs

Anyway, my cheap sources include: deer processors, custom slaughterhouses (ask them what they're currently throwing away, and offer to pay them for it), poultry farms, restaurant supply businesses. If you call one and they can't sell you chicken under fifty cents a pound (or beef under a dollar a pound), ask them where they'd look if they were looking. You'll get a lot of good leads that way. And you have to be non-squeamish; what you're pulling out of drums in the back of deer processors' barns is not going to be pretty (but it will be healthy and fresh). It IS very possible to feed raw very cheaply.

Thanks! I've been meaning to look into butchers anyway because all the meat in grocery stores (except Costco is good but HUGE packages) here is nasty. We have tons of deer processors around, I'll start calling. I'm not real squeamish, I don't think, but we'll see Thanks for the tips!