Swapping to raw HELP.

Im struggling to figure out all my weights etc and would really appreciate some help please.
Diesel (male black lab age 3)has very bad skin problems and after various diets steriods antibiotics painful injections over many visits to the vets ive decided this is the best thing i can do for him.
He weighs 29 kilos (or 64lb). I cant figure out how much to feed him i make that 0.6kg a day is that right? it seems alot to me.

I go on the 2-3% of their ideal body weight. If 29kg is a good weight for him then 580-870g will be about the range for him. I would say start with 600g and see how he goes - you may need to up it or lower it, every dog is different, just like people.

600g may sound a lot compared to what you're feeding now, but split into two meals it doesn't really look all that much. Your average chicken breast is about 200g - 3 of them on a plate isn't really a giant meal for a 30kg dog as one meal, let alone two meals of just 1.5 chicken breasts.
Don't forget though that the 2-3% includes bone and offal as well, so it's only 480g of pure meat, just over 2 chicken breasts to refer back to that example. A chicken breast in the morning and one in the evening doesn't seem quite so much, does it?

Another point to remember that dry food is just that - if you added the water that had been removed in processing back to his daily amount of kibble then the weight would increase. Chicken breasts can range from 2 to 40% water apparently, so that 480g of meat could be as much as 200g water! I tend to avoid cheap chicken fillets for this reason (they're pumped full of water to look bigger), but suddenly that 600g a day doesn't quite seem so high when you take that into consideration.

Thanks for your help its a bit confusing but he so needs to try raw. Do you think I can use the tinned tripe as part of the offal? as in the butchers tinned tripe?
The cost has to be taken in to account unfortunately.

Tripe tends to count more as muscle meat than offal in lots of people's eyes really - offal is the bits of the body that have particular jobs and hence contain more vitamins and minerals. Like the liver is high in vitamin A, tongue contains lots of B vitamins, etc. Tripe does have some of these benefits but it's not so high in the vitamins and minerals side of things. Mine get liver once or twice a week and then get a mixed pig offal. They also get an "economy mince" which is meat mixed with various offal apart from liver. I sometimes pick up kidneys from the supermarket, plus they get whole rabbit which contains all the various organs too.
Personally I wouldn't add a tinned food in your situation either - the "point" of raw with skin issues is often to cut out all the variables in the diet. The ingredients I've found online for Butchers tripe are (which shows that it doesn't really contain all that much tripe either)
"Meat and Animal Derivatives (Tripe min. 19%, Chicken min. 18%), Derivatives Of Vegetable Origin, Minerals" so you're going to end up feeding things you can't pinpoint, and if any of those ingredients don't agree with Diesel then his skin may still remain problematic. With vague ingredients in cheap foods, it also allows them a certain amount of leeway in each production run - "derivatives of vegetable origin" may be one lot of vegetables one month, another lot of vegetables the next, so you won't know whether the food contains vegetables that set Diesel off, or if it's a certain meat in there, etc.
One of the most economical ways to raw-feed is through a specific raw food supplier. If you're in West Yorkshire then DAF are likely to cover your area - http://www.daf-petfood.co.uk/
I think when I looked, their prices are fairly similar to what I pay The Dog Food Company and Kiki at around 34kg costs about £20 a month to feed so definately not breaking the bank. I top it up with bits from the supermarket, e.g. reduced packs of chicken breasts, but with the base food costing so little it allows me to spend this little extra on foods like that. Landywoods also cover some parts of Yorkshire according to their website - http://www.landywoods.co.uk/delivery.html
These places tend to have minimum orders so it can be a good idea to trial the dog with raw from the supermarket, or pick up bags of stuff like Prize Choice meats from a petshop initially, but you can then look into buying a chest freezer (I bought a huge one that fits about £80 worth/about a month and half of food off Ebay for £30 delivered) to save costs longterm.

Ruby my boxer girl is an active 19 months old who gets plenty of exercise.I give her the full 3% of body weight.Labs are not known to be the most energetic of breeds so your boy will probably do ok on 2%.You can always ajust more or less food as you are able to judge his correct weight by sight and feel.Don't forget food should contain a reasonable amount of raw fat that will be higher in calories so it is also about calorie content as well as weight.Good quality raw fat will help with skin and coat conditioning so try to include raw fats that are good for a dog.--Chicken and Pork fat as well as raw oily fish are good and full of essential fatty acids which are preferable to beef or lamb fat as these are heavy saturated fats and not as good.

Thanks so much the advice is really helping -as i blunder into the unknown and if this sorts out hes poor skin i will be over the moon.
Wow Krlyr to feed kiki for just £20 ish a month is amazing, the daf site looks good and i think i will give them a ring.
Can i have a peak at your shopping list?

Stick with the raw tripe if you can.Try to get untreated raw green tripe and not the bleached tripe from a butcher's shop or washed grey tripe as in "Prize Choice".As well as containing valuable enzymes green tripe is a good balance of phosphorus and calcium important minerals for your dog.Landywoods will supply green tripe in pound packs.They do require a minimum order of £30 so you will need freezer space.It is worth having a look at their web site to see what variety of food is available.

I use a spreadsheet to work out a feeding regime on "paper" for one week, then use that to order about 6 week's worth (my supplier delivers about every 4-6 weeks)
I don't stick strictly to this regime nowadays - I might order, say, 20lb of chicken for my two but that doesn't mean I feed 5lb each week - one week it might be 4lb, the next 7, the next 3 and the next 6. I know that I want to be feeding 20lb of chicken to them but I don't fuss about when exactly they get that in the month, it will all balance out over time, I just try to avoid giving them the same thing more than 2 days in a row (not that they would probably mind, it's more that I prefer to give them a variety)

So an example week for Kiki according to my spreadsheet might be
Mon - 1lb chicken mince, 0.5lb fish, 0.3lb liver
Tues - 1lb tripe chunks, 0.3lb chicken wings
Weds - 0.5lb chicken mince, 1lb green tripe
Thurs - 0.5lb chicken mince, 0.5lb lamb and tripe mince
Fri - 1lb economy mince, 0.5lb chicken carcass, 0.5lb pig offal
Sat - 0.5lb heart chunks, 1lb beef mince
Sun - 0.5lb chicken, 0.5lb tripe chunks, 0.3lb liver

So then the monthly shopping list would be
Chicken mince x10lb
Tripe chunky x6lb
Tripe green x4lb
Lamb & tripe x2lb
Econ mince x4lb
Beef mince x4lb
Pig pluck x2lb
Liver x2.4lb
Whole rabbit x2
Which costs about £20

Then I order a box of carcasses, wings, etc. every so often, plus meaty bones, whole rabbits.
I'll swap the chicken mince for chicken fillets some days, I'll pick up chicken legs which have a fair amount of bone on them (just started getting some from the supplier which works out cheaper than Tesco, as well as chunks of beef and whole chickens), turkey, pork and beef chops, because I don't like feeding mince all the time. I like to include fish in the diet too, my supplier doesn't do this but I vary between buying frozen fillets, tinned fish and currently have a stock of Fish4Dogs salmon mousse (99% salmon - bought it when it was BOGOF so worked out cheaper than shop-bought salmon and in nice convenient pouches)

Thankyou thankyou!
Raw feeding here we come!

Raw Feeding Guidelines

Although many people successfully feed commercial foods to their dogs scores of owners are choosing to use fewer processed products in both their own diet and that of their pets.

After all dogs are not equipped with can openers or cooking utensils and were designed to hunt, catch, kill and feed on a wide variety of prey animals as well as to be opportunistic scavengers.

Dogs are scientifically classified as carnivores, manifest by their physique. They have eyes at the front of their head in order to observe potential food, jaws that move up and down, as opposed to the side to side movement present in omnivores/herbivores, no flat topped molars with which to chew and a shorter digestive tract reflecting the fact that they were created to consume little or no vegetation or cereals/grains.

Feeding a raw diet is often seen as somewhat revolutionary however it must be remembered that dogs have not only survived but thrived on such nutrition for hundreds of years prior to the advent of manufactured dog food.

One of the main concerns expressed by owners is that they cannot successfully replicate the scientifically researched diets that pet food companies quote as their USP (unique selling point). However, just as a degree is not required to adequately nourish ourselves, the same is true for our canine companions.

There is a plethora of information on raw feeding produced by qualified pet nutritionists and/or veterinary surgeons who have specialised in this field; therefore creating a satisfactory home diet need not be overly onerous or complicated for the ordinary dog owner.

Quantities

For adults approximately 2 - 3% of their bodyweight per day. Calculate this by multiplying 2/3 by your dog's weight and dividing it by 100.

Eg 2 x 30/100 = 600g, 3 x 30/100 = 900g.

For puppies feed circa 10% of their present bodyweight or 2-3% of their projected adult weight per day.

However be guided by your hand and eye; if the dog is looking a little too ribby up the amount and reduce if the dog is looking a little too well padded! Dogs will vary on their requirements depending on age, sex, activity level, temperament and time of year etc.

Frequency

Adult dogs should be fed twice a day for the following reasons:
• To minimise the risk of Bloat/GDV
• To avoid blood sugar fluctuations

Meats

Lamb, beef, chicken, turkey, rabbit, pork, venison, duck, hare, and/or anything you can get your hands on; some dogs regularly chow down on more exotic species.

Dogs require the correct calciumhosphorus ratio and so it is essential to feed raw meaty bones (RMBs) as well as muscle meat.

Offal such as hearts, lungs, kidneys, tripe, liver is also essential (although strictly speaking the heart is a muscle like the tongue).

Fish

Oily fish such as pilchards, mackerel, sardines, etc provide a good source of Omega 3; if it is difficult to obtain fresh, then tinned makes a good substitute. Tuna may contain high levels of mercury and is a less valuable source of Omega 3.

Vegetables

Onions must not be fed to dogs in any form as they can cause haemolytic anaemia which can be fatal. Avocados contain persin which can produce problems in some animals.

All other vegetables may be fed however, for a dog to get any nutritional benefit from vegetables, they must either be pulped or frozen, otherwise they go out the way they went in and can only be used as source of fibre.

Oxalic acid can interfere with calcium absorption; so don't feed too much of Spinach or Chard.

Care should also be taken not to overfeed vegetables from the cruciferous family eg cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, kale, swedes, turnips and broccoli to dogs as this may inhibit thyroid function.

Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and aubergines all belong to the nightshade family of plants. Dogs who have arthritis may be sensitive to these foods which may exacerbate their condition. It is doubtful if raw potato can be digested successfully in any case.

Garlic is a useful addition to the diet as it performs an antiseptic, antibiotic, antifungal function.

Fruit

All except grapes (and raisins) which can cause kidney failure and death in even very small amounts. Bananas are an excellent source of pre-biotics essential for gut health.

Bear in mind fruit and/or vegetables should not make up more than 10% of diet and can have a laxative effect!

Dairy

No animal post weaning consumes milk bar humans however live yoghurt can be very useful for poorly stomachs because of its probiotic content provided that dogs are not intolerant to lactose (milk sugar) and casein (milk protein). As puppies leave their dams equipped with a full set of teeth bones are a more appropriate source of calcium.

Eggs can be given raw each day, the shells are good sources of calcium but only when powdered, otherwise they merely provide roughage.

Grains/cereals

There is no proven need for carbohydrates in the dog’s diet and of course these need to be cooked before they can be successfully digested by the canine.

Books (in order of simplicity/accessibility)

• Switching to Raw by Sue Johnson
• Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats by Kymythy Schulze
• The Barf Diet by Ian Billingshurst
• Give your Dog a Bone by Ian Billingshurst
• Grow your pups with Bones by Ian Billingshurst
• Work Wonders by Tom Lonsdale
• Raw Meaty Bones by Tom Lonsdale

Websites - Britbarf, K9nutrition yahoo groups the first is UK the second is an excellent US site, Dogaware, B-Naturals

HTH