Just started feeding raw

Hi

I've just started feeding my cavalier raw. We're introducing it slowly, so at the moment she still has a morning meal of kibble (Vets Kitchen salmon) and in the evening she has either minced meat or chicken wings.

I bought the raw food from a local supplier, Jays in Doncaster.

What vegetables can I mix in with her food? I presume cooked vegetables only - I've saved some carrots and green beans (cooked) from last night's dinner, can she have those?

The raw minced meat includes bone and offal. Do I need to add anything else?

(Cavalier is 4 years old, spayed female, weighs 20 lbs so slightly overweight, or so the vet said - has had problems with itchy skin since we got her as a rescue dog at the age of 1.5 years, which I'm hoping to eliminate with raw food after trying a couple of different sorts of sensitive kibbles over the past couple of years.)

I sometimes add a veg stock cube and sort of make a warm gravy,rice and pasta,mine only eats tripe raw,but with minced meat have to prepare it so its not really raw,as they will not touch it.crystalgirl

My suggestion is to have a read of this A rough BARF guide

Regarding vegetables, I dice and lightly steam vegetables for my dog as they are quite a large volume of her diet [in order to keep her weight down]. Mainly she has pumpkin and courgettes as I am limited as to what I can buy here for her - and she and I eat the same vegetables!

She will eat steamed carrots but not raw - her treats being raw kohlrabi, red or yellow sweet peppers, and cucumber. Green beans I can only get frozen, and I add them to her first meal, which is a "wet" meal and has her vegetables included, just defrosted. Not cooked any more.

From what I have learned to understand, dogs cannot digest raw vegetables to get any vitamins from them, therefore they require either lightly steamed, as I do, or put through a blender/mixer [sorry, I am forgetting my English but that link will tell you all about it].

Regarding vegetables, things like cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage etc, tend to be windy and need a clothespeg on your nose, but are fine unless fed too much too often.

You will soon learn what your dog likes and what suits her.

Good luck!

I puree raw veg/fruit (banana, berrier, carrot, apple, something green and garlic and ginger, plus whatever other scraps I have) and freeze them in ice cube trays, so she can have a cube every few days.
I don't really consider them a necessary part of the diet tbh, more like a supplement and bit of bulk

Thanks I'll read through the item you linked to.

I've been saving a little cooked veg from our evening meal and feeding it to Ruby the next day with her dinner, she seems very happy with that So far she's had carrots, peas, green beans.

jays stuff is top quality

Hi... you can feed all most any Fruit or Veg raw to gods as long as you break down the celular wall, you can do this by blitzing them up in a blender... you need to do this if you want your dog to get any nutritional value from the veg.... you say the meat you feed has bone and offal in it, do you know how much, and what the offal is..... for me i like to know my dog is getting 80% meat/ protein 10% bone and 10% offal 2% to be Liver you need to watch you don’t feed too much liver, as you can overdose on vit A you need to think about Verity as well this is the key to raw feeding. Rabbit< Duck>Pheasant>Hare>Venison>Lamb>Chicken>Pork>Beef> Turkey all have different nutritional values...and Tripe is very good, you can also add raw eggs and shell, yogurt, nuts, herbs