advice re raw feeding... how to ensure a balanced diet?

hi all,

i would love some advice regarding raw feeding. i have 2 springers, my girl is 9 years old and is on a strict diet (has to lose 6 kilos ), my other is sam who is roughly 2-3 years old. i have been told by the trainer that i saw last week to feed them raw pet mince. they both love it, but it seems to upset bronte's tummy! she only has a tiny amount as a token jesture which i add to her dry food. sam has 2 meals a day (the biggest one in the morning re advice from the trainer), bronte only has one meal a day. they have fruit and veg in-between. bronte has a couple of carrots a day, sam has tomatoes and cucumbers!

i took sam to the vets on friday to check his stitches after his castration and i mentioned it to the vet nurse what i was feeding him. she said i shouldn't be feeding mince to him, as he gets all he needs out of the dry food! he weighs 16.5 kilos at the mo, and has no fat on him whatsoever. i want to keep him this way, as i know after castration he may be prone to weight gain. so my question is.....what do i feed them both to give them a balanced diet with all the protein, vits and minerals they both need!! i am totally confused now!! cheers xx

Personally I would either feed totally raw or only kibble and if I really wanted to feed both I would use a mixer instead of a complete and I would feed that at one end of the day, and the raw in the other meal. Although to get a varied diet going you would have to feed more than just the mince with the raw part of the diet (unless of course it has ground bone and a mixture of other stuff included).

The most simplest way I think, honestly is to go completly all raw.

Alot of dogs have a hard time with digestion and get stomach upsets if raw and kibble is fed in one meal at the same time. Raw meat digests at completly different rates to kibble. A dogs digestive system works really well with raw meat etc and it is digested and utilized quite fast where as the same process with kibble takes so much longer, which can cause confliction. This may be why your dog is getting an upset stomach.

If you do only want to feed raw as a 'token gesture' I would definitley try feeding their treat separately from the kibble.

I used to give mine the odd raw treat when we were feeding kibble, but made sure I didn't feed it at the same time.

thanks for your advice. is the raw okay for my girl who is on a diet though as i read in another thread that feeding raw puts weight on? when you mention a mixer is that used with the raw or on its own? the mince i get is a mixture of lots of different meats, not just beef mince. i also give them cooked and raw eggs, pilchards, sardines, tuna, leftover steamed veg and sometimes a bit of pasta. how much should i be feeding of the raw? cheers xx

When adult dogs are on a totally raw diet, it is recommended to fed between 2 to 3% of their own body weight daily. Or at least so that it averages out as close to that over a course of days.

This is why I think it is easier to choose one way or the other and personally I have no idea what you would feed if still using kibble or a mixer, so feeding just one way or the other is easiest for me but I know alot of people still do feed dry dog food with raw...I mostly hear of people just adding a cup a day to the raw diet.

If you are sure you can offer a really well balanced raw diet I would just add a mixer because you don't need two complete foods together.

It's up to you but personally I would drop pasta and anything similar unless you are just using it to add bulk to the diet. You mention you don't want your dogs to gain weight, just maintain, well the dogs in that case may well be better off without it as they wont be gaining anything from it nutrition wise it only bulks up the diet. (A filler if you like).

Are you pulping your veg or steaming it or similar?...If you are feeding them whole they are only acting as good chews, they wont be getting any nutrient from them unless you break them down first. You also don't need to be feeding alot of veg each day (maybe around 10% of the diet if that)

To feed a well balanced raw diet to my dogs, I include:

RMB = Breast of Lamb, whole chicken or chicken parts (any part of the chicken) same with turkey, ox tail, lamb neck, ribs, whole fresh fish...(they can also get whole rabbit aswell but one of my dogs doesn't like it)

Meat = sometimes tinned fish, beef mince, lamb mince, tripe, eggs, ox heart or lamb heart...

Offal = ox liver, pig kidney, lambs liver

Veg they get as extras and I add no grains or wheat or anything. At present I don't add any vitamins or supplements and they are doing very well on it.

You will see there is no one set way to do this!...We all find our own variation that works. But no matter what you choose in raw feeding. Meat should always make up the most part of the diet, with bone and then offal. Think of it like an upside down pyramid, meat being the widest section, bone in the middle, then offal then extras like veg. Think also of a prey animal and how you would go about making that up. Meat makes up the most of the animal, then some bones, some of which may be eaten, some arn't and then you have the inerds and then a small amount of stomach contents....this is what you are trying to replicate when feeding raw.

Lastly keep your eye on what comes out after it has gone in...Too white and chalky = to much bone. Too loose = maybe to much meat or too much veg in total or maybe too much of one kind of veg and or not enough bone. Maybe to much offal. Adjust amounts accordingly to get the right balance for your dog.

Other people who feed kibble in conjunction with raw will most likely be able to help on that part

thanks very much mischievous for your very informative reply! as my girl is on a diet she only has half a cup full of dry food daily along with the raw meat and veg. sam has 2 cups a day, so i will try and reduce his down to one and give him more raw. i am still confused with the 2 or 3% tho! with bronte should i feed her 2 or 3% of what her actual body weight is or what it should be? only because she would be on twice as much as sam!! does this % include everything (ie. veg, dry food etc) or just the raw? sorry to ask so many questions! just want to get it right for my mutts!

When feeding completly raw: If a dogs weight is fine and you just want to maintain it about 2.5% I would be a good starting place. If it needs to gain a little weight you could try 3% plus. If it gains a little weight that isn't needed on 2.5% then drop it down to 2% and so on.

If you have a dog that needs to loose weight alot of people take what would be the ideal weight and then feed about 2% of that weight.

It's not set in stone and you can decide to start off some where and adjust as necessary as you go along.

Also it is all just a guideline as no two dogs are the same. One dog of the same size may need a totally different amount to another just as with us people.

Alot of it is trial and error. But these are general starting points to give a person some idea of the average amount.

As for how much to feed when in conjunction with kibble I can't speak from experience on that one...Hopefully someone else can

thanks very much for all your help myschievous, its certainly all food for thought (pardon the pun!!). i will let you know how i get on! cheers again x

Excellent, glad to help When some of the others get online I know they will be able to add some more answers to your questions

Good luck with it all

I have actually found it easier to get weight off my boy since being on Raw as he piled the pounds on when eating dry complete. I don't feel so bad about cutting back his amount of food on raw as he really enjoys his food and I bulk it up with fruit and veg. I also feed him leaner meat and more white fish etc. When I tried to cut back his amounts whilst still feeding complete, he seemed continuously hungry and tended to actively scavange more. Of course, raw can put weight on dogs too but ultimatley it is up to you to decide what and how much they eat.

As Myschievous has said, you really should choose raw or complete and stick with it. Or, at the very least, feed complete in one meal and raw in the other.

You can add a plain mixer to raw food but I don't as I don't think my dogs need it but it depends very much on how you intend to structure their diet.

The rule of thumb with regard to how much you should feed raw is 2-3% of adult bodyweight. Realistically, many dogs will do well on less than that (mine both get less) and I tend to tailor amounts according to activity levels etc. The diet should approximately be made up of 50% raw bones, 40% muscle meat and 10% fruit and veg. I would stress that this is an approximation and some dogs may find 50% RMBs too much (causing constipation) while others can handle as much as 60% with no problems.

Is the mince you buy 100% meat or are there cereals added?

I would strictly limit the amount of tuna in the diet as there has been recent concern with regard to mercury levels and potential harmful effects on humans. A little now and again as a treat is fine, though. Also, you mentioned that one of your dogs gets tomatoes. There is some anecdotal evidence that tomatoes can have detrimental effects on dogs with arthritis. I don't know if that would apply in your case but it is worth baring in mind for future. I personally don't feed tomatoes, aubergines, peppers or potato (any member of the nightshade family, basically) although some people do. Also, remember that grapes and onions are harmful and should be avoided at all costs.

If you would like to read more on feeding BARF diet, I can recommend the book 'Natural Nutrition for Cats & Dogs' by Kymythy Schulz (available from Amazon) as a very good starting point (although she advocates one fast day every week and my dogs would leave home if I tried to enforce that particular rule ).

Sorry, I appear to have waffled on a bit