Transition to raw feeding

I have done my research , and now firmly believe in the benefits of raw feeding and made a start today.

Tom and Bella had some ribs and Bella was straight in there , Tom a little slower , bit of lick first and then off he went. I was nervous of the bones but neednt have worried , they thoroughly enjoyed them and the the experience of chomping away at them. Both snoozing happily now

I think I will gradually introduce raw and see how they go , got a good local butcher locally who can supply what I need and made room in the freezer !

Working in IT , I am in the process of doing a meal spreadsheet to help with variety and a balanced diet and for the freezer stocks.

Its real exciting to be doing this as from what I have read it can only bring benefits to my hounds, they both have a real healthy set of teeth so should be fine I think.

I think you get caught up in the dog food marketing world when you first have your dogs and as a new owner this year its been a steep learning curve. When you start to research so many things begin to make sense about how you should feed and look after your dog , I know its not for everyone but hopefully it will work for my hounds.

I would appreciate any tips people have in the early days

Many Thanks

Tom enjoying his first raw experience !

Good luck - lots of people have managed to switch cold turkey over to raw with no problems, infact, some dogs do it themselves as they soon refuse boring kibble when they've had yummy meat for dinner!
I've made a spreadsheet too - it's helped with my worries of not balancing the diet, and ordering the right amount. My supplier lives a couple of counties away (I'm just one stop-off on route) so only delivers once a month, so ensuring I order enough for the month but not so much that I can't fit it in the chest freezer is important, especially as I order for two other people too. I know that with my spreadsheet, I've ordered the right amount of meat, bones and offal for the month so whatever I grab, it will all balance out eventually, and I order as much variety as I can get so they rarely have the same meal two days running. I follow a couple of rules, such as giving offal with a high-bone-conent meal like carcass, and I try to give fish at least once or twice a week as I feel it benefits their coat & joints to get fish oils, but other than that, no week of feeding is the same and the dogs seem to love the variety.

I went over to raw cold turkey 10 years ago and have never looked back.

I did this after a year of research, I am afraid I am not very scientific neither do I create spreadsheets, I know what nutrients my dogs need and where they are found, so I am afraid I am very much a bung it in the freezer, bung it in bowl, bung it in dogs sort of feeder!

Balance over time is important, not necessary on a daily basis.

I agree, but if a spreadsheet makes someone feel a bit more comfortable then I don't see the harm - it certainly helped me to take the plunge, knowing I wasn't going into it without a clue what I was doing. I think different methods work for different people, though I think you do get a bit more lax once you've been raw feeding for a little while, I certainly am a lot less "scientific" now than when I first started (back then when I had set weekly menus, weighed everything precisely, etc!)

yay well done you!!! im a fellow raw feeding newbie

i love feeding my dogs raw, and love preparing it all for them too. just wish i had a bigger freezer so i could order from a supplier.

i also too have drawn up a spreadsheet, makes me feel better, and im a bit of a geek and loved doing it

have fun with it, your dogs will love it too

going well lamb neck this evening and thoroughly enjoyed by the woofs, local butcher all arranged for weekly pick up and costs next to nothing ! So far so good so hope this works !

I found Dogsey from a raw food website. I wont put who here as I am new and don't know if that is allowed. But the list of food sounds like all raw meet. I haven't noticed any thing about veg, carcases or bones.

Today I bought a bag of Natures Menu and noiced that it contains peas and carrots.

Are veg and bones essential for a good raw diet.

Ang

Lots of people on here seem to follow the prey model diet as opposed to BARF. Prey model is based on the edible parts of a wolf's natural kills - so, ignoring the larger, generally inedible bones and averaging out the proportions from their prey, you get a roughly 80% meat, 10% bone and 10% offal ratio. Hence the majority of discussion being about meat.
I wouldn't say bones aren't mentioned at all here - the first post in this thread has a picture of a dog eating ribs, and I've yet to see anyone here on raw who's not aware of the need for bones and offal in the diet, but lots of prey model feeders will meat the bone requirements with smaller bones like chicken wings, carcasses, etc. whereas I gather BARF feeders often feed larger RMBs as there's generally more bone in the diet, so there may be less mention of bones than on a more BARF oriented group.
I don't personally feed large amounts of veg in the diet, they may get leftovers from dinner or stuff that's nearing its best before but I don't purposely go out of my way to buy them veg. I do feed tripe quite regularly though and lots of prey model feeders will do the same, as the stomach will contain lots of partially digested food from the prey animal and this provides similar vitamins and minerals to veggies.

are ribs ok , most of what they have had so far is a mix of bone and meat and a bit of offal

Well done on going raw!!

Ribs are fine, great if you can get them together ather than one at a time, more work for the dog. Just make sure there is plenty of meat fed alongside to prevent feeding to much bone.