RAW FEEDING

[FORDE'SMOM]

hi......after reading so many praises of feeding our english bulldogs raw food, I am gathering info on it and thinking about maybe trying it......from reading it seems that the bulldogs that are eating this way are gainging so very many benefits from it, from no allergies, no facial acne .......if possible I would love to know how much time , money it entails ....how it's done, and how often is the food made up , daily , weekly etc........do you actually get raw bones from the butcher to give them as treats ...and most important of all is it really more beneficial to our babies....I know I'm asking alot of questions , but it would be so helpful !
thank you , glenna and forde

 

[sheshistory]

Moved to Raw Feeding Forum to see if we can get some advice from the experts!

 

[bullmama]

[MENTION=1209]savemejeebus[/MENTION] [MENTION=3354]RiiSi[/MENTION]


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk

 

[izstigspunks]

Hi! My boys get a lb of food a day each. Chicken and pork are the cheapest, I try to get them when they're less than 80 cents per pound. Beef I get for about $1.50, goat avg $2, duck $1.70, turkey $1.50 and lamb $4. Green tripe avg $1.30. I try to give my boys a variety, so we avg about $1.50 a day for each. We used to separate individual meals for them, but now we just freeze what we get from the store and defrost whatever's needed for the day. We don't tend to refreeze, and put the leftover in the fridge for the next day. We only refreeze if they've had the same protein for more than 4 days or so. We give them a very small boneless meal for breakfast, and the rest, with bone for dinner so we can monitor them. Prep is very simple. Simply separate or cut whatever's needed and put the rest in the fridge. We used to clean the floor all the time too. But stiggy tends to clean them real well, so it's only every so often now. But, really, it should be wiped after every feeding. We get our meat from a few sources, mainly from Chinese grocery stores. The beef and green tripe we get from a local raw feeder. So as you can tell, we've gotten so used to the routine, that we don't notice that there's extra work. The boys have thrived on it, and continue to do so. No more vet visits due to allergies too!

 

[izstigspunks]

Oops. Sorry for all the misspellings ... On the phone. Autocorrect wins again! Lol.

 

[FORDE'SMOM]

thanks to all that gave me info on raw feeding

 

[RiiSi]

I'm in Europe, so I can't give you any info on prices or where to buy. I feed, not really Barf, but raw food for my bullys. They're both different and I feed them a little different too. My older bully has Hyperuricosuria and can't handle organs, so I have to give him supplements. The other is just almost 5 months old so I feed him a little more veggies than I will when his grown up. Some of their food I prepare weekly or every two weeks and some can be just thawed and fed. Raw feeding is not that difficult and there is a lot of different ways and everybody thinks theirs is the right one. No mather what you follow will be beneficial for your bully. Just remember variety, at least 3 differend source of protein, enough bone, 10 % organs of which 5 % liver.

 

[anatess]

Raw feeding is not that difficult and there is a lot of different ways and everybody thinks theirs is the right one.

True that! LOL.

I'm going by the Prey-Model Raw principles. My dogs are healthy. They were healthy on kibble too but I had to keep changing kibbles to avoid the allergies which I haven't had to worry about with raw. The best part, in my opinion, is the small poop. I fed quality kibble before so they already had small poop but raw food poop is even smaller. This tells me that their bodies are using up most of everything that they eat.

I do the individual containers thing. My bulldogs get 1.5 lbs a day that I put in those el-cheapo Mainstays (Walmart brand) 4.5-cup containers. I got them for something like $1.79 for a 4-pack. It's not designed for the freezer, but I've had a whole month's worth of food (60 of these containers) in the freezer and they did not get freezer burned (the dogs can eat freezer burned meat in any case). So, I buy meat in bulk once a month and do all the prep for all 60 containers (plus 30 smaller containers for my little bichon frise dog) all in one Saturday morning (2 hours of chopping with a sharp knife got it all done). I have to chop up the meat to fit in the containers. Then all I have to do everyday is take that day's containers out of the freezer when I take the dogs out in the morning and plop them in their bowls in the afternoon (they're old enough to eat once a day). And if I'm not home, the husband or kids can easily just plop a container into the bowl too.

My budget is 99 cents a pound. I get whole chicken for 69 cents a pound from Restaurant Depot (they had them on sale for 49 cents a pound a few weeks ago but my freezer was full, so I couldn't buy it then!). I get beef hearts, pork shoulder, and whole turkey for 99 cents a pound from the local butcher. Beef liver and kidney for $1.39 from the same place. I get green tripe from the raw-feeding co-op for $1.50 (shipped from New York, then I pick up from the co-op lady's house). I can sometimes get a 12-lb whole rabbit (intact, with skin) from the place my husband buys the food for our ball pythons for $11. I live close to the ocean so I can sometimes get free fish if the boys go fishing. If not, then I just get salmon from the grocery. Walmart had a sale on them for $3.99/lb not too long ago. And when the boys get out of school, they're going to do their hunting activities where they usually come home with 200lbs of butchered hog for $125 hunting fee. I'll have to get them to share it with the dogs. And then I put one whole cracked egg in their bowl once in a while complete with egg shell. And I've been adding chicken feet to the dog's food to help with their joints.

As far as bones.... I don't buy just bones. The whole chicken has bones, the pork shoulder has bones, the wild-caught fish has bones, the rabbit has bones, etc. The pork shoulder bones are too big for a meal though. I usually give those to them as a chew toy, not a meal. They gnaw on the edges of it and I throw out the rest. I try to average out the bone content that they're getting to end up at around 10% of their meal as bones in a weekly, sometimes two-weeks basis... so that if I give them a whole chicken in 3 days (25% bone), then I make their next 3 meals boneless, that kind of thing. I don't really "weigh the bone" thing. It's all guesstimate. If the poop gets hard (turns white too), I lower the bone, if the poop gets soft, I increase the bone. At first they were flip-flopping from white poop to okay poop, but now I've gotten the guesstimating down pat that I haven't had white poop unless I give them the pork shoulder chew toy. I do give them about 1.2 ounces of liver and 1.2 ounces of kidney or spleen everyday because my dogs get soft poop if I give them an entire meal of mostly liver/kidney/spleen. Oh, the green tripe - I feed them as one meal on a gorge day. I get the 10-lb tubes so I saw it in half and put half back in the freezer. Then I saw off a small portion (just eyeball it) for the little dog and then cut the rest in half and give the thing to them out in the patio in their own crates (take out the mattress) frozen. They have at it until it's all gone. That way, I don't have to deal with the smell. They fast the next day.

And here's a video of my dogs eating. I was able to train them to eat over their bowls so the floor stays clean.

As far as it being beneficial... depends. It's like when you ask yourself... is this fresh blueberry more beneficial than the blueberries in the cereal box? Well, sure, it can be. But, you'll have to really study how to get complete nutrition by doing all the thinking and research yourself because if your entire day's food is nothing but blueberries, the cereal box might be better. At least the cereal box has some other ingredients that provide extra vitamins and minerals added to the blueberries by the manufacturer. Know what I mean?

So, I'm not going to go as far as to say Raw Feeding is better. I'm going to say it CAN be better because you are in complete control of what your dog eats.

Hope this helps.