[Garysmom]

I am a little confused about "pre made" frozen raw patties. Do most of them meet the nutrional needs of dogs? or is it necesary to suppliment the food with other protiens and vitamin suppliments to insure adequate nutrition?
I am feed NV raw and it appears to be pretty complete, including apple cider vinegar, bone meal and fish oils. I hadn't planned on feeding chicken necks, wings and such, do I need to?
I am thinking about feeding a little yogurt and sardines as well.
Thanks for the input!

 

[rannmiller]

Pre-made raw is handy but has a lot of unnecessary ingredients in it like all the veggies and fruits and it's very high in bone content as well. Visit the link on the bottom of Rawfeddogs's signature for more information on feeding raw, he has tons of great info on there.

 

[RawFedDogs]

Pre-made raw is handy but has a lot of unnecessary ingredients in it like all the veggies and fruits and it's very high in bone content as well. Visit the link on the bottom of Rawfeddogs's signature for more information on feeding raw, he has tons of great info on there.

Yes to what rannmiller said. Feeding premix raw is much better than feeding the best kibble but it is the bottom rung of the rawfeeding ladder. To answer your questions about supplements ... there is no way of knowing. The only way you can know for sure what you are feeding your dogs is to feed the seperate ingredients yourself.

Unless you have the very tiniest of toy dogs you don't need to feed chicken necks or wings. They are much too bony and too small. Small and medium size dogs can swallow them whole and choke on them. Instead you can feed things like chicken backs, quarters, bone-in breasts or similar size parts of other animals. If you have giant dogs you can feed half chickens and things that size.

EDITED TO ADD: Premix raw is very expensive too. You can feed prey model raw for less than half what it costs to feed premix.

 

[rannmiller]

EDITED TO ADD: Premix raw is very expensive too. You can feed prey model raw for less than half what it costs to feed premix.

The unnecessary ingredients make them poop more too. I got the Primal brand for my cat just because it is handy and instead of pooping every 2 - 3 days she was pooping every single day. So you're paying more for more poop.

My solution to her picky-ness about texture: I got her some ground beef (the cat's a beef-eater), cut up some chicken bone, chicken liver, wild-caught salmon, added some salmon oil and a little bit of egg whites and the tiniest bit of flaxseed meal, mixed it all together and rolled it into portion-sized balls (much like the NV raw). I put them in a ziplock freezer bag, and now I just thaw them out as needed. SO convenient, less expensive (a month's worth of food for less than $10), and now she's back to pooping ever 2 - 3 days.