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Ground Raw

8K views 57 replies 9 participants last post by  RawFedDogs 
Ground raw is certainly not ideal. It doesn't provide dental benefits. It allows more bacteria to infiltrate the meats. If you buy it someplace you have no idea of what is really in it or it has a bunch of crap that your dogs don't need. Typically it is pretty expensive compared to PMR style meats.

All that being said, you could give your dogs primarily ground and RMBs every once in a while to help with teeth and I'm sure they would be fine. Would I? No, because it is not as good as whole raw meats IMO.
 
Thats a pretty good list of meats! Can I ask why you'd want to feed ground and not the whole form?

The only things I would stay away from personally are the blends....they don't have a breakdown of ingredients and their content.
 
What I would order:

Chicken- whole leg, quarters, frames, whole fryers, feet (good source of glucosamine)

Turkey- wing, leg, frame, whole, necks

Pork- heart, liver, kidney, spleen, pancreas (mostly because of the size of these organs because fowl organs are small and messy for large breed dogs and beef organs are TOO big. Pork organs seem to be the best size to deal with. For these, if your dogs WILL eat these happily I personally would get them ground just for ease of feeding)

Beef- heart, ribs if you can find them elsewhere

Rabbit- feeder rabbits

Rest of the fowl birds- pretty much it all would work.

With all this being said, these prices are at least twice what we pay. I personally would find a cheaper route, unless budget is not an issue. It would be great to order and get food from only one source, but we need to keep the bottom dollar in mind. We typically don't spend over $1 per pound for any of our meats except some game meats which we wont pay over $2 per pound for. Just for example, Walmart sells chicken quarters for ~.65 per pound which is .30 cheaper than this co op. Just food for thought. Hope this helps!
 
Thank you so much Natalie. Budget IS a HUGE issue for us so it really does matter. I am still waiting on a list from another meat distributor. They were supposed to call me back today but didn't. I will call them tomorrow. When I get the list and prices from them I will send that to you as well. I am not sure what is a good price and what is not since I am so new to this. I can not thank you enough for all of the help that you and Jon both are giving to me and continue to give. I hope I am not being a pain.
Oh, Shannon...you couldn't be a pain if you tried! At least not with asking questions about raw! We are happy to give you our time and advice...its what we do here and over at DOL. We just thought it would be good to have you here to since there are others just as helpful here. And even the few newbies that have just recently gone through what you are now. What you don't realize is that we are training you to become a role model and mentor for the next "generation" of converts to raw!

Definitely send me the list. But here is a estimation of what we pay for our regular rotation meats just for an idea of what we pay:

Chicken- quarters .49-.65 per pound, backs/frames .35-.45 per pound, whole $1 per pound (I wouldn't EVER pay over $1 per pound for chicken)

Turkey- necks .65-.75 per pound, whole bird .25-.50 per pound (around holiday season so we stock up!), wings .65-.80 per pound

Beef- ribs .80-.90 per pound, heart .80-.90 per pound (only two things we buy in beef UNLESS there is an insane deal on ground- never over $1 though)

Pork- roast (butt or shoulder, bone in or boneless) .80-$1 per pound, ribs/riblets .80-$1 per pound, liver/kidney/heart .65-.75 per pound

Fish- whole tilapia .75-.95 per pound, sardines/smelts/scad 1.65-$2 per pound (for the cats almost exclusively), pollock fillets $1.20 per pound, canned fishes (mackarel, tuna, sardines) .50-$2 per can depending on which one...we usually wait for these to go on sale though.

Game- venison/elk $1-1.50 per pound, llama $1.50 per pound OR Free off of craigslist!!!

Also, here is a general list of places I would call or visit in person (better to do this) to find meat connections!

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&u...roup&ct=more-results&resnum=1&ved=0CBwQtQMwAA

Sorry if this is off topic and that I am not contributing, as I am learning about raw myself, but I just wanted to say...you have birds too! That's awesome! :biggrin:
Its perfectly fine with me that you post up completely off topic posts!!!
 
Natalie, thank you so much for such a large amount of information. You really give your time to here and boy oh boy do you have patience. I will call around to those vendors and see what their prices are and once I get that list from that other meat distributor I will send that to you as well. Thanks so much!!!
Keep the questions coming :wink:
 
Aren't you glad you joined here?!

I wouldn't add anything else in for now. You really want to stay with bone in chicken for two weeks. Especially since your dogs were having diarrhea in the beginning. Just take things nice and slow.

And to answer your previous question, our dogs main protein sources are pork, chicken, turkey, beef and fish. It's perfectly fine to feed just turkey, chicken and pork most of the time.

Keep up the good work!
 
How is their cannon butt doing? If you are seeing normal stools you can start to taper cutting fat off. If still seeing soft poo go ahead and continue trimming and just keep an eye out for stool condition.

All the stuff you bought sounds definitely appropriate but what I consider to be the "extras" to the diet. Remember that organs only should make up ~10% of the overall diet. We only feed organs once every two weeks as well, but some peope feed just a very little bit everyday. Either way is just fine.

Sounds like you will be feeding almost the exact same routine that we do! Also keep in mind that red meats are considered the best and most appropriate for dogs to eat, so
maybe try and find a connection with a wild game processing place to get a hookup on venison and elk.
 
Are you talking about DOL?

I urge you to stay on bone in chicken for two weeks. This can be backs, quarters, thighs, etc. They are right that this isn't enough meat for a well adjusted dog on raw. BUT since your dogs are still VERY new to raw feeding you NEED to feed a lot more bone than a normal diet. Why? Bone firms stools up. If you were to lessen the amount of bone and increase the amount of meat at this point in the transition you WILL see loose stool/diarrhea.
 
Not the full a,mount that's for sure.

Gracie gets one chicken back and about 3-4 necks in the morning and Luke get's 2 chicken backs and 3-4 necks in the morning.

Dinner, they each get one quarter and a few necks.
Have you noticed them getting thinner over the past few days? Personally I wouldn't rush into feeding them huge mounts right off the bat. Gradually add more food in. For example, add in an extra chicken back to each meal per dog for a few days and see how it goes. If they are not having any problems go ahead and add a bit more in for the next couple of days. You need to find the amount that works for your dogs and the only real way to do that is by trial and error. Don't worry about the actual weight at this point, just keep mental notes on how much they eat and their body condition.
 
Cut out everything but bone in chicken. I think you've added way too much boneless, high fat meats in too early. You need to add these types of things in very slowly and gradually. Two and a half pounds is a LOT of boneless high fat meat for a newly switched dog, even for a well adjusted raw dog.

I suggest you feed chicken bone in and cleaned of all skin, fat and organs for at least two weeks. Then introduce bone in turkey gradually alternating with chicken for two weeks. Then add in bone in pork and alternating with chicken and turkey. You shouldn't feed a boneless meal for about a month.
 
You're not driving us nuts! We're happy to help you through it all!

You can see how they do with two meals of chicken, but I think rfd and I are just talking a few days on a lower quantity of food. Then you can slowly add in more food. They won't be harmed to lose a bit of weight for just a few days if it can get them back on track!
 
If Gracie is doing fine I see no need to change things for her.

With Luke I would start out slow, only chicken backs for the first few days and see if his stools improve. If/when they do I would gradually add in more food over the next week. It never hurts to remove all the excess fat and skin with a dog that is having diarrhea. Eventually you'd want to stop but again I would gradually cut less and less off as time goes on and you don't notice any more diarrhea.
 
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