[J&T]

what might be next?

Two of our four canines have been doing the raw gig for the last 9 days. Wolfie shep/rottie?? is the oldest at 12+ and 83#s last vet visit and Zeke the youngest at 9mos and 60# is a shep/dobie??? mix.

Started the first few days with quarters or breasts with bone no skin; middle couple of days alternated skin and no skin; last few meals have been with skin on. Have also been cutting the bone out of the breasts in the last couple of days--no squirts, no straining that we see and the poo walks are finding nice little 3-4" medium brown color(sorry for the description) droppings.

Going to continue as is through the full 2 weeks. Should I start a tad of organ then or consider another meat source or am I jumping ahead? Since so many of the postings here help start the change in feeding(we were feeding Evo and Evo canned- thats how convincing you were)you also get my questions. I'm blonde, so please type slowly!:biggrin:

Thanks (I actually mean it).:smile:

 

[CorgiPaws]

I would hold off on the organ meats for a while. We waited about two months to add those in.
I would go with turkey next, as it's still poultry, and close to chicken, but adds variety. I always add new meat with bone.
The way we transitioned into raw was something like this:
Week one: Chicken w/ bone AM & PM
Week two: Chicken AM & PM with a couple boneless meals
Week Three: All Chicken, with two meals of bone-in turkey
Week Four: Add one meal of pork
Week Five: Add one meal of fish (we use canned for the sake of cost/ convenience
Week Six: Add one meal of Beef
Week Seven: Start adding small amounts of organ meat with each day

This is just what worked very well for us, introducing one new source each week, always introducing new meats with bones. Beef we got ballsy and did boneless because it was all we had, and he had no issues. We aren't to the point that we are comfortable doing a whole meal or organs yet, so we just add a little to each meal. They are VERY rich so you want to add them slowly. I always feed twice/ day, and always introduce new meats as "breakfast" so if they cause digestive upset, it's during the day and we're not up all night.
I'm sure more experienced people will chime in, this is just what we did and had great success.

 

[RawFedDogs]

I really like the way you added stuff to the diet slowly. I always recommend the method you used but seems most people get anxious and want to add stuff faster only to have problems.

I have been raw feeding for over 7 years and have never not one time fed a whole meal of organs other than beef heart which technically isn't really an organ. I feed a glob of beef liver a couple of times a week or sometimes once a week and sometimes I skip a week so you see its not regular. I'll feed other organs occasionally like every several months. I don't have the guts to feed my dogs a whole meal of liver. :smile: A Great Dane with canon butt is not something you want in your house.

 

[J&T]

Sounds then that trukey would be the next addition, sometime next week with the bone in. Will probably do turkey breast as the size would be easier to portion for Wolfie, the oldest who we are feeding around 20+ounces.
We want to get him to between 75-80#s to keep his old bones/joints from having to support too much weight.

Zeke, the youngster, is getting around 24 ounces per day as he has a boxer play mate and the two have a major case of the zoomies when outdoors.

Thanks!