Very brief questions on raw

[laughing]

Some very brief/quick Qs...

1.) I have checked my local markets (here stand-own butchers are nonexistant) and it seems all that I can readily get is chicken, pork, fish, and beef. Is this enough variety?

2.) What types of fish should I stay away from? I have a local Asian market that has a dozen different types of fish that I'd like to try out. Is it ok to feed a whole, not frozen fish? I don't know if their bones would cause choking/damage. (They have salmon heads, too, which might be interesting.)

3.) Of red meat organs, I can only find beef liver. If I use that as my main liver meat, does this make up for not having any other red meat organs? The main organs are chicken and pork. (But HUGE variety... diaphram, stomachs, gizzard, kidney, tongue, spleen, uterus, etc..)

4.) Heart is considered a "muscle meat" vs an organ meat, correct?

5.) What do you classify pig ears (raw) and chicken feet as?

Thanks!

[RottiMomCT]

I know of someone who feeds chicken backs - takes them out of the bag and puts them in the dog bowls - the crunching on the bones is a little freaky to me <lol>. She gets them from a local meat market.

I don't know that I'd feed spleen and uterus, but hey, if that's what folks feed, then whoo hoo (but ewww)! Chicken, beef pork and fish is a great variety of proteins.

Check out the Yahoo Groups for a raw feeding group in your area...I'm sure you'll be able to find someone willing to mentor you. Also, Lew Olson has a great new book out about raw feeding.

[laughing]

Kaza (Karen) and Lorraine mentor me, but Karen has been awfully busy lately and Lorraine told me to gain conformation. :-)

Spleen is actually filled with a lot of great nutrients! Definitely a good thing. The uterus does freak me out a little bit, though, LOL. It's all for the dogs though, right??

[Aisha Al Midfa]

Some very brief/quick Qs...

1.) I have checked my local markets (here stand-own butchers are nonexistant) and it seems all that I can readily get is chicken, pork, fish, and beef. Is this enough variety?

2.) What types of fish should I stay away from? I have a local Asian market that has a dozen different types of fish that I'd like to try out. Is it ok to feed a whole, not frozen fish? I don't know if their bones would cause choking/damage. (They have salmon heads, too, which might be interesting.)

3.) Of red meat organs, I can only find beef liver. If I use that as my main liver meat, does this make up for not having any other red meat organs? The main organs are chicken and pork. (But HUGE variety... diaphram, stomachs, gizzard, kidney, tongue, spleen, uterus, etc..)

4.) Heart is considered a "muscle meat" vs an organ meat, correct?

5.) What do you classify pig ears (raw) and chicken feet as?

Thanks!

laughing, you have a great variety! if u can get everything in the pork, that is great! regarding your fish question, Freeze wild-caught salmonids from the Pacific Northwest of the USA for a couple of weeks before feeding. If you're feeding fish from Europe, freeze solid for a couple of days. Its not a bad idea to freeze wild caught meat and fish, to kill possible parasites.Wild caught fresh Salmon and salmonids, like trout in the Pacific North West should be frozen solid for at least a week, to kill a fluke that is common there. you should consider giving a fish oil supplement as well,

About your organ question, yes its fine, just beef liver, but u also have the pork organs! which u can add in a little every month to balance out a meal, thats great !

About heart, yes, its muscle, think whatever that moves is muscle, like tongues, organs are liver, kidneys, brain, eyes, etc

My dogs love chicken feet! it can be given as a treat, but remember its part of their bone intake, and i did get pig ears for the dogs and they loved it! ate it all up


And this information below is copied and pasted from the raw feeding group, the huge yahoo RF

Starting with chicken is simplest, because the bones in chicken are really soft and edible. Just buy whole chickens (make sure they have no more than 100mg of sodium per 4oz [or 120g] serving), and start to feeding. The general starting guideline is 2-3% of ideal adult weight per day. You can always adjust amounts when you need to, and feeding a bit less than needed can be easier on the newbie tummies than feeding too much.

When they're puppies, that should be split into several meals. So for a 9 week old, give him that amount split into four meals a day. As they get older, you can feed fewer meals. After 4 or so months, you can feed in three meals, and after 6 or so months, you can feed two meals a day. After they're a year old, you can feed one meal per day.

Keep an eye on his weight, and adjust the daily amount as needed to keep him lean. The 2-3% is just a start, you will adjust for your dog's energy level and needs.

All but the smallest and youngest dogs should be able to eat all the bones very quickly, as chicken bones are very soft. You can give him a head start the first few days, by cutting ribbons into the skin, but most healthy dogs should have no problem, and even those with some teeth removed can learn to eat raw.

After an adjustment period, you can add other meats. I like pork as a second meat, as it's a cheap red meat and easy to find, and it's got pretty soft bones too; all except the tiniest can eat at least some pork bones. Other good meats to look for are beef, goat, venison, lamb, veal, rabbit, turkey, duck, kangaroo, emu, pretty much anything, as long as it isn't enhanced with a saline or broth solution. Again, your upper limit will be 100mg of sodium per 4oz (or 120g) serving.

Your ultimate goal is going to be to feed lots and lots of meat (as much red meat as you can), a bit of edible bone, and eventually some organ. In numbers, that's about 80% meat (flesh, fat, skin, sinew, etc), 10% edible bone, and 10% organ, half of which is liver. Tongue and heart are fed as meat, not organ. Organs include liver, kidney, pancreas, spleen, glands (sweetbreads), eyes, brains...

Edible bone firms up stool, organs loosen it. So does meat, to a lesser degree. Whole chickens have a fairly high bone content, but that's fine in the beginning, because newly raw fed dogs can have loose stools as a reaction to the switch, and the higher bone content can help keep it manageable. But eventually (meaning weeks or months down the road), you want to lower the amount of bone you'll feed. That's easy to do when you start adding red meat.

The bones you want to avoid feeding are bare naked bones (meaning those that aren't covered with meat), and the weight-bearing bones of large animals, such as beef, elk, moose, bison, elephant, okay you get the picture. Don't feed those bones that have to hold up a huge animal. Those will break the teeth of your pet, sooner or later. Some buzz-words to look out for--and avoid--are soup bones, marrow bones, femur bones, knuckle bones, dog bones. Don't waste your money, and don't risk their teeth.

Once you're comfortable feeding chicken, and maybe one other meat, you can add organs. START SLOWLY. Liver is non-negotiable, but it need be only a small part of the diet, somewhere around 5%. But it provides nutrients that are not available in other parts of a prey animal, so it's an important 5%. Okay, so start small, like with a bite's worth of liver.

Some dogs adore liver and take to it immediately, while others are put off to its texture or taste. If you have a hesitant liver eater, try offering it frozen. Or half-frozen. Or searing it for a second or two in a screaming hot pan. Or dropping it "accidentally" on the floor. Or giving it as a treat for a difficult trick. You get the idea. Another option is to offer livers from different animals. Chicken liver, pork liver, and beef liver all taste very different (heck, even calf's liver tastes different from beef liver), and your dog might have a preference. As for other organs, feed a small amount of whatever organs you find. Variety is good, but don't spend an inordinate amount of energy searching.

Once organs are accepted, you'll use your knowledge of your dog to decide how often to offer them. Some dogs can eventually eat organ-only meals, some never can without having very loose stools. Some people prefer to offer a small amount of organ very often, while others give a few organ meals per month. There's no right way to do it, as long as it works for you and your dog, and basically achieves the 5% liver, 5% other organ goal. Again, the beauty of raw is its flexibility, making it work for your dog and your family.

No vegetables, no grains, the diet should be nothing but meat, bones, and organs. For a healthy dog, the only supplement you might consider is a good quality fish oil, especially if you feed mostly supermarket meat, which tends to be grain fed and grain finished. That means that the Omega 3:Omega 6 ratios are out of whack. A good fish oil (not cod liver oil) will bring the ratios back into balance. For fish oil, a maintenance dose (to bring Omega 3:Omega 6 ratios back in line) is 100mg DHA+EPA per 10lb of dog. A 100 pound dog would get 1000mg DHA+EPA total, daily. A typical gelcap contains 300mg DHA+EPA. Don't go by the number on the front of the bottle, read the back, and make sure you're reading per gelcap, not per serving.

Read the posts here, and the docs posted (top of the page: 20 Docs), because there's lots of great information already posted. Read this document here for great in-depth advice: Log In | Facebook You can't get to all the docs on your mobile device's FB app, but you can if you go view it via the browser of your phone, or of course on a computer. Also, we regularly bump the docs so that they're viewable on the wall. Let us know if you still have problems, and we'll post the direct links for you.

Join our large Yahoo group here: rawfeeding : Raw Feeding for dogs and cats! if you like, and read the archives too, as there is no question that hasn't been answered more than once. http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding/messages