Registered: Oct 2007
Location: Wilkes County, NC
Posts: 816

What are the pros and cons to feeding a raw diet??

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Registered: Jun 2003
Location:
Posts: 415

You might want to google "raw feeding for dogs", or "pros and cons of feeding raw food to dogs", etc.

You will spend HOURS with all of the information out there on this topic, and there are also Facebook pages about feeding raw to dogs - also called a "species-appropriate diet". Any specific question you have will probably have MANY answers to it, because there are so many different ways that people have found to do this, & some do it very well.

Whatever you decide to do about feeding your dog, please research the topic DILIGENTLY, before you actually make any changes. Otherwise, you may end up with vitamin & mineral deficiencies, and even worse. I have watched several of my breeder-friends go from commercial kibble to feeding raw; some did it carefully, with good results. But others failed miserably, and eventually went back to feeding kibble.

Good luck; let us know what you end up doing...

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Registered: Sep 2010
Location: New Paris, Indiana
Posts: 7076

Cost is the number 1 con.

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Registered: Feb 2005
Location:
Posts: 1739

It can b done very economical.
Ur ethnic (Asian) markets r where u will find "raw" appropriate diet food.

U name it they got it..... brains, giblets, spleen, tendons, etc .
I live in Michigan. But travel to Milwaukee once a month, I stock up $40-50.....worth of what I call organ meat, is what it cost me.

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Registered: Jul 2004
Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 2765

My buddy feeds mostly meat scraps and bones from o local abbittoir. Littetally fills his truck for free takes it home sorts it and freezes it.

Been feeding his dogs for free for years and they look fine.

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Registered: Jan 2005
Location: cedar grove WI
Posts: 472

I know a deer processor I take all the scraps I was told by a vet to feed some dry food every once in a while cause in the wild dogs wolves etc also get nutrients from for and intestines from what the animal ate so I buy cheap dog food and give the some every couple days kennel clean up is nice less waste

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Registered: Jul 2003
Location: Hamlet,N.C.
Posts: 20

I only feed mine chickens. Get them from farmers that pick them up outta their chicken houses, dogs love it and it helps farmers get rid of them

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kenny

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Registered: Jan 2016
Location: Central Pa
Posts: 1114

Winter a yr ago was a particularly rough one. I got some bulk chicken quarters for 59 cents a lb. Could buy it in 40 lb cases. I got 160 lbs for under $100. Put 3-4 pieces to a bag and in the freezer. Fed us for a yr whenever we wanted chicken plus the dogs.

Got a 20 lb bag of rice at Walmart for 7 or 8 bucks don't remember, still got a 1/4 bag left. I'd cook up enough rice for a week and mix in sweet potatoes and a bag of frozen vegetables and feed with chicken. Fed that mixed with a little dog food. Was cheap enough and dogs did good on it, but kinda a pain.

I'm trying a different route now that's a lot less work and from all I can find on it is excellent for dogs. I'll let you know in a month or 2 if it's working out.

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Registered: Jul 2012
Location:
Posts: 207

muskrats,,,,thats right muskrats.years ago when there was a good fur market,i would go to a fur buyer close to me and he would save the fresh muskrats that he skinned and i would stack them in a deep freeze that was outside in a shed.place a rat then a piece of wax paper.stack them like cord wood.every day i would throw a rat in my dog pen and thats all i fed till i ran out of rats.my dogs were as healthy as could be.

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Registered: May 2016
Location:
Posts: 10

Yes and my dog's looked great. I stopped due to our traveling with them and it's hard to pack and keep a week or more frozen when you don't have a freezer. I got mine from a local pet food supplier. Cost me on average $0.35 a lb. My hounds ate about 2lbs a day.
You wand to feed 2-3% of their ideal body weight but like with commercial dog food every dog is different. Make sure you understand what is needed to make it a healthy diet. They should be getting about 80% meat, 10% organ (no more than 5% liver) and 10% raw bones and no more than 50% of their diet should be one protien.
I fed about 20% venison, 20% beef, 10% salmon, 30% chicken necks or backs, 10% turkey mix, 5% liver and 5% other organ. I also added tripe as it aids in digestion. The bone will help keep the poop solid and offer calcium. If the poop comes out white, you need to feed less bone, if it's not as solid as you'd like, feed more.

I found that the dogs had less poop, the poop didn't stink, and it'd crumble and disintegrate after a day or two. There are many pros but one con is the amount of time it takes to portion out the meals. I spent a good 3-5 hours every few weeks just rationing out the food, and it took 2 days for my 50lb blocks of meat to thaw and in the winter I had to bring it in the house and the place I got our meat from got their meat from usda plants, meaning the meat was not fit for human consumption and had to be "denatured" before it could leave the plant. Most was denatured with a red dye but the beef was with charcoal and it made it stink to high heaven. At first I'd rinse it off but it seemed to have no ill side effects on the dogs so I stopped.

I also would talk to taxidermists and got a LOT of meat from them. Just make sure you freeze any wild game for 6 weeks or more to kill off any parasites that they may have.

Good luck with this if you try it, it's definitely a great option if you have the time. There are many Facebook groups dedicated to this and most people are very helpful.

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Last edited by The Original on 05-24-2016 at 01:23 AM

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Registered: Feb 2016
Location:
Posts: 99

I get a freezer full of deer meat from a local processor for free hes happy to have it out of his way . I boil it in a turkey fryer just to be safe .but I couldn't count the times I have seen a dog eating a dead deer and not had any problems . biggest con I have seen it takes a little more time I did the math on it last year saved 327.21 in one years time .that was buying propane to boil in so raw would save more $$$$.

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