How to feed a raw prey model diet

[Stephanie]

So you want to know a little more about how to raw feed - great!  Please take your time to read through the whole of this thread, there is alot of information in each section. 

May I also suggest you download the book in this link and read it all - http://www.achinook.com/dogs/2009/6/18/ol-sheps-well-being-a-natural-perspective.html  It comes in 2 parts - part 1 http://www.achinook.com/storage/ndcbook/NewOSB2upPart1of2.pdf and part 2 http://achinook.squarespace.com/storage/ndcbook/NewOSB2upPart2of2.pdf

and also have a good read of the following link: http://rawfed.com/myths/feedraw.html

Much of the following info is based on a 'prey model' style of feeding, but please note that there are different versions of raw feeding around which may differ to the info given here.

How much to feed:

Most adult dogs are feed at a rate of 2.0 - 3.0% of its total body weight. The percentage is lowered or raised according to the dog.  In many ways it is best to look at your dog and gauge what suits - if s/he puts on weight, cut back, loses, increase - it's as simple as that really!

Ruby is fed 3.0% although some days I take it up to 3.5% if she has had a lot of walks or done an agility class.  Ruby has a fast metabolism and she burns up energy very quickly. Roddy is a much slower paced boxer who is prone to putting on weight.  I had him on 3.0% but have recently cut it back to 2.8% as he was putting on weight.

To give you an idea of how much to feed your dog, there is an easy to use calculator here: http://www.raw4dogs.com/calculate.htm

So, Ruby's weight is 28kg x 3% which gives her a daily amount of around 840g of food.  Roddy's weight is the same - 28kg but x 2.8% gives Roddy a daily amount of around 784g.

I feed both my dogs a diet comprising of roughly 80% muscle meat 10% bone and 10% liver and offal/organs

Muscle meat

Any type of meat - chicken, turkey, goat, lamb, beef, goose, bison, pork, kangaroo, elk, partridge, duck, pheasant, rabbit etc.  Also classified as muscle meat are the hearts of an animal, lung, tongue, tripe which is the stomach of an animal, eg, raw green tripe of beef & the gizzards of a chicken. 

Bone

Bone is edible bone - many raw feeders use chicken bones and frames [carcasses] for their main bone source, but most poultry bones, rabbit, pork & lamb necks & ribs are quite edible for dogs the size of boxers. 

Bones do not include weight bearing bones of large animals, eg, the leg/shin bones/knuckle ends of cows/bison/deer/kangas/goats or any large animal. These bones are also sometimes called soup bones or marrow bones or simple recreational bones.  For more info on these, see thread here:  https://www.boxerdogforums.com/index.php?topic=3595.0   These bones do not count and should not be offered as edible bone.

Organs

Organs are 10% of the diet split into 2 percentages - 5% of the diet must be from liver, the other 5% from organs.  Organs are kidneys, thymus, brains, lung [sits in both camps - some argue it is muscle meat, some say organ], pancreas, spleen.

Vegetables

Are not part of a prey model diet.  Other raw diets such as "barf" do add them.  Very interesting link here - https://www.boxerdogforums.com/index.php?topic=3571.0

Fruits

Fruits – yes, there is evidence from their scats [poops] that wolves do eat some fruit, mostly berries.  Whether they do this because they are hungry and there is little else around to eat [they are mostly observed doing this in ‘hard times’], or whether they need them nutrionally is a rather debatable point.  Suffice to say that most 'prey model' feeders do not give their dogs fruit either.

[Stephanie]

So let's put the 80/10/10 into grams - Ruby has 840g [80%] muscle meat, 84g [10%] bone, 42g [5%] liver & 42g [5%] other organs a day.

Now this formula is a very mechanical way of looking at all this, but it is the easiest way of trying to explain it to beginners, in reality what you should take from it is that you feed your dog alot of red muscle meat, a little bone, a little liver and a little organ.

I am pretty loathe to put up a menu plan because this style of feeding is pretty individual to each dog & because I have no set pattern that I follow on a week by week or month by month basis.  It depends what I can find - seasonal variations in the price of meats & what is going cheap etc, etc.  I very rarely feed the same thing every week, but, as this is the question I get PM'd most of all, here is a sample of what Ruby was fed over the last 2 weeks.  You will notice first off that I only feed her once a day, I find that she is most satisfied with one big meal as opposed to 2 small ones.

WEEK 1:

Mon - goat meat
Tues - one whole small chicken 
Wed - mackeral, raw green tripe, egg, liver
Thurs - deer meat, sprats, liver
Fri - deer meat, sprats, liver
Sat - turkey drumstick
Sun - minced [ground] lamb, raw green tripe & egg

WEEK 2:

Mon - raw green tripe, beef heart, beef silverside, lamb kidney
Tues - duck crown, sardines, lamb kidney
Wed - sardines, chicken gizzards, beef tongue [butcher found it in his chest freezer and said I could have it free!], kidney
Thurs - sardines, lamb hearts, chicken gizzards
Fri - beef brisket, lamb neck, liver
Sat - ground beef steak [great deal 600g of 3 packs for £10] & egg, liver
Sun - ground beef steak & egg, liver

Now many of you will look at this menu plan and say it is all wrong - where is the 80/10/10............every day............?

This is my whole point, this is an individual plan for Ruby.  I don't have to give her 80/10/10 every single day - I can give it to her over a week, over a fortnight, over a month, over 2 months etc. This way of feeding is about "balance over time" it is not about giving prescribed amounts every single meal as with kibble.  It is also about getting to know your dog and what suits your own dog best.  Ruby can go 2-3 days without any bone and her poops stay fine [bone is what keeps poops firm].  Ruby can have one large meal of liver and kidneys and her poops are still pretty reasonable too [large amounts of liver & kidney are quite laxative to some dogs].  Roddy HAS to have a little bone every single meal, Roddy cannot take anything more than 40-50g of liver at a time.  Every dog will be slightly different and you will need to judge for yourself what works best for your dog, I cannot tell you what this is, and there is no book to read that can tell you this either.  It is really a case of you learning with your dog.

[Stephanie]

So why it is called a 'whole prey diet.'  Well, it follows the way a wolf would eat - when a wolf makes a kill it will eat the whole of the prey, starting with the rump and working its way through the entire body, other than the stomach contents and the large weight bearing bones of bigger kills.  So many feeders do the same, or at least try to imitate this experience for their dogs.  For most of us, it is asking the impossible - most animals come hacked about, stripped of certain innards and 'dressed' [de-furred].  This is especially so in the UK where the mad cow disease crisis/BSE of the 80's - makes it impossible for anyone without a DEFRA certificate to have any access to slaughter houses/abattoirs and therefore to certain body parts not typically sold in butchers shops in this country. 

Anyway, I deter, if you look at Ruby's menu plan you will see that some meals are put together with different parts of different animals.  Tonight in fact Ruby had some beef brisket, a slab of lamb ribs & raw green tripe.

If we look at this another way she had
 - brisket which is the breast/chest section of the cow
 - the ribs of a lamb
 - & tripe which is the stomach of the cow

This style of feeding is called 'Frankenprey' feeding - the dog gets, not a 'whole' prey meal, but a meal made up from different parts of different animals.   It is the best that I can put together in terms of cost and in terms of availability. There is a link here that explains it pretty well - http://www.mypetcarnivore.com/frankenprey.htm 


I am often asked about supplements on this diet.  I have to say I do not supplement with anything although many feeders do add fish oils to their dogs diet for the following reason.  Most farmed animals are fed mostly grains and cereals, this results in a meat that has fat which is far higher in omega 6 [plant based oils] than it would be if the animal were left to eat what nature intended it too - grass, leaves, plants, shoots etc.  Animals that are allowed to graze and eat this way have far more omega 3's - animal based fats.  So, in order to 'correct' this omega imbalance many feeders give fish oils, partly it seems because some dogs will not entertain the idea of eating raw fish, and partly because it is easier, maybe cheaper for the feeder to throw a capsule into a dish every day.  Either way, I am pretty lucky, no fussy dogs here - fatty fish gets served and eaten with the same enthusiasm as everything else does.  I do not add Vitamin E or C supplements either - some argue that feeding processed fish oils creates a ‘molecule overload’ that then needs to be balanced with extra antioxidants in the form of Vit E & C, I think there is plenty of Vit E in the a good varied raw diet.  It is also a well known fact that all animals apart from humans and guinea pigs make their own Vit C.  You might also be interested to know that Vit C can also be found in liver! 

[Stephanie]

So, how do you start and go about this....................

Most new feeders start with chicken because it has a nice bone/meat ratio - more bone than necessary but that doesn't matter in the beginning.  It is a very bland meat, easily digestable and most times the dog takes to it without too many problems.  So look at the first post and figure out how much you need to feed your dog, you can then either buy some chicken legs - not the little drumsticks or the little thighs separately - adult boxers can easily manage both parts together, so buy the whole leg - we call them chicken quarters in the UK.

****You need to check the salt levels in the meat****I know that meat in the States has added sodium - it's not a big problem in the UK, although just recently I did find duck that had salt added...At any rate if you can buy it sodium free, great, if not, no more than 100mg of sodium per 4oz serving. 

Open the packet and serve....simple.  This is one way of starting out. The other way would be to buy a whole chicken, and half it yourself so you get the approx weight you want to feed.     

Stick with chicken for a 2-3 weeks and work your way through the bird.  Inside the chicken frame or carcass, you will find that the kidneys and lungs are still attached, however, most shop bought chickens come with the gizzards [stomachs] and the liver and heart removed.  As we are trying to feed [as far as we can] the 'whole prey'  & provided your dog is producing nice firm poops, then during the second or third week you can add a chicken heart one day, a gizzard the next, a tiny piece of liver the next.  Take it very slowly with all these, heart and liver especially have a reputation for causing runny poops - so really, go slowly with them, no more than say 3-5g of liver to start - yes, I am talking that tiny!

If poops look good, then by the end of the third week, you can start thinking about what meat you want to add next.  This is really a personal decision - sometimes it will be cost led, sometimes by availability, your choice. 

Most fowl - turkey, duck, pheasant - have a high % of bone>meat that again help out with stool mangement in the beginning.  Pick one that you are happy to stick with for a 2-3 weeks and alternate between chicken and the new protien source.  Feed one chicken meal, then a duck meal then a chicken meal, then 2 duck meals etc, etc.  You judge by what comes out the other end..........loose stools means you need to slow down.  Work through the whole prey as much as you can - the heart, the liver, the kidneys etc - introducing each thing a little at a time and slowly increasing the amounts until you get around 5% liver, 5% other organs.

Working through prey like turkey, duck also gives you more options when it comes to feeding meats like deer, goat, beef that have very little in the way of edible bones, you simply use the carcasses/frames or just the backs of the fowl - chicken, duck to manage the poops.  Many feeders just use chicken for bone and add red meats to this.  I like to use a variety bones - lamb ribs, neck bones, turkey, chicken & duck frames.  I like to see Ruby working on them, and I know she enjoys it too.  Videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Boxerdogmad?feature=mhsn

In time ofcourse you want to work towards lowering the amount of bone to around 10% and upping the meat to 80%, and don't forget to think about adding in fish too.  You can do this in the same way as adding a new meat source or simply add a little to each meal.


 

[Stephanie]

A word about bones:

I know this is the issue that concerns people most of all, so it warrants some separate attention.  I have fed bones to 3 of my dogs over the years and have never had a problem with them.  I do not feel there is any more risk in feeding dogs bones than there is any of the other activities we do on a day by day basis.  However, there are many stories on the internet, some by vets too, advising against this practice. Why? well, this is all I know:

[1] I have been following various raw feeding groups/forums for quite a few years now, during this time I have only read of one true case where a dog obstructed on whole raw chicken bones and had to be operated on. The dog was fine and after recovery the owner put the dog back onto a raw diet which included ground bones. Why this happened we cannot say, the dog was not a gulper, and there were no other extenuating circumstances.  I guess it's like a person who crosses the road every day for years on a specified crossing, but one day he still gets knocked down...........

[2] The stories from the vets are the ones that are most annoying because they never specify what type of bone was removed.  As I mentioned elsewhere, bits of recreational bones can cause blockages if they are swallowed as the bone is very, very dense.  Likewise, bones that are cooked or smoked.  Vets never specify on the type of bone they remove.

The majority of vets are pretty ignorant when it comes to raw feeding and they also buy into the stories that say it is 'dangerous' without knowing a single thing about it.  All the conventional vets I have seen have never operated on a dog with bone obstruction.  They have done plenty of ops on dogs that have blocked from consumming rag toys, and things like this, and yet even though they know nothing about raw feeding, they still feel it is their place to advise me not to feed my dogs bones............

So what are the benefits of feeding your dogs bones, other than meeting the calcuim needs?

[1]  Eating bones satisfies the dogs innate desire to chew.   
[2]  Eating bones provides pure mental stimulation and recreational activity. A dog with a boned in meal can take anywhere from 10 minutes - half an hour - 2 hours to eat their dinner.
[3]  Feeding a variety of boned in meals provides the dog with a great dental workout.
[4]  Whilst eating the bones the dog is not only using his teeth and jaws, but also exercising and working out his neck & shoulder muscles.   

At the end of the day whether you feed bones to your dog is your choice to make – not mine or anyone elses.  If you want my opinion, I would advise that you DO NOT give your dogs bones if they are the type to gulp down their food & treats without making any effort to chew on them at all. 

I would not advise that you give your dogs bones if you are going to stay up all night worrying yourself sick about it – feeding a raw diet is more than just doing what is right for your dog, your peace of mind matters too, plus many times dogs will pick up on the stress & worry and that doesn’t make for a pleasant mealtime for your dog either.

Also, I would advise caution if your dog is the type that will not allow you to put your hand in its mouth for just general inspection.  I add this because I am aware of a couple of incidents where a piece of bone has lodged across the top of the roof of the dogs mouth and the human owner has had to to work it loose. 

If you decide to feed whole bone, then at least be aware of the following.

The signs and symtoms of obstructions/blockages:

Symtoms of Intestinal Blockage

The symptoms vary depending on the location of the blockage. The most common factor is the presence of vomiting, loss of appetite an difficulty defecating.

If the blockage is in the esophagus dogs likely be licking thier lips, swallow a lot regurgitate right after being fed (presenting indigested kibble in large pieces and often the vomit is of an oblong tubular shape) and often suffer from dehydration because unable to eat and drink properly. Because they are unable to keep food down, these dogs go down hill pretty quickly.

If the blockage is in the stomach, the pylorus is often blocked, causing the food to not make it through the intestinal tract. Episodes of vomiting therefore usually within a few hours after eating. The most common objects to create blockages in the stomach are large and smooth items such as golf balls, marbles and bones.

If the blockage is in the small intestine it means the object was able to make it through the pylorus but that it is getting stuck in the curvy areas of the small intestine. When this happens, gas accumalates causing the intestine to become distended and eventually the blood supply will be cut off causing the tissues to die. In this case, dogs wil develop vomiting soon after eating, abdominal pain,distended abdomen, fever, shock and even death if left untreated.

If the blockage is further down the road towards the end of the small intestine, diarrhea is more common, however, vomiting may occur 7-8 hours later post eating.

From this link: http://hubpages.com/hub/Symptoms-of-intestinal-blockage-in-dogs

[Skunkape]

There is no way I could afford this diet here in the states. I don't even know of a butcher that would be close than 60 miles or so. Otherwise I might be tempted to give it a whirl.

[Stephanie]

Skunkape, so many companies are doing pre-packaged raw products for dogs in the US as well as over here in the UK.  I am not a fan of them myself, but many do use them and seem happy enough.  If you are interested enough in exploring this further then I recommend you join some of the USA based raw feeding groups on Facebook, being as I am UK based, I really don't know enough about what is available and the costs etc in your country.  I do know from my own experiances that putting the time and effort into researching, as well as asking questions of like minded people really helps.  I have found a few suppliers that do the kind of things I want at far better prices than the supermarkets and butchers!  Abattoirs - [ slaughter houses] are a great place to start if you have any of those nearby you.

[Skunkape]

I figured out I can get the food supplies (70% chicken, 10% bone, 10% organ,10% fat) for about $65 per 40 pounds.
Was looking at  food calculator and looking at cost per serving to feed them raw. There is no way for me to afford this for pups @ 10% of body weight per day. Perhaps I will look into this again when they are both adults and more reasonably priced.