erikavonkaiser wrote: ↑Tue Jan 02, 2024 5:12 pm
If you have energy for it at any point I'd be interested in hearing how you approach raw-feeding Oz and where you source from! My next Creature I take care of I'm considering raw feeding a little more. Baby always liked it in the past but now she has her special kidney-friendly kibble and is pretty elderly/easily upset tummy so I don't intend to disrupt that.
(I know it's different between dogs and cats since cats are, to my knowledge, obligate carnivores and dogs are not, but just out of curiosity)
Yeah, my understanding is that cats are a better candidate than dogs for it, but I have known people who have raw fed their dogs for years with no issues. I know you can buy like, pre-prepared raw meals these days, but I don't like them because they're ground (or, at least, all the ones I've seen are) and the enrichment of tearing apart a semi-whole Meat Thing™, and the dental benefits of breaking down whole (appropriately-sized) bones are important parts of going raw for me
I prefer using human-grade meats to reduce the risks of bacteria, parasites, etc -- I went with a source specifically for raw feeding a while back and had largely good experiences with it, but a couple of bad experiences that turned me off of the whole thing (something in the whole batch made Oz sick and I had to throw out all of it rather than risk harming her by trying to figure out which specific item was bad, and on top of the concerns of her wellbeing it's just super inconvenient to be out the money for what's supposed to be a couple months of food, and have to rush to replace it). I've found it wasn't that much cheaper to go with them over a butcher, though of course that's going to depend on location. I would never feed wild-caught, also for food-borne-illness risks (you can't cook out a parasite if you're feeding, you know, raw). So, for what I can get at any ol' grocery store (game hens, and they usually have chicken hearts) I'll get at any ol' grocery store and what I can't I'll get at a butcher. Oh, and little arab market stores and similar were good for getting packs of immature quail, which are great for Oz because I can just cut them in half and give them to her, no other prep needed.
It's really important to give a variety of meat sources to maximise the nutrient profile (also, again, enrichment is part of the benefit for me and it's not super enriching to just get chicken all the time for every meal). Key items in Oz's rotation would be hen, rabbit, quail, and occasionally a couple of eggs. And livestock for organs
I use this calculator to measure out how much she should be eating: https://perfectlyrawsome.com/pmr-barf-d ... lculators/ -- I think that site is also good for general info, though what-all I know has been gotten from a bunch of different sources and composited together in my head
A raw diet will be x percentage of their diet as muscle-meat-and-bones, a lesser percentage of specifically liver meat, and an equal percentage of some variety of other organs -- cats will also need heart, and dogs on Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods (BARF) rather than Prey Model Raw (PMR) will be getting starches. I haven't done a lot of research into it because I don't have a dog, so I don't know much about the specifics of raw feeding them, but if I did have a dog I would probably go with BARF over PMR, or do a modified PMR to provide appropriate non-meat foods. On the whole you'd largely be just, seeing what your pet does well on. If they're pooping fine, they seem healthy, and they're getting good marks at the vet then their diet is probably doing them alright
When switching from commercial food to raw, you start off with just the muscle meat from a "bland" source (chicken) to help their stomachs makes the transition, add bones (and heart, for cats) as they get adjusted, then add liver and then other organs. It's important to go slowly with the liver, because liver is very rich and can make them sick if they're not ready for it. For Oz that takes a couple of weeks, different animals will take to it at different rates. Some people will feed raw and kibble at the same time (in different meals) to cover all their bases, but I've never been a fan of that because I think it raises the risk of the animal getting salmonella -- it might be more okay for dogs, though, I'm not sure. My understanding though, at least with cats, is that kibble will sit in their stomach for longer to be digested than raw does, and part of the transition process is adjusting their digestion process back to a more natural state. If you give them raw while their stomach is still in slow-mode then whatever bacteria is in the food has a higher chance of infecting the animal. But, like I said, I don't know with dogs and I would assume that with starches in their diet it would be similar with them eating kibble anyway
So yeah! For Oz I get human-grade meat from some local store, break it down into meal-sized chunks, bag those up, and freeze whatever she won't eat in a couple days, then rotate those out. Then at meal-times I just dump the bag into her bowl. It's definitely time-consuming (and handling organ meats is my Least Favourite Thing) but it's not that hard once I've got a system going
Let me know if that didn't answer any questions, I just woke up so I'm kind of all over the place in my brain (though I've also been picking away at replying for a couple hours, so like, now I haven't just woke up, but you know)