Guest guest Posted March 8, 2012 Report Share Posted March 8, 2012 Wow! , that is awesome!!! It's great to hear a real person's experiences with raw feeding. I've read comments on some websites about raw feeding and you wonder if it was someone, within the company trying to sell their products or what. I do not have a dog but I want one. I will start the dog, or puppy, off on a raw food diet and will never vaccinate (if I can find one). Just like humans, dead food and poisons injected into the body only means one thing...disease! Al Re: OT Raw Dog Food I switched my geriatric Lab-mix to raw a year-and-a-half ago, and his health has dramatically improved. It costs more to feed him this way, but I can't put a price on his improved quality of life. Plus, I save more at the vet than I spend on his food. I feed him ground chicken backs and necks, organ meats, turkey necks, steamed or previously frozen veggies, mostly greens (steamed or previously frozen for improved digestion,) carrot ends and peelings whenever I have them, a good vitamin/mineral supplement, a can of water-packed sardines once or twice a week, a glucosamine-chondroitin, and MSM supplement, beef trimmings, a raw egg a few times a week, and just about any leftovers we might not otherwise use, raw or cooked. Pretty much all of it is organic, and in the case of the meats and eggs, they come from a local, pasturing farmer. I usually make a 3-day batch of food at a time, and add a cup of raw, pastured very tart kefir to each batch. He gets raw bones to gnaw on too. I really can't say enough about raw feeding. It's an extremely healing diet. Kefir is great for dogs, and mimics the pre-digested stomach contents of young prey consumed by their wild counterparts. It's also a fantastic natural preservative that keeps a batch of properly refrigerated raw food fresh for several days, while adding additional protein, vitamins, minerals, and those fantastic probiotics to their diets. Raw milk kefir is the best. Some people are afraid of raw feeding. I was concerned about my dog getting food poisoning. But the raw food was added to his kibble gradually, until it completely replaced it. That, and the kefir helped prime his digestive system and return it to normal health. Dogs naturally have extremely acidic stomachs, and they can handle pathogens much more easily than humans can, especially humans with compromised immune systems. In the wild, besides hunting, dogs also do a lot of scavenging. Their systems are designed to be able to handle the pathogens. That said, I still choose the much cleaner, more natural, more nutritious pasture-raised meats, poultry, and eggs for lots of really good reasons. We get all those products for ourselves from local farmers anyway. Those 'throw-away' backs, necks, organ meats, bones, and trimmings are relatively inexpensive, but great for our meat-eating pets. I have no doubt my sweetie-pie will live longer with better quality of life than he would have if I hadn't changed his diet. One of the many health benefits of raw feeding is normalizing our pets' weights. There is an explosion of obese pets on the typical kibble or canned-food diet. Raw-fed dogs and cats, when fed properly (definitely no grains,) become naturally slim with no dieting and without being hungry all the time. My dog actually eats more than he did before, and his excess weight melted off after following a failed, vet-supervisor diet for months with him hungry all the time and losing very little weight. One more thing - my husband was extremely skeptical about raw feeding. He's a believer now, and tells everyone he knows. Sorry this is long, as you can tell I've very enthusiastic about raw feeding. If you knew my dog before and after, you would be too. The results have been nothing short of miraculous. Cheers, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 8, 2012 Report Share Posted March 8, 2012 Carol, Thank you for your thoughts. Please accept my apologies for contacting you directly but I didn't want to keep blowing up the kefir list on an off topic subject. I have been kicking around the idea of a species appropriate diet for a while now. I do give my pups chicken necks and organs as well as beef bones once or twice a week. Their diet is predominately high quality kibble which meets all their nutritional needs. I haven't pulled the trigger on the species appropriate diet because I am concerned that I will miss providing the fur faces with all their nutritional needs. Can you provide a credible resource for obtaining a diet + supplemements necessary for meeting their entire nutritional needs? If you don't have one, I would be interested in seeing your menu for the canine units. Thank you in advance for your time, Dave ________________________________ From: moonmajick75287 <cmielke@...> Sent: Thursday, March 8, 2012 5:33 PM Subject: Re: OT Raw Dog Food I know we are getting off the subject of kefir here but I just had to jump in here as feeding dogs a raw food diet is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I started fostering dogs for rescue in 1998. I was fostering some really sick and emaciated animals and started doing some research on what to do to get them better. What I found was raw feeding. I started my dogs on raw chicken necks and backs, pork neck bones, ribs and whatever else type of bone/meat I could find in day old meat section at the grocery store. I added yogurt, chopped vegetables, green tripe, pork back fat, coconut oil or just leftovers out of the fridge. I used supplements as they were needed. The dogs got healthy. I would start puppies off with ground chicken necks but it wasn't long until they graduated to the real thing, it was so natural for them. There is nothing more fun than watching a litter of puppies tackle a mess of chicken necks! I could go on and on about the merits of raw feeding, no more stinky messy poop, no smelly breath, pleasant smelling fur, there really is not a down side. I feed my dogs raw for less money than I would spend on a quality kibble. I have fed raw to hundreds of foster dogs. I have since retired from fostering however, I still feed raw to my own seven. I have a 13 year old Great Pyrenees who still thinks she is a puppy, I just lost my oldest girl, a fifteen year old shepherd/chow mix. She was healthy until the day she died. None of my dogs have any skin or ear issues, they never have. Oh, and one more thing, all of my dogs get kefir just about every night! Carol > > Wow! , that is awesome!!! It's great to hear a real person's experiences with raw feeding. I've read comments on some websites about raw feeding and you wonder if it was someone, within the company trying to sell their products or what. I do not have a dog but I want one. I will start the dog, or puppy, off on a raw food diet and will never vaccinate (if I can find one). Just like humans, dead food and poisons injected into the body only means one thing...disease! > > Al ------------------------------------ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2012 Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 Greetings, Well said Carol, I have had the same experience with raw. Our cats eat raw too, as well as kefir. I am new here, I have used milk kefir for about ten years, but I feel there is always something new to learn. Bright Blessings, Garth & Kim www.TheRoseColoredForest.com Bedias, Texas On 3/8/2012 4:33 PM, moonmajick75287 wrote: > > I could go on and on about the merits of raw feeding, no more stinky > messy poop, no smelly breath, pleasant smelling fur, there really is not > a down side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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