If you grill the chicken, the bones will become brittle and you risk the problems associated with that (getting caught in throat or mouth etc). Besides, it wouldn’t be a raw diet at that point.
I don’t feed raw meat… too lazy… but will buy the dehydrated raw kibble.
Don’t forget to look up good diets to find out how to balance it… they need more than meat.
I’d say whatever those sites are selling, unless declared, is just ordinary factory farm produced meats. Most likely for dog food, it’s old laying hens that no person would typically want to eat unless as a “stew hen.” I have been shocked speechless at what people are paying for raw food for their dogs.
I have half a freezer full of necks and backs that are hard to sell at the markets as most people don’t “eat” them. The backs can be used for stock but I can’t legally make stock from the backs and sell it without an inspected kitchen…so I have to sell the raw materials. I’d love to figure out a way to market these low priced space consuming items to the raw food crowd in our area. My chicken is antibiotic free and free range and way less per lb than the raw food sites. I just don’t have the volume to come up with my own label and sell it to dog food folks…it’s a conundrum.
Anyway, whatever you do, don’t cook chicken before you feed it. Go fully raw. I’ve been feeding necks to my JRT’s and back occasionally for over a year with no issues of bones or anything.
Lots of info out there, but wanted to chime in that I’ve been feeding RAW to my two Rat Terriers for TEN YEARS NOW (since they were pups or their entire lives)
They mostly get the Primal or Nature’s Variety “nuggets” just for convenience. But I also supplement with chickent thighs, breast, necks, sometimes beef short rib - organs, etc. Sometimes a raw egg, sometimes a bit of vegetable leftover from dinner.
They also get RMBs (raw meaty bones) and again, for convenience, I purchase the marrow bones you get in the freezer where they sell the nuggets.
I can’t afford to feed our large dog (she’s 100 lbs) raw, so she’s always been on very high-quality, grain-free, premium kibble. But she too, gets RMBs for fun.
Instead of feeding raw, we found a really lovely Canadian produced dog food that is better then anything I could make in my kitchen. It’s a total PITA to get because it’s a small company, a few provinces away, so we have to plan ahead & stock up when we can. My collie has really bad allergy problems, this is the only food she doesn’t get a reaction too (which is why it’s a big problem if we have to switch for a bag). Plus it’s high energy husky formula that keeps weight on two VERY active dogs.
So I don’t feed raw because I don’t feel the need, they’ve got a nice balanced fish-based dog food with few preservatives and no additives. Our girls do get raw eggs every day though (the really dirty ones I can’t clean/sell/don’t want to eat) and they LOVE it.
In fact I have to watch where I put my egg-basket or they’ll get swiped!
Do I dare feed raw Perdue chicken breast to them? Or grill it?
I wouldn’t. But I’m not a big supporter of the US’s food safety system.
To transition them to raw foods, start really slowly. I can quite a few friends/family members who have tried raw and found the dogs don’t accept it well. So we started off with an egg or two, and worked our way up. Now I can flip my dogs a bit of fat or liver and they’ll gobble it up.
I guess I am confused as to what makes the magical raw food website meats different from those I get at WF
They are probably actually lower quality on the website then what you get at the store for human consumption. Buying your raw from the store gets really expensive, you’re probably better off hooking up with a local farmer, especially if you’ve got one who does dog food. Like DB was talking about, there are lots of bits of the birds that are a harder sell. We only sell whole so i don’t have to deal with that nonsense.
The only reason people don’t like to eat them is they get tough & there isn’t much meat on them. There is nothing wrong with the meat at all, and the dogs love them. (I realize that’s not what you were saying DB but just want to clarify).
Raw chickens bones are supposed to be fine for dogs, I still get a little nervous; but based on the number of times my dogs have gotten into the garbage… we’ve never had a problem with cooked bones either.
Our pups get beef soup bones ALL the time. They love’m.
you can feed them the meats you buy at the grocery store- however, it can be quite difficult to actually produce a balanced raw diet if you just feed “whatever was on sale” to your dog. The only EASY way to feed a raw balanced diet is to feed whole-prey: literally, the entire animal, skin, brain, and all. So many of the specialized raw feeder sites will sell you the entire animal, such as whole rabbits either as is, chopped up, or run through a meat grinder.
Or the other easy way is to buy one of the pre-made diets like Nature’s variety that have done the balancing for you- you’ll note if you read the ingredients there are some odd things in there that are added solely to balance the diet.
Or you can buy a recipe from a nutritionist/ borrow one from someone. I recommend Monica Segal’s little booklets which can be purchased for $6 and contain balanced recipes you can home-assemble.
If you just wing it, you’re probably damaging your dog’s health and he’d be better off eating a good kibble.
If you don’t want to think or buy recipes, and just want to occasionally supplement your dog’s kibble, well, that’s a great idea. A raw chicken neck twice a week is healthy and will bonus clean the dog’s teeth.
Note: vegetables must be cooked or ground up or dogs can’t digest them. Bones must be uncooked or dogs can’t digest them. Raw salmon from some sources and raw wild pork can transmit parasites to your dog.
Just remember that it is not advisable to feed raw salmon, trout, or steelhead to dogs d/t nanophyetus salmincola (and the Neorickettsia helmintheca that the N. Salmincola carry) aka Salmon Posioning/SPD. I guess you could feed Atlantic salmon (I think the flukes are only found in west coast/Alaskan fish-but not sure of the risk, I’m not a small animal person)
Here is a good article on SPD. Worth noting (not sure if the article has been updated) One of my friends from vet school practices in the PNW-she’s seen a huge upswing in the number of SPD cases where there has been no exposure to salmon at all-only PNW trout, or PNW steelhead. I went with her to her area’s VMA mtg and it seemed that she was not alone, several of the other practitioners had seen it too.
Raw feeding is easy. I have two big dogs (150 lbs. and 95 lbs.), so buying pre-made raw is too expensive. I talked to a canine nutritionist and learned how to do it myself just buying regular meat, bone, organ, fish, etc. I buy most things from a meat wholesaler, but also stock up on good sales at the grocery store. I always get eggs and fish at the grocery store. The only thing I use that’s actually intended for dogs is raw green tripe since it’s obviously not sold for human consumption. I was nervous about getting it right when I first started, but it really is incredibly easy to do properly yourself. Don’t worry about veggies - dogs don’t need them.
I get the majority of my dogs food (I feed prey model raw) from the grocery store or my local butcher. So yes, you can feed Perdue if you want, but no grilling! That’s not raw
There are sites, like Hare Today, or My Pet Carnivore, that sells all kinds of meats as well. I know with Hare Today, for example, their beef is grass fed, which is much better quality than most of the beef you can find at the grocery.
My dogs eat chicken quarters, turkey necks, pork (usually shoulder or some other type of boneless), beef, and venison. For organs, either chicken liver or beef liver or kidney. It’s really very simple once you take the plunge
[QUOTE=Daydream Believer;6066887]
I’d say whatever those sites are selling, unless declared, is just ordinary factory farm produced meats. Most likely for dog food, it’s old laying hens that no person would typically want to eat unless as a “stew hen.” I have been shocked speechless at what people are paying for raw food for their dogs.
I have half a freezer full of necks and backs that are hard to sell at the markets as most people don’t “eat” them. The backs can be used for stock but I can’t legally make stock from the backs and sell it without an inspected kitchen…so I have to sell the raw materials. I’d love to figure out a way to market these low priced space consuming items to the raw food crowd in our area. My chicken is antibiotic free and free range and way less per lb than the raw food sites. I just don’t have the volume to come up with my own label and sell it to dog food folks…it’s a conundrum.
Anyway, whatever you do, don’t cook chicken before you feed it. Go fully raw. I’ve been feeding necks to my JRT’s and back occasionally for over a year with no issues of bones or anything.[/QUOTE]
I’ll take 'em!! I currently buy cases of chicken backs and turkey necks (when I can get them) from Whole Foods, and then repackage them for my use and freeze. I am always looking for a cheaper alternative!
I feed three Dalmatians, the oldest being almost 8. The others are 2.5 years and 5 months. All have been eating raw since they were weaned, and the dam of the 8 year old was also fed raw. We practice “balance over time,” but loosely. The dog food companies created the myth that dogs need to be fed a “complete and balanced” diet, Nature didn’t. And they have done their job well. Dogs are carnivores, so the VAST majority of what they eat should be meat and organs. Dals can’t eat the high purine organ meat because of their high uric acid/stone forming proclivity, so I don’t feed that, and I feed mainly poultry. But they can have heart and small amounts of red meat. Even though they don’t technically “need” fruits and veggies, it doesn’t hurt them and they like it, so I feed small amounts with their ground meals in the morning. They are all in superb condition and never get any of the skin ailments that Dals can be susceptible to. I also switched my ancient pitbull over because she kept looking so longingly at what the Dals were eating and SHE has never looked back!
I think Simkie started a recent one on raw.
