I’m thinking about switching to raw food diet?
I am thinking about switching my dog to a raw food diet. I want to know how much you spend a month of raw meat? Also, he is 50 pounds and eats about 4 cups of dry kibble a day (Merrick). How much raw meat would I give him a day?
Tagged with: kibble • merrick • raw food diet • raw meat
Filed under: Raw Food Diet
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WOOOHOO! great great great choice. after the whole pet food recalls, i have been wondering what really could be in my dog’s food. I did a LOT of research about dog food and dog food related health (mostly internet).
a book i suggest you to read is Dr.Pitcairn’s complete guide to natural health to dogs and cats. they have grains in their foods, but assures us to COOK the grains as they are hard to digest for carnivors. and its not only about recipies and stuff, lots of information about whats in pet food (you’ll be surprised. even after the research i did, i still was) and information about behavior, health of cats and dogs, etc etc.
anyways, getting back to your question.
it could be expensive if you’re getting meat from the wrong places. many people get meat for their dogs (mostly large breeds) at about 1lb $1.30 or something. you can be in a yahoo group about raw feeding (which i am in too) and they answer lots of questions about where you can buy meat. most of them have been answered through out the forums.
organ meat is generally cheap, although i haven’t gone to this yet for my dog, many people say it is.
raw meat for your dog is usually 2-3% of its weight. So about 1lb to 1 1/2 is ideal.
Ask your vet about it first. If you rely on Yahoo Answers for this, you’ll get a lot of uninformed guesses based on personal preference displayed as facts.
I think the raw food diet rocks. If you work it right sometimes it’s cheaper than kibble. Get in with your local butchers. They will save all the good stuff for you. If you want to read more about it or talk on a forum about it go to http://www.Leerburg.com
Best sight in the world. Look around. You’ll find it.
Marina Zacharias, of Natural Rearing , and Whole Dog Journal, offers the fresh diet she feeds: http://www.naturalrearing.com/J_In_Learning/Diet/Food/FreshFood.htm
It looks very good, safe and inexpensive.
http://www.rawmeatybones.com
If you want to switch to prey model raw, which is how they would eat in nature (80% meat, 10% bone, 10% organ – of which 5% needs to be liver)… That is the easiest, healthiest, and cheapest way to feed a raw diet.
I have three dogs… (1- 60 lbs, 1- 55lbs, 1- 38 lbs.) and I feed all three for about $75-100 a month. I was spending $300 on high quality kibble for them.
As for how much to feed… The easy standard for the prey model is to feed 2-3% of your dogs weight a day. Monitor to see if it is causing weight gain/loss. If you know you have a dog that expends more energy or has a higher metabolism- you might start him at the higher end…
As for a 50lb. dog- one pound would be 2% of his body weight…and one and 1/2 pounds would be 3% of his body weight.
That means you would need to start somewhere between 1-1 1/2 lbs of raw meat a day.
If you are interested in a raw prey model diet. I recommend you join this yahoo group (they are really great at answering questions, helping new people get started, etc.)
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding/