Raw Food Diet for Dogs (barf style)
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“5 and 6 year old dogs eating a Raw Natural Diet together”
“5 and 6 year old dogs eating a Raw Natural Diet together”
by: jamie dolan
Are you search for a recipe for feeding your dog a raw diet? It is very possible to make a raw diet for your dog from a recipe that includes many ingredients. You can purchase an expensive grinder along with dozens of supplements. Some people even go to all the work of gathering ingredients, adding costly supplements, and grinding it up to then cook it.
Many of you reading this article may already be familiar with this type of a diet and some of you may already be making food this way. I don’t feel there is anything fundamentally wrong with preparing your dogs food in this manner, and I feel your far better off than if you were to feed your dog kibble. I do feel that for the majority of dogs that there is an easier way to feed them, that often has some additional benefits. The type of diet where you do not grind the food is often called a prey model diet, this is where you feed whole piece of meat and bone to your dog. I will explore this more in another post. For the rest of this post, as promised, I will provide a recipe for creating ground dog food.
Back to the raw dog food recipe; if you are committed to making a mixed up (ground) diet from a recipe, I will give some suggestions:
1. Use good portions of meat, don’t rely on bony (inexpensive) cuts such as chicken necks. Making the bone content a little higher to help keep stools firm is okay to do, but not at the expense of taking up space where more nutritious foods should be.
2. Keep it simple, unless your dog has a medical condition that your treating, don’t let people talk you into using numerous supplements. The majority of the time they are unnecessary and give no benefit. Supplements can even be harmful when misused.
3. Avoid adding vegetables and other unnecessary items to the mix. Many people have the belief that because we have been taught that vegetables are good for humans, that they must be good for dogs also. The most simple way I look this debate is as such; I believe that animals that are suppose to eat plant matter will have the physiology to support it’s consumption. Humans have Amalyase to break down cellulose in vegetables, where as dogs do not. Also dog have sharp pointed teeth and their jaw can not move side to side, only up and down. To me this all indicates that a dog lacks the basic tools necessary to consume and process vegetable matter. I will discuss this in more detail in an additional post. If you have questions about it in the mean time, feel free to contact me or leave a comment here with your questions.
4. Avoid Grains. Grains are used in dog food primarily because they are inexpensive. Dogs do not require carbohydrates to survive or thrive. Fiber is also unnecessary in a dogs diet. When we look at vegetable, grains and fiber, we can easily conclude that these items are not ideal for dog because a dogs physiology does not support their consumption and processing.
*A quick note here: For everyone that feeds these items to your dog and feels like your dog is just fine, I say, that is great. If it is working for you, then I am happy for you. Dogs are remarkably adaptable and the varied diets they are fed and live on, proves that. I don’t think grains and vegetables will kill your dog nor even necessary make your dog ill, but I do feel they are generally unnecessary.
5. Avoid Dairy. Dairy is a common source of digestive upset for dogs, beyond the nursing period, mammals other than humans do not consume milk.
Suggested items to mix into food if your going to grind / mix your dogs food (include as many as you like, but at a minimum, include 1 meat with bone and organs):
- Beef (any cut)
- Chicken (whole bird cut up into pieces that fit into the grinder)
- Turkey (whole bird cut up into pieces that fit into the grinder)
- Pork (any cut)
- Duck (whole bird cut up into pieces that fit into the grinder)
- Lamb (any cut)
- Rabbit (any cut or whole rabbit cut up)
- Rat / Mice (make sure they were not poisoned)
- Emu (any cut)
- Goat (any cut)
- Salmon
- Perch
- Haddock
- Cat fish
- Other fish that are suitable for human consumption
- Chicken or duck eggs
- Liver & other organs from any of the sources listed above
The only supplement of sorts that I suggest everyone add to their dogs food is Salmon Oil. While not strictly necessary, it add omega 3 fatty acids to your dogs diet that are often missing from commercial meats due to our modern farming practices.
Once you gather the ingredients, can should use a sharp knife to cut them up into pieces that will fit into your grinder. Make sure you have everything cut up before you start. Ensure that you have enough containers to hold the ground food, as well as room in your freezer.
That should give you a good start, feel free to contact me or post comments here if you have more questions.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
So you grind the bones up with the meat? You don't just give raw pieces to your dog. I need better directions. What kind of grinder do you use? Sorry, I don't know more about this. I usually buy ground meat and mix with vegetables and seaweed, flaxseed and other stuff for my dog.
Hi Kaylani;
I am in the process of writing more articles for my blog, which will make these subjects much easier to understand, tonights article must seem like just one piece to the puzzle.
I have written hundreds of pages of information on raw feeding over the past 4 years on various forums and newsgroups. I’ll try my best to answer your questions here, but your welcome to respond with more questions if I am not clear.
There are 2 methods that can be used, one is what I was getting at with this article, where you grind the ingredients together, the meat, bone, and organs. I do this most of the time for my cats because it can be very hard to get cats to eat whole food. The same food I make for the cats can be used for the dogs.
I have a grinder with a 2 -1/4″ throat, is all metal from Fleet Farm in Appleton, WI. They are around $400. I’ll have to go dig it out if you want to know the brand. It works well, but you do have to get the meat / bones cut down to the size of the grinder opening. That can be quite a chore if you start with say whole chickens or whole turkey. Once the food is the right size to feed to the grinder, the process is quick and you can grind hundreds of pounds per hour.
The other method of raw feeding, which is what I use with my dogs now is where I just give them the food whole and allow them to eat it. It is much easier and the majority of dogs adjust to it easily. For example, tonight my dogs has a chicken quarter (leg and thigh). I just handed it to them and they ate it raw. That is actually what the dogs are eating in the photo on this article.
I would also feed my dogs meals of beef roast, pork roast, fish, basically all of the items I listed in the article, as I am able to obtain them. I cut off the size piece I want my dog to have, and give it to them to eat. In the beginning, you go slow and supervise to make sure they don’t choke or anything. I’ve helped hundreds of people switch over to this method of feeding and the dogs all just figure out what to do, some need a little guidance, but it has all worked very very well.
Feel free to post more detail questions, I’ll be happy to respond, and in the morning I will work on getting some more articles written up.
Regards,
Jamie Dolan
This is a very good site My weblog to have many words, but your blog is better. My compliments!
Hi Jamie,
This is actually quite funny. I just came to your blog because I ran a spyglass report on Terry Kyle's backlink website and I was dropping links wherever I saw he did. Then I came upon this post, which I found really interesting and I wanted to make an actual comment on. When I saw your avitar on the comment above, I instantly recognized you from Terry's forum. Small world wide web…
Anyway, nice blog. My actual question was if you think a raw diet provides any health benefits over a really good quality kibble. I use either Wellness or Solid Gold, which are grain free and have quality ingredients.
I have easy access to quality raw food, and cost isn't really a factor. Kibble is certainly more convenient but this isn't a deciding factor.
Optimal health and happiness of my dog is the deciding factor. And I'm a bit concerned that a raw diet might actually not be as complete as an engineered food.
Logically, I'd say sure, my dog's wild cousin will get all of it's nutrition from what it kills and it's certainly healthy enough for him. But that wild animal is also eating a whole lot more than the clean pieces of chicken breast I can pick up from the supermarket. Without a steady diet of the heart, liver and other organs that might provide some very necessary minerals, is it possible that a store bought raw diet could be lacking in nutrition? Or rather, is the quality kibble diet more complete?
Good seeing you here. And I'll be seeing you back at Terry's.
-Robert
Hi Robert,
Great to see you here. I just posted this article a few hours ago, and already got a couple comments (any noticed it got copied by at least 3 parrot sites within 2 hours). I’ve been using that avatar of me and my dogs for the past several months, and it is on hundreds of sites now.
Yes, I absolutely do believe that a raw diet if better for your dogs. Any kind of kibble, no matter how high quality is processed, cooked and extruded at high temperatures into the kibble shape. While some preservatives are more natural than others, kibble still has to have some kind of preservative(s) in it to keep it stable at room temperature. On top of that, any kibble is going to have some manner of plant ingredients as part of the formula, often a significant part. While some dogs appear to do find with vegetables and grains mixed in, I feel like it is not only unnecessary, but has the potential to lead to allergies down the road.
If we were to look at kibble vs fresh meats for a dog, and try to come up with an analogy along those lines for human food, it might be something like Whats better for me the fresh chicken breast of the bag of preserved Big Joes Jerky? You going to choose the fresh food that hasn’t been sitting on a shelf filled with extra stuff to keep it fresh.
I agree that kibble is a very convenient option. Once your dogs are established on a raw diet, they can easily eat on an every other day plan. You just feed one good size meal one day, the next you can give them a few bits of something if you want, maybe an egg, but that isn’t necessary, then the following day they get a regular meal again. That makes it even more convenient in my opinion, and that works well for all but the very very smallest dogs. I have a 9 pound dog that does well on this eating schedule.
In terms of how complete it is, I’ve been involved in multi-day debates with many highly educated people who have scrutinized everything that is in kibble vs what is found in real raw meats and referenced that against the Merck veterinary manual. I’ve never seen someone who has really educated themselves on the topic decide that there are things that kibble provides that you can’t get from a raw food diet. The one item that many people strongly feel should be added to most diets is some salmon oil. Factory farmed meats (and this applied to the mean in kibble as well) are higher in omega 6 due to the diets they are fed (grains being fed to cows). A cows natural diet is grass, and when fed grass that cow will have far more omega 3 fatty acids in it’s body. Using some salmon oil which is high in omega 3 helps compensate for this shortfall of modern meats.
I do feel that heart, liver, organs are an important part of a healthy raw diet. Almost all groceries carry beef liver, chicken hearts and livers are common as well. Walmart often has beef kidney and I think I even saw lungs and there. I know I saw some beef heart locally, I think that was at walmart. If you find a local meat market, they will likely be able to set you up with even more variety. I like to keep the food as varied as possible, to me that seems like it does a much better job of mimicking nature, as wild dogs / wolves would eat numbers kinds of prey from rabbits, to birds, to wild boar, to beaver to deer. If you ever get so inclined, it is not difficult to obtain whole complete (unprocessed) rabbits, chickens, rats and mice that you can feed as a more complete meal.
So you defiantly don’t want to just put them on a diet of only clean chicken breasts, that would not be adequate on it’s own, but you will find that you have many options just by looking at a local grocery store or two.
I’ve noticed that my dogs have far better teeth than dogs that eat kibble, my oldest who will be 7 this month will need some dental work, but I feel the raw diet has delayed the need for that work, and has kept many of his teeth in really good shape overall.
I’ve also noticed that my dogs don’t have those little bumps all over there skin that dogs often seem to get after they are a few years old. My parents dogs, some from the same family lines as my dogs all seem to have developed those fatty bumps / growths on their bodies. I stopped using flea and tick meds a long time ago, so that may be part of it also.
My dogs do have allergies to some meats, but I feel that these allergies developed primary from earlier in their lives when they were eating their premium kibble. I will find they get a little itchy / licky from a meat, and if I do, then I try to use a different brand next time or stick to a different meat source.
I’m really considering devoting more time to writing raw feeding / dog health materials again, possibly setting up a forum. My first forum, the Jeep forum was quite disappointing, as the status from google keyword tool were very very far off from the real world. So I am being a little more cautious this time before I put in the level of effort required to really setup a nice forum.
I hope I was of some help, feel free to write back with other questions, and I apologize in advance if any of this doesn’t sound right, it is quite late for me, about 2:30am here.
Best Regards,
Jamie
Hi Jamie,
Thanks for your detailed reply. I think I'm going to start incorporating a raw diet. I'm not so concerned about the convenience. I actually think I'll enjoy preparing it as much as my dog will enjoy eating it.
Thanks again for your great info. Talk soon,
-Rob
Lots of Great information in your posting, I bookmarked your site so I can visit again in the future, Thanks
Stumbled into this site by chance but I’m sure glad I clicked on that link. You definitely answered all the questions I’ve been dying to answer for some time now. Will definitely come back for more of this. Thank you so much
Very good information, thanks for the article!
hi i have a huge problem. I have a 1year/ 4 month old shih tzu. he's been scratching alot especially his ears. When i gave him duck it stopped. i gave him every meat that was out there venison, rabbit, lamb and he's still scratching. but duck was the only one that worked. my question is since duck is very high in protein wouldnt it be bad for my dog(percy) ??? i do feed him raw food..stella and chews (brand)… please email me back with some help..ne 1 can… sheenamsolomon@aol.com
Hello,
In general raw meat is not considered a high protein diet. Raw duck with skin is only 11% protein, the rest is fat and water. Where the vast majority of commercial dry foods will be much higher than this in protein content, you can find commercial foods at 44% protein and perhaps even higher.
If he does well with duck, then I would stick with it. It's always best to rotate some other meats into the mix, but if you can't find anything else he will tolerate, then just using duck isn't going to be that bad. I would make sure you are feeding liver and either bones or a calcium supplement. I would add a high quality fish oil if he can tolerate it.
You can check the USDA nutrient database to find out how much fat / protein / etc is in a food. Just type "raw duck" into the search box and it will have a listing for raw duck.
I thought that was really informative. Thanks for the cool post. I’ll keep an eye on this.
I have just been informed that my dog has diabeties. He is 8yrs. old and he has been healthy (except for scratching in the summer months) all his dog life. I am shocked to say the least-my sister feeds her lab 50% raw and I am very interested. If I start this raw diet for my dog is it possible for him to be diabeties and itch free? PLEASE HELP
Call me silly but i always thought feeding dogs raw meat was unhealthy. Well this blog confirms that its ok. Some great info here…I will try this recipe for my new dog
Nice article. I'm getting 4 to 6 beavers for my dog. Any tips on processing it? They're currently frozen and waiting for me. I was thinking of chopping them into thirds or quartering them into into 1/2 meals. I hear it's very rich meat. Any tips would be appreciated. Cheers, Michael.
Hi;
Yes, you just want to cut them up into whatever size pieces make sense for your dogs. I've fed beaver in the past, but the only way I could get it was ground. I suspect overall it is going to be on the fattier side, so depending on how your dogs do with fat, you may need to limit the amount you feed at one time. The fat isn't bad for them, some dogs just don't handle larger percentages of fat very well and will end up with some digestive upset / loose stools from a meal that is too fatty. If they are not already dressed, you may want to remove the guts before feeding, depending on how your dogs do with them and if your feeding somewhere that a mess could be a problem. The guts are fine for them to eat if they want to.
I don't know of any parasite problems with beavers; it wouldn't hurt to have them frozen for a few weeks prior to feed them, if they haven't already been frozen that long. Most parasites if present die off with a couple weeks of freezing; the only thing I know that is really resistant to this is a strain of Trich found in some wild bears, I would personally suggest avoiding bear.
Let me know if you have other questions. I have a pet forum setup called PawDogs. It has a section on Raw Feeding here: http://www.pawdogs.com/prey-model-raw-feeding/
Thank You!
Jamie
The crux of your writing whilst sounding reasonable in the beginning, did not really sit very well with me after some time. Somewhere within the paragraphs you managed to make me a believer unfortunately only for a very short while. I nevertheless have a problem with your jumps in assumptions and one might do well to help fill in all those gaps. When you actually can accomplish that, I will undoubtedly be amazed.