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Raw Diet

GoldenGait

GoldenGait

Citizen of Zooville
I'll be getting my first dog next spring/summer and I've been very interested in a raw diet. It is a lot more work and a lot more money when you have to purchase the meat from the grocery store. BUT, I'm a deer and elk hunter and would like to "meal prep" for a year during this upcoming hunting season, putting together a chest freezer worth of meals for my pup. So, I'd like to figure out the best way to feed a diet consisting entirely of raw venison and fresh eggs from the backyard chicken coop.

I sort of know the basics. I understand that raw muscle meat doesn't contain a wide array of vitamins and minerals. I know that you can get a lot of these other vitamins and minerals from organ tissue. So, I plan on harvesting all of the organs and distributing them into the individual meals along with the muscle meat.

I'd like to see if any of you are well versed on the nutritional side of things. I'd like to supplement as little as possible, or not at all, through using all of the organs as well as feeding fresh eggs from the chicken coop in the back yard. I'd love to hear about anyone's experience with a raw diet, how their dogs do on the diet and any advice for ensuring the dog gets all of its nutritional value from the diet.
 
My girl made the switch to 50 50% meat and kibble,so she gets tubs of raw food. it is mostly offal and other meat by products. if we have eggs spare, she gets them too. her skin issue is clearing up and she is happy.
 
Smee said:
My girl made the switch to 50 50% meat and kibble,so she gets tubs of raw food. it is mostly offal and other meat by products. if we have eggs spare, she gets them too. her skin issue is clearing up and she is happy.
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Very cool! I'm glad your girl is happy and healthier!
 
Bitchesonly said:
yes, really and i can, but you can use google as well
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You might have to do it for me. I just googled "all meat diet for dogs and lifespan" and every result was claiming that an all meat diet EXTENDS the life of the dog. So...maybe I'm doing something wrong here. Please help!
 
Silvervine said:
Raw diets, as well as any changes in diets or unusual diets, should only be discussed with a vet, ideally one that you're established with so they can make suggestions and ensure your dog is getting the full nutritional requirements. I say this from not only my personal experience, but having heard the pleas of several vets suggesting the same thing when approached with pet dietary advice in public forums.
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I've heard this advice before and I think it would be a good idea to talk to an actual pet nutritionist or at least, as you say, a vet that is well-versed in nutrition. I disagree, however, that raw diets should only be discussed with a vet. That seems ridiculous. There's no reason we can't discuss this amongst each other and share our experiences.

You can't base everything off of one person's opinion (a vet). What if that person happens to be a vegan and their unknown underlying morals about eating animals inappropriately sways their dietary advice? I think getting a wide range of opinions and stories and real life accounts in combination with direct expert advice is a good way to go about this.
 
I hunt myself. But I don’t to raw. They are still subjected to illness from raw diets. I do cook rare steaks though for the dogs and slice them up
 
Bloodwolf said:
I hunt myself. But I don’t to raw. They are still subjected to illness from raw diets. I do cook rare steaks though for the dogs and slice them up
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Yeah, illness is a worry of mine, too. Chronic wasting disease is the primary one I'm concerned about in my area. I plan on sending in samples for testing before feeding the meat to my dog or eating it myself.
 
GoldenGait said:
Yeah, illness is a worry of mine, too. Chronic wasting disease is the primary one I'm concerned about in my area. I plan on sending in samples for testing before feeding the meat to my dog or eating it myself.
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I’m not just talking about CWD. Overall is risky. I did it once and paid for it.
 
Bloodwolf said:
He got himself a good bout of food poisoning. Chicken I believe did it.
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I hope he came through it ok. Chicken seems to be the most risky raw item you could feed your pup. I don't plan on feeding any store bought meat, though, only venison.
 
GoldenGait said:
I hope he came through it ok. Chicken seems to be the most risky raw item you could feed your pup. I don't plan on feeding any store bought meat, though, only venison.
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Don’t grind it. Let it kiss the grill for 2 minutes each side and give it to him. Everything else, cool through
 
GoldenGait said:
I'd love to hear about anyone's experience with a raw diet, how their dogs do on the diet and any advice for ensuring the dog gets all of its nutritional value from the diet.
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In my experience, I've seen more healthy dogs (and their people) get sick from raw diets then from cooked ones.

It sounds like you're leaning toward just meat, organs and eggs? If so, it's going to be difficult to have a properly balanced diet for a dog. There's some professionally developed diets out there (Hilary's Blend or the ACVN websites for example), perhaps you can get some inspiration there? Many of the recipes will recommend some supplement or another, which you mentioned you wanted to avoid, but there's probably some good info there anyway. Or like you said, get a nutrition specialist to help out (especially if you aren't rotating the menu!)
 
This is just my personal opinion developed through my experiences and learning. I make my own raw food for my dogs, and have studied canine nutrition while studying vet medicine, and worked with a veterinary nutritionist. You do what is right for you! Also I am Australian, so I don't know much about game over there. I buy my meats from a pet butcher.

First off you're right in saying that it's good to discuss options, since one opinion - even a vet's - isn't all encompassing. Vets are reluctant to recommend raw diets because they don't trust the client to make it properly and then are liable because they 'recommended it'.

I supplement my raw diet with a quality dry food, and it works well for me. I find it helps make sure they get the base micronutrients and have food available if I forget to defrost something.

Correct that you need to include organ meats as well. A raw diet should not be more than 70% lean muscle. You also need to include bone, as well as fruits, nuts and seeds, and vegetable matter - these are small, but important parts that would usually come from prey stomach contents. You can buy nutrient supplements (such as NutriGel) to make sure you cover all the bases. Carbs are debatable. They tend to put the most weight on, so if your dog is on the heavier side then try without them first.

I recommend you start with a lower percentage of muscle and include a little carbs, and see how you go. You should have something looking like this:

⁃ 60% muscle

⁃ 10% bone (soft bone - eg brisket - to digest)

⁃ 10% veg (eg, carrot, broccoli stalk)

⁃ 5% carb (eg potato, rice, oats)

⁃ 5% liver

⁃ 5% kidney

⁃ 5% Seeds, Nuts, Fruits - the ones I use, and the ratio of each is (you can mix this in bulk and add it as you need):

4 chia : 1 spirulina / kelp : 1 ginger powder : 1 turmeric powder : 1 dry parsley : 10 sunflower seed : 10 almonds : 7 pumpkin seed: 5 blueberries

I also add in occasional tinned sardines (high in EPA and DHA for joint mobility, oils good for coat and skin), and whole eggs (Omega 3s).

Feel free to message me if you need help.
 
Deer and egg is not a compleate diet talk to a board certified vet nutritionist they literally went to school to do animal nutrition
 
Hollycost said:
Deer and egg is not a compleate diet talk to a board certified vet nutritionist they literally went to school to do animal nutrition
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Nutrition science is not an exact science at all. We don't even know the proper diet for human beings and that's been studied WAY more than the proper diet for pets. There are people out in the world thriving and healthy on a diet of nothing but beef and salt. There are people out there on carnivore diets who eat nothing but deer and elk and are perfectly healthy with excellent bloodwork results. They call it nose-to-tail, or something like that, where they utilize as much of the animal as possible in order to extract all of the nutritional value.

The idea that I have to just roll with someone's suggestions based on the fact that they have a college degree doesn't sit well with me.

It's also very odd to me that kibble is considered better than raw meat. The dog is a wolf...it's been eating raw meat for thousands of years. Raw meat should be the standard and we should be arguing about whether or not kibble is an ok alternative.
 
Larvikyte said:
This is just my personal opinion developed through my experiences and learning. I make my own raw food for my dogs, and have studied canine nutrition while studying vet medicine, and worked with a veterinary nutritionist. You do what is right for you! Also I am Australian, so I don't know much about game over there. I buy my meats from a pet butcher.

First off you're right in saying that it's good to discuss options, since one opinion - even a vet's - isn't all encompassing. Vets are reluctant to recommend raw diets because they don't trust the client to make it properly and then are liable because they 'recommended it'.

I supplement my raw diet with a quality dry food, and it works well for me. I find it helps make sure they get the base micronutrients and have food available if I forget to defrost something.

Correct that you need to include organ meats as well. A raw diet should not be more than 70% lean muscle. You also need to include bone, as well as fruits, nuts and seeds, and vegetable matter - these are small, but important parts that would usually come from prey stomach contents. You can buy nutrient supplements (such as NutriGel) to make sure you cover all the bases. Carbs are debatable. They tend to put the most weight on, so if your dog is on the heavier side then try without them first.

I recommend you start with a lower percentage of muscle and include a little carbs, and see how you go. You should have something looking like this:

⁃ 60% muscle

⁃ 10% bone (soft bone - eg brisket - to digest)

⁃ 10% veg (eg, carrot, broccoli stalk)

⁃ 5% carb (eg potato, rice, oats)

⁃ 5% liver

⁃ 5% kidney

⁃ 5% Seeds, Nuts, Fruits - the ones I use, and the ratio of each is (you can mix this in bulk and add it as you need):

4 chia : 1 spirulina / kelp : 1 ginger powder : 1 turmeric powder : 1 dry parsley : 10 sunflower seed : 10 almonds : 7 pumpkin seed: 5 blueberries

I also add in occasional tinned sardines (high in EPA and DHA for joint mobility, oils good for coat and skin), and whole eggs (Omega 3s).

Feel free to message me if you need help.
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Thanks so much for your post! This is exactly what I've been looking for in this thread.

The stomach contents thing is something I haven't heard about before. That makes a lot of sense. I kind of look at the diet through the lens of imagining what a wolf is eating in the wild. There would be stomach contents of squirrels and rabbits as well as larger mammals, offering little portions of all kinds of herbivore-type stuff.

I like that diet. It seems very well-rounded. I think what I like the most about it is that I could see myself eating that exact diet and being super healthy doing so.
 
GoldenGait said:
Nutrition science is not an exact science at all. We don't even know the proper diet for human beings and that's been studied WAY more than the proper diet for pets. There are people out in the world thriving and healthy on a diet of nothing but beef and salt. There are people out there on carnivore diets who eat nothing but deer and elk and are perfectly healthy with excellent bloodwork results. They call it nose-to-tail, or something like that, where they utilize as much of the animal as possible in order to extract all of the nutritional value.

The idea that I have to just roll with someone's suggestions based on the fact that they have a college degree doesn't sit well with me.

It's also very odd to me that kibble is considered better than raw meat. The dog is a wolf...it's been eating raw meat for thousands of years. Raw meat should be the standard and we should be arguing about whether or not kibble is an ok alternative.
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I'm not saying kibble is better like diet wise but it is nutritional wise it is balanced its just fact that just deer and eggs doesn't have all the micro and macro nutrients a dog needs you cannot compare and human and a dog we have very different diet wise and in every other ball park your the one that's going to pay all the vet bills when your dog's have health issues related to not getting enough nutrition so do what ever just known it is in no way healthy for your dogs
 
Hollycost said:
I'm not saying kibble is better like diet wise but it is nutritional wise it is balanced its just fact that just deer and eggs doesn't have all the micro and macro nutrients a dog needs you cannot compare and human and a dog we have very different diet wise and in every other ball park your the one that's going to pay all the vet bills when your dog's have health issues related to not getting enough nutrition so do what ever just known it is in no way healthy for your dogs
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If a diet of wild game is in no way healthy for a dog then why aren't wolves dying left and right when all they eat is wild game?
 
Strayward said:
What's the benefit of the meat being raw over being cooked?
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I don't know for sure, actually. I guess the idea is that it's closer to the dog's natural diet so maybe it works better with their digestive system. Maybe they can extract the nutrients more properly. Humans are able to extract more nutrients, I believe, when we cook meat. I've heard this is due to differences in our digestive tracts. Not sure how accurate all of that is but that's kind of the presumption I'm operating on and it makes sense to me.

A cow, for example, can extract all of the nutrients it needs from eating just grass but a human would die on that diet, given the drastic difference in digestive systems.
 
littleblonde said:
We do a 50/50 and works well for him x
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That seems like a pretty popular route. It seems like it kind of covers all the bases. Raw meat is probably really good for the dog but just in case it isn't enough, throw in some more varied nutritional content.
 
GoldenGait said:
If a diet of wild game is in no way healthy for a dog then why aren't wolves dying left and right when all they eat is wild game?
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They don't just eat deer and eggs as I've stated multiple times is the issue not feeding a raw diet also a big problem with your argument dogs are NOT wolves they are dogs I'm not going back and forth because you are obviously convinced that a animal thats evolved to eat a varied diet can only subsit on deer meat and eggs I urge you to only ever eat 2 things and see how it goes
 
Hollycost said:
They don't just eat deer and eggs as I've stated multiple times is the issue not feeding a raw diet also a big problem with your argument dogs are NOT wolves they are dogs I'm not going back and forth because you are obviously convinced that a animal thats evolved to eat a varied diet can only subsit on deer meat and eggs I urge you to only ever eat 2 things and see how it goes
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Thanks for your input
 
Strayward said:
What's the benefit of the meat being raw over being cooked?
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The meat being raw itself isn’t so much the reason a raw diet is good for them. “Raw” is generally what is referring to a BARF diet - Biologically Appropriate Raw Feeding. This encompasses basically what I listed as good ingredients, to make sure the macro and micro nutrients are met as they would in wild populations by eating stomach, liver, kidney, as well as grazing ( dogs and wolves naturally graze on things they encounter… egg shells, blueberries, roots).

The lean muscle can be cooked, as can the liver and kidney. It does alter the nutrient values available, and kills natural probiotics, so it’s not the default. But bone must always be raw. It is generally just better to keep it all raw, especially in cases with he lean meat being fed on the bone.

GoldenGait said:
I don't know for sure, actually. I guess the idea is that it's closer to the dog's natural diet so maybe it works better with their digestive system. Maybe they can extract the nutrients more properly. Humans are able to extract more nutrients, I believe, when we cook meat. I've heard this is due to differences in our digestive tracts. Not sure how accurate all of that is but that's kind of the presumption I'm operating on and it makes sense to me.

A cow, for example, can extract all of the nutrients it needs from eating just grass but a human would die on that diet, given the drastic difference in digestive systems.
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The main reason we cook meat is that initially it was easier to digest, so more nutrients from less energy used to get it. Over time we lost the gut bacteria that prevented us getting sick from bacterial toxins causing food poisoning (salmonella, for example) and so cooking became required for our survival. We also don’t have cellulose digesting bacteria so need plant matter to be cooked to allow access to a lot of their nutrients.

And yeah ruminant animals can survive on pasture because of the different bacteria and structure of their digestive systems. Our appendix is what is left of the rumen we had once! They do still have their own nutritional requirements though ? not just grass.
 
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