| Sample Menu For Our Danes Raw Diet The amounts will vary. Start off with what you feel is a good amount for your dog. Feed the dog according to his/her body condition. If the dog starts to get thin, feed more, getting fat, feed less! There is no magic number in pounds to feed your dog according to his weight. They are all different. You will know with in a couple of weeks or less if the amount you are feeding is to little or to much by looking at your dog! It really is that simple. Don't let the dog control the amount! They love this diet and many dogs will continue to act hungry/starving after a meal. You are in control here! I am feeding 5 adult female Great Danes. They get approx. 2 to 3 pounds each a day. When I had a Male here, he ate more then the girls. I have a couple of very easy keepers who get less then the others. I do not weigh anything anymore. Feed according to body condition and you will have it right! Pups eat almost as much as adults and amounts vary with them also as they go through growth spurts= need more, level off for a bit= need less. Feed pups according to their body condition. Do not let puppies get fat. This can cause growth issues. Sunday: Chicken backs or Leg Quarters. Monday: Canned Salmon, Mackerel, Sardines, (can of each) Sweet Potato. Tuesday: Chicken Backs or Leg Quarters or Turkey necks, Slice or 2 of Beef Liver or Heart or Kidney. Wednesday: Ground Turkey or Ground Beef, Sweet Potato and one or two eggs, crushed shell included. Thursday: Chicken backs, or leg quarters, slice of beef liver or heart or kidney. Friday: Any kind of Raw Meaty bones. Pork, Beef, Lamb, Deer, Rabbit, Whole Chicken, etc. Saturday: Turkey Necks, Pork Necks, Green Tripe. WE DO NOT FEED VEGGIES OR FRUITS TO OUR CARNIVORES. (Would you force or try to feed a Horse/omnivore a steak?) This is not to say I never hand my dog a piece of apple, cantelope or whatever when I am eating one, but fruits and veg are not part of their diet nor are they required. Our dogs DO get table scraps but no cooked bones. Use your head here.. Don't give your dog your left over chili and other spicey foods. Notes: Every 3rd day we try to feed a 'Non-bone' meal. ie, the fish meal or ground meat meal. This helps to keep the stools normal. Too much bone= dry hard poops/constipation, Not enough bone=loose stool. So try to offer a non-bone meal every few days. You can't mess this diet up if each week you make sure the diet includes: A variety of Raw Meaty Bones, A fish meal, A ground meat meal, An egg or 2, and some type/small amount of organ meat, green tripe (if you can get it.... not a must). The Diet is EASY! :) We only feed once a day and 1 or 2 times a month we fast our dogs for 24 hours. It does a body good! Occasionally I will offer them a femur bone to chew on the day they are fasting just to give them something to do and they 'think' they have been fed. We feed whole chickens whenever I can get them on sale. This is one meal I feed outside only. It is a lot of fun to watch the dogs tear up a whole chicken and they love it too! Where do I get all this stuff? I have called every meat locker and local butcher that was in my yellow pages. I have found some great deals on Organ meats getting them free from one source! Another saves me femur bones. I basically will take just about anything they have to offer. Its amazing the stuff that was going to go to the trash! I also found a co-op for my meaty bone source. I did this by asking the local grocer who supplied their chicken. I got the phone number and was lucky the place was only 55 miles from me. I now pick up 6 to 8 hundred pounds a trip. I get all of my chicken from them (Troyers). I also get pork necks, turkey necks and ground meats from them. I buy my canned fish at either the supermarket or the dollar store. Sometimes it is on sale for a dollar a can at the grocery and other times it is cheaper to buy at Dollar General! You have to find some good sources for your Raw Diet, or you'll go broke buying this stuff from the grocery. Once you find a few good sources, you will see that it is cheaper to feed this way then it is to buy so called 'Premium Kibble'. I Have what I call "Raw Day" On Raw Day, I have made arrangements to pick up all of my meats and stop at all the selected butchers and meat lockers. I bring all of this stuff home and spend the next few hours bagging it up and putting it into freezers. I get enough to feed all 5 dogs for about 2 months. I am getting really fast at getting this stuff all packed away! :) Feeding the Raw Diet is easy. It is as easy as feeding kibble aside from your Raw Day that you spend collecting the food and storing it! At night before I go to bed, I just pull out from the freezer what I am going to feed and put it in the sink. In the morning I put it in the bowls and I am done! All of our dogs eat right at the bowl so you don't have to worry about them dragging raw food all through the house. We do feed them a few things outside that get a little messy. They get whole chickens and pork necks and turkey necks outside. When you see how much your dog's enjoy the raw meals and how content they are and how vibrant and healthy they are you will be convinced you are doing the right thing! Click Here for a list of Vitamins A To Z, the raw foods they come from and the parts of the canine body they are beneficial to. There are some links to Raw diets on my Links Page. Please feel free to send me an e-mail if you have any questions. |
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