Going raw - tips on menu please!

[phoebesmom]

I have made the decision to switch, and will be doing so over the weekend. I have managed to find someone who prepares raw and will deliver it once a week. This particular lady has been feeding raw for 12 years, and currently has 12 Newfoundlands who all eat raw, so she is quite knowledgeable.

What I would like help with is how to put a menu together. These are the things that I can buy from her - they have all been ground, meat and bone. Vegetables, chicken heads, chicken necks, chicken breasts, chicken wings, quail, dirty beef tripe, liver and heart, ostrich tripe.

They come seperately, so what I would like to know is should I say, at one meal, feed just chicken necks, or could I feed necks mixed with tripe and heart? Because each item comes in a kilogram, would it be OK for Phoebe to have just, e.g., necks and breasts for one week, perhaps with the addition of tripe and/or liver.

Phoebe weighs around 11 - 12 kilos, so am I right in assuming that she should receive plus-minus 300 grams of food per day?

I would love to hear from all raw feeders more or less how they put the different ingredients together :D .

[Chris&Eti]

Its great that you've found a resource and someone knowledgeable to help with the switch-great place to start.

Chicken necks and breasts and nothing else for a week is also a great way to start- and then add a new ingredient like offal the following week and so on. Doing it this way,slowly, is a great way to learn what works for Phoebe.

Looking at your list you have chicken and quail as the main protein sources. Beef tripe/liver/heart and Ostrich tripe fall in the category of Offal-which you need to feed around 15% of the total-thats about one meal a week. You're probably going to have to increase the range of your main protein sources by adding say beef, lamb and/or pork to her diet but you don't have to do this right away-and if you can't get a ground meat and bone version of this you can feed a mix of (say) ground beef(meat only) with the chicken/bone mix. Its also important to get omega 3 into the diet from these possible sources-raw fish/canned sardines/ fish oil/ ground flaxseed.

I started Eti on raw when he was 5 months and have gradually broadened the range of food he eats-he's almost 2 years now. A typical week of 2 meals a day would be:
-6 meals of one of these ground mixes-I can get duck, Lamb, Beef,Turkey
-4 meals of one ot these RMB's -Pork ribs, Chicken backs, Goat- I can get these easily and I'm comfortable with the safety of eating these particular bones whole
-2 meals half offal, half same meat source-say half beef tripe half ground beef and bone
-1 meal sardines
-1 meal raw egg with ground shell

I also add 15-20% pulped vegetables, a supplement (Nupro) which has omega3 and a probiotic, sometimes olive oil, one teaspoon apple cider vinegar once a week. He also gets a recreational marrow bone about 3 times a week-usually the same bone-I pick it up after he's worked on it for a couple of hours and freeze it until next time.

All the best with the switch- I'm sure Phoebe will be extremely happy about this.

[phoebesmom]

Thanks so much for the menu plan Chris :) . That certainly helps me a lot and makes a whole lot of sense!

I was all geared up to start today - I even had my first batch delivered to me, but Phoebe has developed colitis, so I think I will only start her next Friday, just to make sure she is back to normal. I was SO looking forward to doing the switch today - I know, I am a sad person :D , but I have spent so many, many months reading up things on it, and was all geared up, but I will let you know this time next week how it goes!!

[gmacleod]

Sounds pretty good :) The only thing I'd pass on there is the chicken heads. Not a lot of nutrition in a chicken head at the best of times, but it's parts like brain where you get a few nasty diseases passed. That's not necessarily a major risk cross-species, of course, but since there's very little value nutritionally anyway, I'd be inclined to pass on that particular bit. Besides the heads though, all looks good :)

Incidentally, you can probably feed each item separately if you want to. But you might find that the chicken necks are a bit boney on their own, and that things like liver are a bit too rich on their own. So balancing things out by feeding a little liver/kidney/heart with the necks can be a good idea.

The only small caution I'd make is that when first starting out, it's best to feed a single meat for a couple of weeks - and then add new things in one at a time. That way, if anything doesn't agree with Phoebe, you'll know what that item was. One "single" meat covers anything from the same animal though, you're not restricted to one part. So if you happen to start with chicken, it means all bits of the chicken including offal. Or if it's beef, then it's any/all parts.

[phoebesmom]

Thanks Gwyneth :) . Makes sense about the chicken heads... they will definitely not be appearing on the menu :eek: . I will now just have to wait for Phoebe's tummy to clear up before we start. It seems to be taking longer than I expected, but I will let you know how it all goes when the big moment arrives :D