How long until I see a change?

[Imgliniel]

Ok, I am curious as to what all your experiences were when your dogs got switched. I haven't really seen any major difference in Lucy as of yet and we are in Month 4 now. I have noticed that she is a little leaner and a little more muscular, just slightly, she was not overweight to begin with. My sister thinks her coat feels "cleaner" like less build up greassyness etc (although again it is not like she had much to begin with) but I am not sure I see that. She still has little eye boogers, and her teeth really aren't any different that I can tell. A little plaque on her cannines, clean everywhere else. Let me give you a then and now for diet and you all tell me what you think.

Before Raw she got Castor and Pullox Organix kibble, and homemade wet food toppers that were all meat. She got beef, liver, chicken, turkey, heart, gizzards, basically I made the extra raw food from the cats into wet food for her (no bones). She got a couple tablespoons a day and fish oil caps. She got a chewy every day when I left for work, all natural stuff no rawhide or junk. Mostly bully sticks, those little cow hooves, the dry rosted knuckle bones, basically nothing processed.

She transitioned in 4 weeks without a single day of bad poop and still is totally fine. She can have a whole meal of beef heart followed by a second boneless meal with no problems. For bone in she gets chicken backs, chicken quarters, turkey necks, drumsticks and wings, and pork ribs. For boneless she gets beef chuckroast, sirloin ( I have a great local butcher who pulls all the beef on its last sale day for me and I get it super cheep, so most of her boneless is beef) then sometimes she gets Lamb shoulder chops but I pull out the little odd cut bones, and goat stew meat. She gets beef liver chicken liver and lamb liver, lamb and pork kidney, beef heart and lamb heart. She still gets fish oil.

Any ideas? suggestions? Experiences?

[DaneMama]

You're probably not seeing a huge difference because her diet before full raw was pretty darn good. People generally see bigger differences in dogs switched from less than ideal diets to raw.

What exactly do you want to see change in her physical condition? It sounds like she's already in fantastic shape. Also, how old is she?

[Imgliniel]

She is 4, and a dobbie mix, and does have a little bit of a build up type of feel to her coat. She had demodex when we got her (she was a stray a friend pulled off the streets) and I think that may be what contributes to the coat feeling. There was once that I had alot of left over meat and for about a week she got just the homecooked stuff (I gave calcium) and that feeling totally disapeared. I was expecting that with the switch to raw but have not seen it and I am not sure why.

[DaneMama]

How much bone are you feeding?

[Imgliniel]

pretty darn close to the 10% mark I think, breakfast is always boneless, and roughly one out of 4 or 5 evening meals is boneless. Depending on what bone I am feeding. What I do is at the beggining of every month I weight everything out to match the 80 10 5 5 rules ( I'll admit the calculations on bone can confuse me at times, if I am using mostly necs and backs that month I feed a little less since they are higher in bone, and if using quarters and drumsticks a little more since they have less bone). Then I just portion everything into meal size portions and try to alternate between the meals with bone and without in the evenings. Organs get spread out with the bone in meals.

Last month went about like this, breakfast was beef chuck roast or sirloin, or goat stew meat, or beef heart. Dinner I rotated thusly. 1) Pork ribs and liver. 2) a bone in meal alone (I had chicken quarters, turkey drumsticks, and bone in turkey breast with the ribs). 3) Some bone in lamb shoulder (got from a 4h leader, no funky cut bones like the chops but not alot of bone) or a small turkey neck and some kidney. 4) Lamb heart and eggs. 5) Another quarter/drummy, repeat.

She weighs 65 lbs and gets a touch under 2.5 percent daily, or 1.5 lbs daily, or 3/4 pounds per meal. 45 lbs per month. I do my calculation off of the 45 lbs per month. I assume backs and necks and turkey wings which I get on occassion have about 50% bone, and quarters or drums about 25 to 30% bone. Pork ribs I work off of being about 50 % bone, and the shoulder was honestly maybe 15 % bone, that one threw me a curve actually lol.

This month I have all necks and backs. 10% of 45 lbs is 4.5 and since I assume they are about 50% I will feed 9 lbs of necks and backs spread throughout the month. No lamb or pork this month I scored free venison from hunter friends :)

[DaneMama]

Wow! You're so structured! Puts me to shame LOL

Sounds like you've got decent variety in the rotation, and I don't have much to suggest other than fish? Or a fish oil supplement?

Is most of the meat you get factory farmed?

[Imgliniel]

nope, in fact everything that crosses the thresh hold in this house is either organic or natural, the turkey is all pasture raised. The beef is all organic, the lamb and pork are natural or from local 4h kids animals. The goat is from the local 4h chapter. I was a vegetarian from the time I was 12 until recently for the cruelty of factory farmed meat. I only buy meat from FARMS or opperations that I have researched. So in otherwords I don't just grab anything labeled "natural". I am lucky in that I have struck a really good relationship with the meat departement at a local healthfood place, they can tell me the producer and origin of every peice of meat in the case, and the owner is vegan and puts the animals welfare first. So I can research, for example, Beeler Pork and how they keep their animals (no gestation crates, open pens and outdoor runs etc etc, take a look. Which is the only Pork I buy and the only pork they carry.

Beeler Home Page

she currently get 2 1000 mg fish oil caps per day (sardine anchovie mackeral)

[malluver1005]

I didn't see much of a difference either when I switched Aspen over 1.5 years ago, just like you, leaner and more muscular. He was on EVO, Orijen and Acana before raw...I just know he's eating what he was meant to eat. Oh, and he's A LOT happier...

[tem_sat]

nope, in fact everything that crosses the thresh hold in this house is either organic or natural, the turkey is all pasture raised. The beef is all organic, the lamb and pork are natural or from local 4h kids animals. The goat is from the local 4h chapter. I was a vegetarian from the time i was 12 until recently for the cruelty of factory farmed meat. I only buy meat from farms or opperations that i have researched. So in otherwords i don't just grab anything labeled "natural". I am lucky in that i have struck a really good relationship with the meat departement at a local healthfood place, they can tell me the producer and origin of every peice of meat in the case, and the owner is vegan and puts the animals welfare first. So i can research, for example, beeler pork and how they keep their animals (no gestation crates, open pens and outdoor runs etc etc, take a look. Which is the only pork i buy and the only pork they carry.

beeler home page

she currently get 2 1000 mg fish oil caps per day (sardine anchovie mackeral)

impressive!

[cprcheetah]

Ok, I am curious as to what all your experiences were when your dogs got switched. I haven't really seen any major difference in Lucy as of yet and we are in Month 4 now. I have noticed that she is a little leaner and a little more muscular, just slightly, she was not overweight to begin with. My sister thinks her coat feels "cleaner" like less build up greassyness etc (although again it is not like she had much to begin with) but I am not sure I see that. Any ideas? suggestions? Experiences?

You are seeing a difference it's just a very subtle one. I didn't really notice that much difference in Ziva's coat, Shellie doesn't shed as much but that's about it. Zoey I saw a HUGE difference in (she had issues/allergies), so it really depends on the dog, what their issues are before. Zoey still needs her teeth cleaned and brushed on a regular basis to prevent tartar. Same with Ziva, Shellie has tartar on the root end of her K9's so it's not a 'perfect' fix for all things for every dog.