About ready to jump on the band wagon

[mkinttrim]

Ok I have a 17 week old male GSD that I got at 10 weeks. He's 34 pounds and stands 18" at the shoulders.All of his shots have been completed and he is in good health. I've had him on wellness LBP when I got him home, his stools were very soft so I switched him to BBLBP he loved it but still soft stools. Vet said to ad a tablespoon of yogurt to each meal which I did but same result. In the meantime he came down with worms. Vet had him on Nemex and his last tablet was given to him a week ago. His stools are still soft and I'm thinking of starting him on raw. He has had raw ground chicken(Bones and backs) and every now and then I gove him raw beef liver and chicken livers. He seems to tolerate them very well.
However on the panacur deworming package it states "never feed dog raw beef or chicken", whats the deal with that?
I have 25 lbs of BBLBP left so it may be kibble and raw to ease him into it. I need to contact my local butcher to see if he can supply me with raw and what the cost will be. The raw ground chicken is $1.79 a pound. To make this work I need to keep the cost down to about 70 a month if I can help it. I have read many posts on here and will read alot more but and comments or recommendations would be appreciated.

[Draugr]

Originally Posted by mkinttrim

Ok I have a 17 week old male GSD that I got at 10 weeks. He's 34 pounds and stands 18" at the shoulders.All of his shots have been completed and he is in good health. I've had him on wellness LBP when I got him home, his stools were very soft so I switched him to BBLBP he loved it but still soft stools. Vet said to ad a tablespoon of yogurt to each meal which I did but same result. In the meantime he came down with worms. Vet had him on Nemex and his last tablet was given to him a week ago. His stools are still soft and I'm thinking of starting him on raw. He has had raw ground chicken(Bones and backs) and every now and then I gove him raw beef liver and chicken livers. He seems to tolerate them very well.
However on the panacur deworming package it states "never feed dog raw beef or chicken", whats the deal with that?
I have 25 lbs of BBLBP left so it may be kibble and raw to ease him into it. I need to contact my local butcher to see if he can supply me with raw and what the cost will be. The raw ground chicken is $1.79 a pound. To make this work I need to keep the cost down to about 70 a month if I can help it. I have read many posts on here and will read alot more but and comments or recommendations would be appreciated.

It's a good bandwagon to be on!!!

I feed mine for about $2.50/day max. It comes out to around $75-80 per month but I am not really looking for very good deals, I just get what is easy to obtain.

Wal-Mart sells bags of whole chicken quarters for $.49/lb where I live. That's my primary source of chicken. That could cut a lot of cost right off the bat for you there, instead of getting ground chicken.

Are you doing BARF or Prey-Model? I strongly prefer the prey model but I have heard good results form the BARF camp as well.

If you're doing prey model, the basics are...you should strive for at least three different protein sources. 80% needs to be muscle meat (that would include organs that don't secrete like lung or heart, although those should not be a large portion of the muscle meat), 10% should be bone, 5% should be liver, and another 5% should be a secreting organ like kidney or pancreas (that's just what I've used in the past).

I have not fed a puppy raw though, before. I started mine on this at about 14 months of age. Given how young yours is, I would wait to see if one of the board members who has more experience feeding puppies raw has anything else to say before listening to anything I'm saying :3.

[lhczth]

Lauri has a very good site about raw feeding and there are links to starting and feeding puppies. Welcome to the Raw Dog Ranch

[mkinttrim]

Thanks guys, Lauras site wasn't working yesterday but I got it to work today, will spend a cpl hrs on it today when I find time. Will go to butchershop today and see what they can do for me and cost.
Will also go to walmart and get some prices although I hate going into that store.
When feeding a chicken thigh, drumstick or breast do you smash the bones first? I don't think my dog would have a problem eating/breaking trhem but he's still just 17 weeks.

[Draugr]

Originally Posted by mkinttrim

When feeding a chicken thigh, drumstick or breast do you smash the bones first? I don't think my dog would have a problem eating/breaking trhem but he's still just 17 weeks.

I don't, mine does that fine on his own. He crunches up the bones inside the meat then basically swallows the piece nearly whole.

At 17 weeks, though, that might be something you need to do until he's a bit bigger. Not sure. It would make sense, pups at that age in the wild I think are still eating what their parents regurgitate for them. At the wolf park that I visited there were some 4-5 month old pups that were still forcing the adults to yak up their meal for them (the adults snarled at them, they hated it, but I guess it is an involuntary reaction...and the devious pups got a free meal!).

Your butcher might be able to provide you with chicken pieces, not sure. Just check out the price for getting it whole, it's probably a lot better than getting it ground. Might be more than at Wal-Mart but if you don't like to go in there the extra few cents per lb might be worth it to you.

[Josie/Zeus]

Here's what I did with my puppy:


You feed 2-3% for adults-

I feed about 7-10% of puppy weight- he's getting about 2 lbs. of food a day.

This is what I did the first month:

Age: 8 weeks old Weight 12.3 lbs.

week 1

1 lb. ground chicken (Bravo premixed) fed 3 x a day

week 2

ground turkey fed 3 x day.

week 3

ground beef/chunks

week 4

chicken wings/breast /necks

green tripe, I like the products from greentripe.com especially the Xkaliber

turkey, beef/liver

Now- I give him chicken backs one day, beef the next day, maybe chicken necks with chick liver/hearts, turkey. green tripe xkaliber is fed 2x a week. I just got some beef kidneys/liver last night, I'm going to mix them with some beef tonight. I did get rabbit meat and hopefully he likes it. It's $7!! For ONE day meal!

Odin is starting to get picky, he doesn't like turkey very much- he smells it, looks at me and walks away - as if I'm giving him poison or something.

The only veggie he gets is carrots- he likes to chew them- especially the big ones.

Hope this helps.

[mkinttrim]

Great info Josie/Zeus thanks.

[mkinttrim]

Well I got started! There is another member in my PSA club that is sort of coaching me but I'm going to make a few changes too.
Jager gets 1 pork back bone in the morning
early PM he gets 2 eggs,a little pumpkin, a cpl tablespoons of yogurt, a few green beans and a tablespoon of Kelp help all pureed together.
late pm he gets a chicken qtr.

If he gets a little hungry in between I throw him a piece of beef liver, chicken gizard or liver. Also he likes apples. (quartered,peeled,no seeds)

Would love to find green tripe but all of the meat packing houses in Colorado are backordered 2 months due to demand.

I can get beef heart from butcher for 1.99/pound but I think thats a bit high, kidneys are same price.
I remember grocery stores used to carry them as I used to eat heart alot when I was younger.

Will change the diet more as he gets used to what he has now, seems to tolerate it fairly good, had some runs the 1st 2 days but figured that was some toxins leaving his body.