Going back to kibble??? Honest Opinion..

[Clyde]

I just tried a kibble diet on my boy who has grown up on raw. The reason I did is because he has allergies and although I did all sorts of different single protein diets with the raw diet I just wanted to try one more thing. I was pretty sure his issues are all environmental but I decided to try the Cal Nat kangaroo and lentil to do something different. It has made no difference and we are three weeks in. I will finish off the bag (I can't wait until it is gone maybe 2-3 weeks left) and then go back to raw and start him back on chicken, beef and all the other cheap proteins I have had him off of for the last year and a bit. Bison and Llama and Rabbit are not cheap Hopefully the chicken all goes well I really don't think the food was ever a problem for him.

The worst thing about the kibble are the poops they are HUGE!! and more frequent. Also the breath starts to go off a bit can't wait for the nice unoffensive doggie breath of a raw fed dog again!

[Freestep]

I raised Luka on raw. When she got to be about 7 years old, it was hard keeping weight on her--put her on kibble, and she keeps weight on now and looks great. She's now 10. No problems whatsoever on kibble. I still feed her raw meaty bones.

[Dejavu]

Originally Posted by GatorDog

I would stick to raw if I had better availability, more money, and a bigger house so that I could put a big freezer somewhere.

This is exactly what happened to me. I didn't have enough space in the freezer for raw food for 3 dogs, and there isn't a lot of variety here, so it was mostly beef and chicken and I doubt that was good enough for them.

[Holmeshx2]

Originally Posted by Dejavu

This is exactly what happened to me. I didn't have enough space in the freezer for raw food for 3 dogs, and there isn't a lot of variety here, so it was mostly beef and chicken and I doubt that was good enough for them.

I don't mean to side track the thread but I just wanted to say THANK YOU!

I am a HUGE advocate for RAW however only if someone can do it properly if not then I believe a good quality kibble is better for the dog. I know some people are hardcore about raw but if it's done improperly it can be dangerous quite honestly (like just throwing some hamburger down)

[Zisso]

I have been thinking about this very thing, but fear that one of my dogs would not do well on strictly kibble. My reason are much as described above, with the price of meat being more than I can afford and the availability is just not what it was even a year ago. I used to get awesome scores from Craig's List~this year...not so much. I have gotten more freezer burnt meat from 2001 than I care to feed, and the pork I got from 2004 gave my dogs less than stellar poop. I won't be accepting any more freezer burnt stuff older than two years old from now on. I cannot feed chicken to my boy, and as the OP said Bison is very expensive. I prefer to feed venison and other game.

However, it is almost spring so I will be making calls and begging butchers to save their scrap and saw shavings for me. I had some scrap that I just got to yesterday and while I had to cut off a LOT of fat because it was beef, I ended up getting 10lbs that will do my two for the week.

I also know someone that has elk in the back 40 every winter and has family that likes to hunt but they do not care much for the gamey taste of the meat. So there is a good chance of getting to fill my freezer next winter with an Elk and that would change my thoughts about going back to kibble.