Raw For Puppy? & Weaning Puppies To Raw

[HopeShelties]

Okay, I have 2 questions:
1 What would you start a puppy (4mos old) on? After several of my dogs coming up sick, I am switching them off of kibble to raw. I just can't continue taking chances with their health by not knowing what I am truly giving them. I picked up various chicken parts to start the older dogs on, based on size/weight/condition, but am not sure what a puppy who is still small and doesn't have their adult teeth yet can manage. Wings? Legs? Ground? What is the best way to go starting out? I couldn't seem to find information anywhere on what to feed a small breed puppy on the internet.
I should mention, he needs to put on weight. He is not wormy and doesn't have coccidia or giardia now, though he did come with coccidia (been treated now). He has been finicky about eating kibble. After the last straw with the kibble yesterday, I offered him some boneless skinless chicken breast, but continuing down that road is pretty pricey. Other bone in chicken parts, or ground turkey, is much more cost efficient. Just need to get some idea of what to get him.
Usually, I would slowly transition a dog, but the food is truly poisoning them, and they have already been vomiting and having bouts of diarrhea, so loose stools won't be anything new, and with what has happened, I refuse to feed them any more of that kibble.
2 What do you feed puppies you are weaning from mom to raw? So long as no damage was done, I am planning on a litter being born here mid May, so need to get some idea of what to transition the babies onto once they are ready to start being weaned off of moms milk.

[marymrumfelt]

Originally Posted by HopeShelties

Okay, I have 2 questions:
1 What would you start a puppy (4mos old) on? After several of my dogs coming up sick, I am switching them off of kibble to raw. I just can't continue taking chances with their health by not knowing what I am truly giving them. I picked up various chicken parts to start the older dogs on, based on size/weight/condition, but am not sure what a puppy who is still small and doesn't have their adult teeth yet can manage. Wings? Legs? Ground? What is the best way to go starting out? I couldn't seem to find information anywhere on what to feed a small breed puppy on the internet.
I should mention, he needs to put on weight. He is not wormy and doesn't have coccidia or giardia now, though he did come with coccidia (been treated now). He has been finicky about eating kibble. After the last straw with the kibble yesterday, I offered him some boneless skinless chicken breast, but continuing down that road is pretty pricey. Other bone in chicken parts, or ground turkey, is much more cost efficient. Just need to get some idea of what to get him.
Usually, I would slowly transition a dog, but the food is truly poisoning them, and they have already been vomiting and having bouts of diarrhea, so loose stools won't be anything new, and with what has happened, I refuse to feed them any more of that kibble.
2 What do you feed puppies you are weaning from mom to raw? So long as no damage was done, I am planning on a litter being born here mid May, so need to get some idea of what to transition the babies onto once they are ready to start being weaned off of moms milk.

I'm so happy to hear you've decided to switch your dogs. You really won't regret it... you'll notice better coats/clean teeth/less poop and overall more energy.

I've been feeding mine raw for about a year and a half and have had several fosters come in and fed them raw from day on. There's no need for a transition period!

Three weeks ago I took in two, five week old puppies and put them directly on raw. A lot of people suggest starting out with one protein, usually chicken due to costs/easy access/easily digested for most, but I've never done that with any of mine and never had issues. With that being said, if you chose to do the one protein source you'll want to start with chicken and at four months they should have NO problem eating bone. My five week old pups have a little trouble so I took a hammer and crushed it for them but once they got to eight weeks they didn't need that anymore. Cornish hens are fabulous for the smaller dogs. I never had to crush those bones even at five weeks. Wings/legs/backs, any part. It's usually more affordable to buy whole chickens and feed the various parts and that way they get a good bone/meat ratio and it saves you money. One thing you have to be extra cautious is making sure chicken isn't enhanced (almost all turkey is so I wouldn't even try turkey unless it's a neck later one) You don't want any more than 100MG of sodium per four servings. Also, I buy organic b/c they feed the other chickens a mixture with soy and soy causes lots of allergies in canines. So you have to be cautious about those things.

You don't want to feed him more just to get weight on him as that will probably make him sick and in the end cause more problems. I fed my babies based on their adult weight, 2.5 % of that. For I projected them to be 40lbs and gave them around a pound a day. I have a senior who came to me and he was so skinny his ribs showed but I still feed him 2.5% and the weight came after about a month he was a good weight again. So do take it slow and be assured he will get to the perfect weight in no time if you do so. too much too soon will lead to diarrhea and other things which in the end will cause him to lose more weight!

I've never weaned them (wish I had more than anything, though!) but I know a breeder who does. You would start out with ground and you can add egg shells to the ground for bone content. If you'd like, I can put you in contact with the person I know who breeds shelties/collies and weans onto raw. She's an awesome and experienced person to know!

PM if you need to. I can't wait to hear about the progress and you will feel so good knowing exactly what your dog is eating and feel so good when you see them thriving. :)

Oh, I just realized, I started mine on raw at four months! No problems feeding bone. Their first meal was a chicken leg and they had no problems eating it. So, go ahead and toss him a leg!

[BarbV]

Not to detract from your question, but I'm curious as to your decision to move from kibble to raw.

You mentioned dogs coming up sick, but I'm not sure how your concluded that this was because of kibble feeding.

I'm not asking to challenge you, but rather to educate myself.

Thanks much!

[HopeShelties]

I started a new bag. Recently and all 8 dogs have shown some signs of being sick... vomiting, diarrhea, listlesness, uncoordinated, seizures in normally healthy dogs. My fence isn't secure currently so they aren't out unsupervised and there is nothing they've gotten into in the house. They don't have any form of illness. They've been checked for worms, coccidia, and giardia. The only thing in common is that bag of food. I do not wish to continue feeding something that has caused such problems in my dogs. I maybe wouldn't be so suspicious but with this many dogs and all showing some signs, I see nothing else it could've been.

[BarbV]

That's just plain weird. Kibble should not have than effect across a number of dogs. There is clearly something wrong with that bag.

And so yes, I can understand that this might cause you discount kibble forever.

What food was it? And do you see an expiry date on it anywhere?

[Justicemom]

Diva's first litter was raw fed. We started offering ground chicken or turkey at 3.5-4 weeks old. Around 5 weeks, we started offering minced beef hearts

At 6 weeks, course ground whole chicken. We had the butcher do it.

At 7 weeks they were whole chicken(bone in breast and legs thighs) but they mostly just gnawed off the meat. We had added more variety for muscle meats, tripe and started adding in the liver and organ meat.

At 8 weeks they were starting to eat the bone in chicken and their diet was mostly that of Diva's. We used chicken, turkey, vension, elk, pheasant, beef, pork, rabbit. pork and beef kidneys, beef, chicken or pork liver, tripe, whole eggs. Most of the bone was from the birds.

Diva nursed them until 9 weeks. I had to force wean them as Diva wouldn't I swear she would have nursed them forever.We always kept the 80,10,10 ratio in mind. The puppies were big, fat and sassy.

With a 4 months old, I would start in just like I would do with an adult.
I found this guide a good help
http://www.snovali.com/other/rawfoodprimer.pdf

I liked feeding raw but time and money both became in short supply. I fed Fromm now and must say I like it. Diva's 2nd litter was kibble fed and very similar. I really haven't seen a big difference in raw vs kibble except in terms of stool amount. But like you said , you know what you are feeding with raw.

here are the baies with their first bone in chicken-ears are not done so I'd say just short of 6 weeks here.

[Percy]

I have an 11 week old sheltie that I have been feeding raw for a little over a week. There was no transition period; I just switched him. He did fine with that. There was a little learning curve with the bones. At first, he wasn't really sure how to eat them, but after a few day, he was chomping down and breaking them like an expert. The breast seems to have nice starter bones.

I started him on chicken and have introduced pork. For the chicken, I just bought a whole chicken. I gave him the organs and neck as one meal. I used kitchen shears to cut up the rest into meal sized pieces. I'm trying to do a Tom Lonsdale type prey model diet, and the whole chicken was $0.99/pound. The pork was a loin that was on sale; it was the cheapest cut of non-chicken meat that I could find. I just needed some meaty-meat. Right now, he's getting all of his bones from the chicken.

Anyway, I feed him about 9 or 10 ounces of meat spread over 3 meals. I just eyeball it; I'm sure that some days he gets more.

He loves it. I know that you're worried about those baby teeth, but this seems to be the best thing for them. He can get his chewing out of the way with dinner and leave my shoes alone! Seriously though, I really do think it's helped with the teething. :)