Raw Food

willthiswork

Hi Everyone,

Sorry if this is already covered but I'm having trouble navigating the search function since the update! 🙈

I recently got a hairy lurcher pup and I was thinking of changing him over to a raw food diet. He's 12 weeks old and his poops are still pretty runny while also being surprisingly large for such a small dog! He's on Gain Sapling and Puppy food at the moment. Could anyone advise me what types of meat I should be giving him? Should I give him a mixture straight away or should I gradually start him on one kind of meat mixed in with his kibble to transfer him to the new diet? I keep reading conflicting information and am a bit confused! He's about 6 or 7 kgs at the moment but I think he'll grow up to be a pretty big dog going by his parents!

Thanks!

Make sure his parasites control is up to date. Runny excretions are upset stomach, usual for parasite or changed food. But could be small allergy - I have 6 month old dog who had runny ex, turned out no tolerance for chicken based foods.

willthiswork

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117714550#Comment_117714550

Thanks Lorenzo. He was dosed last week and is up to date with his vaccinations. No sign of worms in his poop or anything. I'll check what the main component of his kibble is and see if there is a lot of chicken in it.

tk123

There’s 2 schools of thought.. one is to do a gradual change adding one protein at a time, then bone content, then offal.. the other is to do a straight swap. I switched my pup over to raw the day he arrived here and it was a straight swap - using premade completes. Completes have the correct ratio of muscle meat / bone / offal and that’s easiest to start with. You have to stick to 10% bone content for pups as much as possible as they can’t excrete excess calcium so it could cause joint issues. What I would suggest is having a look at eg https://www.rawvolution.ie/ to get an idea of costs etc. You could even drop them a mail - they’re very helpful. You should be starting with completes but make sure the complete in question has 10% bone - some don’t and are still marked as completes. I like the Degomeat chubs for my to - NB the beef complete is I assume using heart as it’s muscle - this was way to rich for Rory and poo wasn’t great but the other 10% bone ones suit him great. (I don’t add bones for the first month or so until I know their tummies are well settled on the completes)

As he’s eating us out of house and home already at 10 weeks 🐷 I also add some Rocco Junior wet food from zooplus to bulk his food out.