So let's get started.

Let's get some basic information out there before I start on the "good" stuff.

I highly recommend reading through these websites, they contain a wealth of information that is vital before one can really debate the pros, cons and logic behind feeding a raw diet.

http://www.rawfed.com/myths
http://www.rawlearning.com
http://www.rawfeddogs.net

And here are some great videos on the subject that feature some veterinarians' opinions on a raw diet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8jDfxAqXNE
http://www.viddler.com/explore/jennifergoodwin/videos/4/


Now some information on what I feed.

Spirit, my 3 year old female border collie, is fed a prey model raw diet. This means she gets approximately 80% muscle meat, 10% bone, 5% liver, and 5% other organs. She is fed approximately 2.5% of her body weight, or about .9 lbs of food once per day. Preparation of her food is generally not a very long drawn out thing.

For her bone-in meals I generally feed poultry, which consists of chicken leg quarters, quartered whole chicken, turkey drumsticks, turkey necks, turkey wings, etc. I will buy a package of meat, put two pieces of meat per freezer bag, leave one bag in the fridge and freeze the rest. Each bag is two meals, and when I'm on the last meal in a bag I take another out to thaw. I sometimes have to quarter a chicken, but all that consists of is cutting the chicken into four parts... easy.

Red meat is pretty much the same. I weigh each portion out approximately, and bag them. Red meat is just cuts of meat (not ground) you yourself would buy at a grocery store. Though I like buying the "odd" meats more, such as heart and tongue.

I make an organ mix in bulk, that consists of half liver, half other organs (usually kidney), weigh it out, store it in Tupperware containers in the freezer, and feed her small amounts of the mix with her meals throughout the week.

She also gets whole fish once per week, usually tilapia (fins removed), trout, or mackerel. I don't feed salmon, because most salmon sold in grocery stores is wild caught and can contain a deadly parasite if fed raw, unless deep frozen for at least 30 days.

I add various other things to her diet, such as chicken feet, chicken hearts/gizzards, and whole eggs.

My cat Spectre is currently eating a similar diet to Spirit, but will soon be switched over to whole prey (mice, African soft-furred rats, baby chicks, button quail, etc), once I can get a breeding set-up established in our new home. I strongly prefer a whole prey diet, and would feed that to all my animals if they would eat it.

My other cat Fyre is extremely picky, and won't eat most organ meats, so I have to feed her chicken breast I grind myself, mixed with a supplement called Feline Instincts (http://www.felinefuture.com). The supplement contains no grains whatsoever, and I am very happy with it thus far, but still feed raw meaty bones such as chicken wings twice a week to maintain dental health.

I have done a lot of research to be able to get where I feel comfortable balancing their meals, and I don't suggest jumping right into raw without doing a lot of research first yourself. The links at the beginning of this post are excellent resources, and there are many books on the subject that can be found on amazon.com. Using a supplement such as Feline Instincts is also a great way to get started with raw.

There are an abundance of premade commercial raw diets, but I generally don't recommend them. One of the main reasons I feed my animals raw is increased quality control over the food that I feed, and you lose all of that if you feed a completely commercial diet.

That's all for now,
Autumn