Food transition

Hi, after a fair time of research about Raw Diet, i decided to give it a try with my 2 Pits, but, for what i've read i can't just switch from dry food to raw radically, so how do i make this transition? do you have any word of advise?
I will really apreciate it.
P.S. the've been eating Royal Canin so far....
Thanx a lot, have a great day.

 

Anytime I introduce new food I slowly add it in, as the days go on I withdraw the old and add more of the new.

Maybe someone else has a different / better method however that is what I do and it seems to work fine....nothing worse than dogs with the squirts.

 

I just swapped 4 of my dogs to raw three months ago. Boi Boi helped me out a lot. Thank you again. There are a lot of sites you can go to for help too. Basically, you start with one meat. Like say chicken. Now to start your dogs don't have the necessary bacteria to digest this on their own. You will need to supplement with probiotics. I use plain yogurt with the active cultures. I add a tablespoon to their food a few times a week. You also can add natural apple cider vinegar, about a tsp., on the chicken itself. Also, if they are having any stomach upset, natural applesauce is a great stomach setteler. With diarrhea, canned pumpkin. Not the pie kind but plain pumpkin, a couple of tablespoons, will clear it up. Withhold food for at least one feed and just give a couple tablespoons pumpkin. I buy chicken backs (40-50lb boxes) a couple at the time and break it up into zip lock bags in my freezer and take it out as needed. Backs don't have a lot of meat so I get leg quarters (10lb bag at walmart is 5.79) and feed that a few times a week.
When they get used to that you can start adding other meat sources. Eventually you want to include organ meat (heart, kidney, liver)at least once a week. I throw some carrots and veggies in there too. I also cook plain oatmeal and give them that once a week. Boi told me he blends a bunch of veggies together and gives his dogs that once a week. Easy on the broccolli though, too gassy. Go to www.barfdirect.com ,or google raw diet and there is a lot of info. Lots of people on here feed this diet.

 

I once read on a bag of dog food , fast the dog ( don't feed him for a day ) water for him as much as he wants, after the fast the dog is ready for the new food, I found for me i pick a regular food i always give my dogs but i also give them the free samples from the pet stores as a fast snack i feel this keeps them ready to deal with food changes.

 

I can't feed new food like that. It would be a diarrhea explosion at my house. If you swap to another kibble, start by mixing it in slowly. On the first couple of days, make it 1/4 new and 3/4 current food. Then increase as the week goes. If your dog has a sensitive stomach at all and you switch fast, you will have problems.
Just like horses colic, dogs can get bloat. I don't know if food changes can cause this but I don't take any chances. Survival rates from the bloat surgery aren't that good. They make it through the surgery and die afterwards from complications or infection. Sometimes weeks after.
Just remember, you are what you eat. There are good kibbles out there, but you are gonna pay around 70 dollars a bag for the orijen. Raw is cheap, done right is great, and you definitely know what your dog is eating.

 

I don't know it went fine for me. When i decided to change my house bitch and my conditioning dogs i fasted them then went cold turkey and although they had runny s#!+ they could hold it til time to go out. but i'm learning each dog is different so....

 

Thanx a lot for the advice, i will start slowly mixing their dry food with the meat and pick it from there, we'll see how it goes.

 

free samples from the pet stores keeps them ready to deal with food changes after all we humans are the same by always eating different foods get some water from cancoon that will set you good

 

I once did some research on the subject and I believe the info i found said you should go cold turkey when switching to raw. The reason being is this: kibble is alot of undigestible stuff that stays in your dogs intestines a long time, where as the raw diet food is easily processed and passes quickly. (this is evident when a kibble dog poops 5 times a day and a raw dog only once or twice) However you dont want food that is supposed to pass through the intestines quickly getting backed up by kibble or itll cause problems. The article i read said that you may have a few days of indigestion, but that it will be a shorter time than if you slowly add meat to kibble.

time to do some research

 

I think that would apply when feeding a kibble with a lot of fillers like wheat, corn and by product. however, would it apply to a good kibble? because, for example, my dogs eat kibble and poop twice a day. once after eating breakfast and once after eating dinner. no more.

 

Feeding raw is the bestr thing you can do for your dogs.. Heres a site that explains raw and the best way to feed.. You can also sign up for a daily email from many different raw feeders and raw vets as well... Very Very good information...


http://www.rawlearning.com/

 

Heres another one...


http://rawfed.com/myths/

 

If you have any particular questions and I will try to answer them.. I ahve been feeding raw for about 5 years now and I just have full blood work done on an 8 year old male and his blood work was better then when he was 2.. As far as how to switch jsut fast for a day then begin the raw feeding.. Just be aware though for the first few days to a week your dog may get whats called cannon butt.. But after this you will be amazed at the results.. All my dogs are at there ideal weight all the time wether I condition them or not..