Strombeck's Diet

[AliceGrimm]

I will look for the link, but I think either Nettle or Emmabeth posted a study a few years ago where raw fed and kibble fed dogs had their mouths tested and cultured, and the types and levels of bacteria were similar in both - raw fed dogs' mouths weren't the teaming festering bacteria pot the vets are painting a pretty picture of.

As we said, if you don't want to feed raw, that's alright! But if you're intrigued and unsure, feel free to keep asking questions

On the East Coast, Raw Feeding Miami and Hare Today are the main distributors I know. RFM will make a meal plan for you if you ask them to, no charge; they also have completely balanced ground foods. Those plus the occasional recreational bone would be fine

I order a balanced order for a month's worth of meat (overall, 80% meat, 10% bone, 5% liver, 5% other secreting organ) and just mix bits and pieces together in meal-sized containers, then just feed those containers. One week might be 90% meat, but the next would be 70% to make up for it. It balances out over time. I tried balancing them every day and quickly gave up, lol.

lol You are right. Kibble wasn't around a lot. I don't really want to do kibble. So many recalls and I dunno. I don't really trust that they aren't grain fillers or dead dogs and cats and plastics. Would it be bad to get orders from Raw Feeding Miami and Hare Today when I live near Philadelphia?

I am intrigued. I mean.. if people have been doing it for a while then it isn't a fad diet. And I feel it is perhaps healthier. I mean.. kibble is the processed food for dogs.

As for expense. I don't know right now. I mean.. some where along the lines of what it would cost me for dog food I suppose and then I don't mind a little more since it is having to be shipped and such. I can't imagine it will be horrible expensive when you have a small dog. But perhaps more frequent orders make it more expensive?

Do you guys mix veggies and other things in? Any starches when feeding our dogs this sort of diet?

[Shalista]

As far as cost I just ran the math for my dog (11 pounds adult) with the raw feed miami. what i was calculating off of was just buying the meat in bulk (like 10 pounds of raw chicken breast) and it comes out to be roughly 1.5 times more expensive than just picking up a pack of breasts from Wegmans. ($2/lb vs about $3/lab and similar for pork but dont swear by my math )(not counting shipping)

Some of the reason you MIGHT want to order?
if you get some of the premixed stuff that erica was recommending you dont have to worry about ratios of protein/bone/organ. I worry constantly about getting the right ratios for Bax. (i just buy meat from the supermarket and weigh and freeze it all myself.)
also it sounds like a lot less of a pain. if you cut the meat yourself your looking at a couple of hours a month that you need to be chopping meat and freezing it. (also, hope your not squeemish. i HATE breaking the bones and liver feels a bit gross)
also i don't know if cost will even be that much of a pain for you. Like i said before switching bax to raw saved me a TON of money. if your buying the stuff online than it might not be that much more expensive than buying kibble cause he's just a little guy

I would add as a caution that you need to make sure you have freezer space. some of the places won't ship anything less than 15 pounds to make sure it stays frozen on the trip. 15 pounds of meat is about a quarter of a freezer shelf.

As far as Bax's diet it's far from perfect and far from a science. I mostly fiddle with it in response to his weight gain/loss, his coat, his energy levels, and what his stools look like. I love that i have this much control over what he eats and i can tinker with it till its just right. (rather than buying a different 25 pound bag of food every month i can make adjustments every day)

He eats mostly muscle, usually pork or chicken. I HATE breaking bones so every couple of weeks i throw him a full chicken leg to gnaw on and he gets a funny little poops for a day or two from that much bone at once and then he's fine. i get him liver in a big gob every few weeks as well. it all adds up to about 80/10/10 for muscle, bone, organ but instead of doing it every day its spread out over liek a month. recently ive taken (on nettles advice) to adding frozen veggies to his dinners and he LOVES them. he eats his peas before he eats his meat.

His teeth are sparkly (i never brush them) and the vet tech is mad jealous of his glossy, lustrous coat and tells me it looks better than her dogs

EDIT: worth mentioning too that Bax eats about 10 pounds (not counting his veggies) a month. So your probably looking at buying a new box every month and a half if they stick to a 15 pound minimum on the boxes? Idk how big your dog gets but that might help with the math as to whether or not this makes financial sense.

[AliceGrimm]

Miniature Schnauzers get to be 12-14 inches tall and 12-18 pounds. Though I am starting off with a puppy. So about six pounds I think?

How much does a dog this size or going to be this size have to eat on this type of diet?
And as a puppy how much?

[JudyN]

Grrr, I wrote a long post and then the forum died! Edited highlights:

You should raw feed a dog about 2-3% of its ideal adult weight (pups as well as they have a lot of growing and learning to do). I reckon this would be about 170g a day for your dog. I give some pureed veggies (which shouldn't be included in the weight calculation) but others don't think it necessary. I also give some raw egg. The only grain he gets is in the form of human leftovers though if I was being purist I wouldn't do this.

Shipping from Miami should be fine as the food will be frozen all the way - you'd only have cause for concern if it was defrosted or smelt off when it turned up.

[Shalista]

if A) you don't like numbers
or B) don't have a gmail account and are not interested in getting one (you need one to be able to edit it with your own dogs information)
or C) don't want to possibly get more confused then DONT click this link Raw Dog Feed Spreadsheet (If you don't like clicking strange links it just takes you to google docs and a spreadsheet. nothing scary here!)

If you're curious, however, that is the spreadsheet i use to track dog food prices and the percentages of muscle/bone/organ bax needs as well as how much it costs (roughly) to feed him per month. It's a pretty simple spread sheet but i know spreadsheets can scare some people sooooo

(Disclaimer- math is not my native tongue so my conversions might be a bit off.)