Ella, Dexter and Angel, all love raw chicken necks and backs which I give when I butterfly a chicken for the grill. I did not fear that they would take to this diet. Daisey, is a pickster, and does not eat anything raw. Further, Angel, upon closer inspection of her wrangling with a turkey neck, doesn't seem to be able to eat these so well (perhaps because her snout is so short and her back teeth logistics are different from "snoutier" dogs. )Grinding the bones with the meat give me more peace of mind. I realize that purists think that the dog benefits from chewing these. I'm sure they do, but I'm not a purist.
So with 3 out of 4 dogs amenable, I'm ready to make the transition to a raw diet. I still have plenty of kibble to go through, so I'll transition using half measures of kibble and raw. Prior feeding was simply kibble and one can of dog food split among four dogs to give the kibble more interest. The pattern was that they would eat all of the canned topper, and ignore a good bit of the kibble, and then go to their eating partner's dish to see if there was anything of interest left.
I'm not comfortable feeding raw without some supplementation. By and large I'm not a supplementer of either my diet or that of my pets. Truthfully, until we got Angel, our special dietary needs dog, I've never thought too much about dog food, other than ensuring that my English Setters were on a high-protein food due to their high activity level. After much research, I bought Nupro. I bought a 20lb tub--somewhat nervous that maybe my dogs would not like it. Thankfully, this ended up being misplaced anxiety.
Yesterday, I processed 2 cut up chickens and a package of gizzards and hearts. (The Weston #22 chewed up the bone as if it were cardboard!)
- Cat reaction: My idea was that my cats would also eat raw. They love organ meat, and I cut it up for them when I get a whole chicken for our dinner. They did not care for the ground up meat, organ meat, even when served slightly warm. Sigh. So much for that big idea. In my research, I learned that cats develop obsessive compulsions about their food. I've never really had a picky eater until Wyatt. And he just drives me nuts in what he decides is good and not good. And those decisions are made on rotation so that good and bad become a jumble. He's the poster child for OCD food issues. I'm not giving up yet......
- Dog Reaction: Daisey would not eat raw food from my hand. No surprise. I made a slurry of the Nupro, put raw (at room temp via microwave) on kibble, and drizzled the slurry on the food. WOOF! Gone. Not one kibble left in any's plate. Even Daisey, the picky eater, ate her raw food and kibble with the Nupro. I was surprised that she ate the raw at all. Because Nupro has a liver flavor, and the only treat that Daisey really likes are the homemade treats that I make and the Liver Bits, this was a good thing. (Update: I'm now thinking that Daisey had some help on her food. She didn't touch it on Day 2. Sigh.)
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