Prey Model Raw

Lots of people out there feed raw, whether it be whole prey, prey model (yours truly!), BARF, premade commercial, premade from a butcher….and I’m sure I’ve forgotten a method or two. Regardless of which method is chosen, one should pay particular attention to one thing in particular:

Ground meat, bones and organs

Why is grinding meat important to the overall diet? For several reasons. Think of a solid piece of foam about the size of a shoe box, now picture your dog shredding it (and having a blast of course). What happened to the surface area of the foam? It increased dramatically.

1) The process of grinding meat exposes most of the surface area to the destructive presence of oxygen. Since oxygen is a strong oxidizing agent, meaning it loves to bind to other compounds, it lends well to binding with enzymes, vitamins and minerals thus leading to degradation in quality. Does this mean that ground meats are completely devoid of nutrition? Of course not. BUT over long periods of time, if ground meats are all that is fed, then one *can* start to see the effects of feeding a ground diet.

2) The grinding process also exposes the meat to environmental contaminants. Bacteria, yeast, or mold can permeate ground meats easily because of increased surface area.  While we generally don’t worry about exposure to environmental contaminants, prolonged exposure to these bugs can cause chronic imbalances of the good and bad intestinal gut flora. The intestinal tract is the largest organ in the body (besides the skin) and when it is constantly being stressed by unnatural levels of pathogens, it can take it’s toll on overall body health and function.

3) Loss in mentally stimulating meal times. Let’s face it, feeding time isn’t a dog’s favorite time of day just because of what they eat…HOW they eat it also plays a HUGE role in overall satisfaction. Gulp, swallow is what it takes for a ground raw meal. Chomp, chew, crunch, grind, gnaw, toss around, hold with paws, flip, flop, tear, rip, shred….swallow is what it takes to feed whole, unaltered pieces of meat/bones/organs. Which would you choose?

4) Absentee dental benefits with ground meats. Dental benefits are probably the most important health benefit from a raw diet. Why skip out on the added FREE bonus to raw feeding of clean, pearly white, perfect teeth?

All that said, there are some legit cases where a ground raw diet is really necessary. With those cases I always recommend investing in your own high quality, powerful meat grinder to grind meats just before being fed. The longer meat is exposed to oxygen, environmental changes (freezing, thawing, etc) and pathogens the greater the loss of overall nutrition. The best bet is to feed a ground meat meal directly from the grinder. Lots of work eh? Yep. But over time it’ll be worth it.

Why not something commercially produced? You know the first two reasons above? Commercially processed raw diets are exposed to oxygen and pathogens galore, processed, then frozen, shipped, stocked, thawed, and then fed. The exacerbation of oxygen exposure and pathogen exposure has it’s effects on their products (even if treated with preservatives). I’ve seen quite a few animals not do so hot on commercially processed diets. This is just an observation, not a law by any means. But something to absolutely be considered by the consumer. Certainly a premade commercial raw diet is more ideal than kibble! Not to mention it can be a good first step in the right direction.

Food for thought!

We apologize for the problem with the pictures in this post. The owner of the pics has removed them. We will try to get the pics back up shortly.

Here’s a small “study” done by one of the resident raw feeders on the DogFoodChat forum, Autumn Morandin, her dog Lincoln and a friends dog Atlas. I thought it was worthy of a blog post here because it really shows that the proof that raw really is what a dog should be eating just because the sheer decrease in the amount of waste produced. I know that a lot of dog owners really don’t enjoy cleaning up after their dogs, so this benefit is maybe not just for the dogs but a blessing for us people too! If this isn’t enough reason to switch I don’t know what is!

Enjoy  NOTE: this shows how the poop degrades over the course of a week.  Notice how the raw poop dries up and easily crumbles.  This would easily disintegrate into the yard…

Okay I decided to try another round of this. I used two dogs of the same weight

The poop on the left is Lincolns poop (65lb Belgian Malinois)

The poop on the right is Atlas’ poop (60lb Dalmatian)

This is a full days worth of poop. Lincoln only pooped once that day but sometimes he will poop out another piece half the size of the one in the cup.

Day two:

Day three:

Here is Day Four, to show how it crumbles I just squished it with my fingers (with a glove on of course). I could of done this day one but I wanted to leave it to allow people to compare with other poop. I was thinking about doing this to the other poop to show its still wet and gross etc..but I thought I better not LOL

Day five:

Day six:

Day seven:

There you have it! I don’t think I need anymore proof than that. I do not miss picking up sloppy, stinky, disgusting “kibble poo” at all….