Cheap Meals: Eating on a budget.

Dr.Retarded

Dr.Retarded

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Cutlery said:
On the topic of beef hearts, hearts are one of the best foods for dogs, and I bought a whole case of them one year for Zel. They're about the size of a football, which is a little much for a German shepherd for one meal, and that's when I found out that there is still a LOT of blood inside a beef heart. It looked like I murdered a hooker on the deck when I tried to cut that thing in half.
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We actually started feeding our dogs a mix of oats, or rice, vegetables, and various proteins, but a lot of organ meats. Couple of them are getting older, the kibble brand we were buying I think it's changed. They were starting to have an adverse reaction. Blue Buffalo or whatever it's called. Probably started making it in China out of saw dust and Oriental kids.

I know when my mom was so training and raising Aussies and border Collies, she would feed them just raw chicken, and I thought about doing that, but this seems to work and they really like it.

Canned pumpkin puree also seems to be really good for them, mix that in with the whole mess.
 
Dr.Retarded

Dr.Retarded

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Cutlery said:
Yeah, it was literally a heart in a bag. And 5 or 10 of them in a case. Just full of beef blood. And the dog fucking loved it, but the mess kept me away from getting them too terribly often.

Going hunting this year, so we'll see how the whitetail heart goes over, but my new dog appears to be a fucking vegan or some shit, so I'm not super optimistic. Not lying, bitch eats every fruit or vegetable you give her. Zel was like "not meat? Fuck off with that shit."
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Yeah all of our dogs are the same. Fruit and vegetables. We don't ever get them processed treats. Typically if they are going to get a reward it's little carrots or blueberries. They all go nuts every cucumber, too. Green beans, sugar snap peas, whatever, I just know you're not supposed to ever feed them nightshades of any sort. I think strawberries are off the table as well.
 
Burns

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The biggest danger with giving dogs a raw meat diet is Salmonella. It doesn't make dogs sick, but they can still transmit enough through their licks to make people sick. Something like 70% of raw chicken from grocery stores tests positive for Salmonella (which is killed when cooked). All food safety rules should still be followed when prepping raw meat for a dog's meal.
 
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Cutlery

Cutlery

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Burns said:
The biggest danger with giving dogs a raw meat diet is Salmonella. It doesn't make dogs sick, but they can still transmit enough through their licks to make people sick. Something like 70% of raw chicken from grocery stores tests positive for Salmonella (which is killed when cooked). All food safety rules should still be followed when prepping raw meat for a dog's meal.
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Fed a dog raw for the entirety of her 12 year life.

Zero issues. I'm gonna go ahead and say this is also the same fearmongering your vet gives you about needing proper dog food. It's bollocks.
 
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Lanx

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Dr.Retarded

Dr.Retarded

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Cutlery said:
Fed a dog raw for the entirety of her 12 year life.

Zero issues. I'm gonna go ahead and say this is also the same fearmongering your vet gives you about needing proper dog food. It's bollocks.
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Yeah that's pretty much it. She used to buy the Big 10 lb bags of chicken leg quarters. Chop them up, throw into a bucket, and then go out to the kennels, found bigger pieces for bigger dogs, etc. They never had any issues. Think she had 10 or 12 dogs at one point, some she owned and others that she was training for people.

Just clean up wash your hands, clean your cutting space, no problem.

What we've been doing is taking cheap frozen vegetables, the rice or oats, and organ meat or whatever other cheap protein we find on sale, put it into a Big dish or Dutch oven, some water, and just let it cook for a bit.

They go nuts over the stuff. It's weird because they've always just had kibble, but then a couple of them started getting stomach issues, which is why I think that particular brand started adding drywall or something into their mix.

I know where oldest one's got to be maybe 12 or 13, but since we switched her diet over, she has way more energy. She's almost like that Afghan hound we had who ended up living to I believe 14, which is twice there expected lifespan. I know Mom just started feeding him eggs, and meat, fish, etc.
 
Burns

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Cutlery said:
Fed a dog raw for the entirety of her 12 year life.

Zero issues. I'm gonna go ahead and say this is also the same fearmongering your vet gives you about needing proper dog food. It's bollocks.
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Did you feed the dog raw chicken meat from the store? Did you leave her food out to get warm and contaminated? Did you leave the blood and juice from cutting up the meat all over the counter to grow bacteria and cross contaminate the human food you are preparing? It's quite possible you used/use proper food handling techniques.

Are you also saying no one ever got sick in those 12 years of owning the dog? Not every food borne sickness sends you to the hospital or follows the same pattern of sickness and diarrhea.

The information I found wasn't from a vet or related to any dog food/health sales site, but I looked up 6+ years ago, so that's really the worst I could find about it when looking over more thorough studies. Dude I knew was spending a fortune buying a whole bunch of custom ground organ meats for his dog and I was a bit curious about it after a few conversations, so spent some time looking at it.
 
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Cutlery

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Burns said:
Did you feed the dog raw chicken meat from the store? Did you leave her food out to get warm and contaminated? Did you leave the blood and juice from cutting up the meat all over the counter to grow bacteria and cross contaminate the human food you are preparing? It's quite possible you used/use proper food handling techniques.

Are you also saying no one ever got sick in those 12 years of owning the dog? Not every food borne sickness sends you to the hospital or follows the same pattern of sickness and diarrhea.

The information I found wasn't from a vet or related to any dog food/health sales site, but I looked up 6+ years ago, so that's really the worst I could find about it when looking over more thorough studies. Dude I knew was spending a fortune buying a whole bunch of custom ground organ meats for his dog and I was a bit curious about it after a few conversations, so spent some time looking at it.
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Your questions at the top.

1) Yes
2) no, why the fuck would you do that?
3) See #2

4) ridiculous question. Everyone gets sick in 12 years no matter what they do and there's no way to tie it to specific things if it's not a pattern.

I suspect the site you saw was intended for the people who said yes to 2 and 3.

The dog ate literally nothing but raw chicken, raw beef, raw pork for 12 years of her life. When my grandmother came over and brought a handful of milk bones for her, she literally didn't know what to do with them because they weren't "food" to her.

You don't need to spend a fortune doing custom ground meats. You can just feed the meat. I can almost guarantee any commercially sold product is 1) more expensive and 2) less healthy for the dog than just eating as much of the whole carcass as possible (IE: meat, bones, organs). When I started this journey, raw was taboo for animals. I spoke to many vets who absolutely refused to even see dogs who were not being fed commercial dog food. Nowadays, raw is a "commercial fad" where people are taking shit you can buy for $1 a lb at the store for $7-8 while still being processed.

I hope by the time my 3rd dog comes around, it just becomes mainstream again. Think about it - dog food wasn't invented until the early 1900's. What the fuck did dogs eat before then?
 
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Burns

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Cutlery said:
Your questions at the top.

1) Yes
2) no, why the fuck would you do that?
3) See #2

4) ridiculous question. Everyone gets sick in 12 years no matter what they do and there's no way to tie it to specific things if it's not a pattern.

I suspect the site you saw was intended for the people who said yes to 2 and 3.

The dog ate literally nothing but raw chicken, raw beef, raw pork for 12 years of her life. When my grandmother came over and brought a handful of milk bones for her, she literally didn't know what to do with them because they weren't "food" to her.

You don't need to spend a fortune doing custom ground meats. You can just feed the meat. I can almost guarantee any commercially sold product is 1) more expensive and 2) less healthy for the dog than just eating as much of the whole carcass as possible (IE: meat, bones, organs). When I started this journey, raw was taboo for animals. I spoke to many vets who absolutely refused to even see dogs who were not being fed commercial dog food. Nowadays, raw is a "commercial fad" where people are taking shit you can buy for $1 a lb at the store for $7-8 while still being processed.

I hope by the time my 3rd dog comes around, it just becomes mainstream again. Think about it - dog food wasn't invented until the early 1900's. What the fuck did dogs eat before then?
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I think the "site" I read was one that had published studies on the mater. It was long enough ago that I don't remember it exactly but it would have been similar to the following (and why I just said people should observe proper food handling when dealing with raw pet food diet (to offset the potential risk)):

From 2011:
2024-09-25 10.26.14 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov c9088be9af3a.png

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Raw food diets in companion animals: A critical review

Feeding of raw meat-based diets to pets has become an increasingly popular trend amongst pet owners. Owners, who desire to provide the best for their pets, seek veterinary opinions about food options. This paper reviews and applies standards of evidence-based ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

This one is more recent (2019) and also addresses Salmonella:
2024-09-25 10.32.49 www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov 76103e494e3a.png

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Raw diets for dogs and cats: a review, with particular reference to microbiological hazards

There is a recent trend to feed pet dogs and cats in Britain and other developed countries on raw meat and animal by‐products using either commercial preparations or home recipes. This shift from heat‐treated processed food has been driven ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
Aldarion

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Its a little hard for me to believe raw meat of any kind is a real risk to dogs, when those same dogs will literally eat shit every chance they get. I mean practically fight you for a chance to eat shit.

They're garbage eaters, its disgusting but somehow it doesnt seem to hurt them.

Hard to believe that encountering 0.0001% of the pathogen load in some raw meat is even gonna be noticed.
 
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Burns

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Aldarion said:
Its a little hard for me to believe raw meat of any kind is a real risk to dogs, when those same dogs will literally eat shit every chance they get. I mean practically fight you for a chance to eat shit.

They're garbage eaters, its disgusting but somehow it doesnt seem to hurt them.

Hard to believe that encountering 0.0001% of the pathogen load in some raw meat is even gonna be noticed.
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Not a danger to dogs, just a danger to humans coming in contact with their saliva... or if you have young kids that like to pick up whatever from the yard and sometimes that's the dog's shit. Also, if the dog eats contaminated dog shit and then licks a humans mouth.

The chance of infection should be is very low, unless you are part of the small subset of people that let their dogs lick them on the mouth, or have kids that let the dogs lick their food before they eat it. Outside of that, the most likely vector of transmission would probably be the dog's saliva getting on a human's hand, that then rubs their eyes or is in the middle of eating with their hands or prepping food.
 
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Cutlery

Cutlery

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Good news, dogs are pretty docile after eating a pound of meat and generally just wanna go back to their bed and take a nap.

I'm not saying it's impossible, its just pretty unlikely. And I got the dog 5 months before the baby was born, and they were both crawling around on the same floor for many years and the kid never got unusually ill.

Granted, I feed my dogs outside and I feed my kids inside, but I feel like that's just standard stuff. My sister feeds her dogs indoors, but she also has hardwood floors and lives alone, and has never had any issues either in the same time frame.
 
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