The boys home-made raw

BARF refers to Biologically Appropriate Raw food or Bones and Raw Food. It is where owners have decided to feed their Schnauzer a natural diet of raw meat, bones, and organs. If you are considering this for your Schnauzer, you will find lots of handy tips here.
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EmG+
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Joined: 12 Jan 2019, 19:25
First Name: Emily

The boys home-made raw

Post by EmG+ »

While making batches of our boys food it made me think how many of you guys home prep raw.

We started on Natures Menu from pup following no more than a week of kibble, introduced raw chicken around teething time, infact I'd forgot Rupert hadn't lost all his and he was smashing through drumsticks with no issue.

The constant top up and bulk buy of Natures Menu was never ending and after a few times running out when pet store closed I'd use minced beef as emergency alternative. They absolutely loved it! Thats when i decided to look into home-made raw.

I went through various combos of ingredients, ease of prep and portion size. Started with freezer bags and after a few chinese takeaways finished with the leftover plastic trays. They work perfect!

I'll make a batch of fortnightly or monthly meals and as I use all human grade meats etc its a breeze just adding it to normal shop. I do get some looks with kilo's of mince!

This batch consists of..

The usual:
4kg Mince beef
1.5kg Diced Beef
4 small tins mackerel

The extras:
400g Thin cut steak
1kg Spinach (Pureed)
16 crabsticks

Its roughly 7kg and will last 2 weeks, both boys are on around 250g a day and I'm not too precise on measures, load up extras then top up with mince on scales to 500g per tub, each tub I'll feed to 1 dog over 2 days. I was using 1 tub for both, giving them half each but found i spent too long making sure they had even quantities each side, felt guilty one have extra chunk of beef :-s

The extras i switch around but usually keep it to 1 type of veg pureed or finely chopped, crabsticks are new this time, ive used them as treats before and they love them bht wouldn't overload, each meal has around half a stick. I'll swap steak for lamb occasionally but try not to mix meats too much. Bit unsure on pork so not tried that yet.

Haven't got an easy access local butcher so not compared prices and I'm a fan of Aldi so cheap in comparison to main supermarkets.

This 7kg batch cost max £25 so around 90p a meal, normally its cheaper but extra diced beef and steaks in this time. Plus I've just upped them to 250g and would have normally got few extra days out same amount. A month batch takes 45mins-hour max.

They also have chicken (thigh, leg or wings) about 3-4 times a week. I chose to feed 1 main meal in morning, and evenings will be the chicken on days they get it, or they may have extra nibble at lunch or after big weekend walk. I know many dont agree with 1 larger meal a day but works fine for us, boys are much calmer in afternoon and evening and routine is perfect.

Usual benefits from raw with much less poop and no gas plus perfect white teeth are a bonus!

If anyone else does they're own raw I'd love to hear about your process, I'm in a good routine with it but always keen to try something different. Im yet to try chicken carcass, lambs neck, pork etc as a little unsure/nervous plus id like to introduce liver, kidneys, hearts maybe. Again this is after finding time to get to a decent butchers though, working 10hr days, 6 days a week, I'd rather be clear on what I'm wanting when i do manage to double park and dash in!

Here's a few pics from todays batch for anyone thats interested..

Layering the 'extras'..

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Top up with mince, pureed veg mixed in..
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500g tubs done..
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Extra fish day..
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Extra beef day..
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2 weeks ready and waiting..
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Sidney as per usual :-bd

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:D
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zeta1454
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Re: The boys home-made raw

Post by zeta1454 »

Great that you are feeding raw as there are so many benefits for the health of your dogs :-)

If you have not seen the Raw Feeding Rebels site before, do check it out as there is a lot of useful information for DIY raw feeders:

http://www.rawfeedingrebels.com/raw-fee ... ter-guide/

Plus a good guide to percentages of meat, offal and bone:

http://www.rawfeedingrebels.com/wp-cont ... rguide.pdf

I do find tripe excellent for our the dogs and they love it, but to get the raw green tripe it would mean looking for a supplier other than a supermarket or butcher as they are unlikely to sell anything but bleached tripe.

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/t ... -on-tripe/

Maybe some other Forum members who DIY raw will also be able to give you some feedback too :-)
Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole. ~Roger Caras

Magic - Silversocks Sharade at Darksprite
Trilby - Darksprite Rosa Bud


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Riesen16
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Dog #1: Enya von Amber
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Re: The boys home-made raw

Post by Riesen16 »

Hi Emily.

I've printed out your mail as we also feed Enya RS-PS raw but include kibble in her diet, separately of course.

We buy liver from the large stores, pork, veal or Beef. It's fairly cheap and we mix it often with spinach and apple.

We used to feed mackerel to our other dogs - I had forgotten about it. Sometimes, frozen or fresh mackerel.

Enya was very disinterested in kibble or any food as a puppy but we were nervous about switching to raw. Now she is an "eat all" dog but my husband likes to think of her as a Gourmet!!

We also feed dried Rumen (??) which we buy at our local agricultural (mainly for farmers) store. Chicken hearts and liver are aso a possibility and very cheap.

Cheers, Gill
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