I am umming about switching my lad onto raw, but for various reasons locally I can only seem to get prize choice/nature's menu easily. Could this make up the majority of his food and then I add in chicken quarters/wings etc for the bone? I can get chicken necks in the prize choice stuff.

this is the only raw food i can get also and my dog shows absolutely no interest in the prize choice mince so i had to flash fry it to get her to eat it, shes very fussy. i make up a veggie mix of peas, carrots, lettuce and any veg were eating, eggs with shells and some sardines and blend it, she has this mix with the flash fried prize choice mince rabbit, turkey, lamb, chicken, tripe, she also gets chicken wings flash fried and lamb ribs, she gets beef chunks and tripe chunks also. ive bought a few books on it lately and have been reading up alot. im sure its worth it, just experiment and enjoy it.

> she also gets chicken wings flash fried

I would be very wary of cooking chicken wings for your dogs. Dogs shouldn't get any cooked bones at all,  but chicken are the most dangerous. I know you've said flash fried and presumably that's not for long but I've no idea how quickly a bone changes when exposed to heat - do you know?

Lavo if your dog won't eat raw I would put it on a good quality complete as I think cooking the ingredients cancels out any benefit of feeding raw.

> I can only seem to get prize choice/nature's menu easily. Could this make up the majority of his food and then I add in chicken quarters/wings etc for the bone?

This should be fine and you can supplement with cheap or special offer meats and bones from the supermarket.  Don't forget that you will also need to include offal but again this can be sourced very cheaply from butchers and supermarkets. 

I wouldn't go down the route of flash frying anything - even cooking for the shortest time rather defeats the point - but do watch Prize Choice mince as the consistency is quite fine and gloopy (more like mousse) and some dogs don't really like it.  The best way to change this though is to add some chunky meats or tripe to the mince.  A handful of complete won't do any harm either as you transition and some dogs like the crunch!  The PC chicken necks you mention are processed very small - too small for some dogs - but feeding them still frozen will slow your dog down and this would also add some extra crunch

Do bear in mind that there are national suppliers that might work out cheaper if they deliver to your area.  I use TPMS, but Berriewoods , Landywoods and DAF all get a regular mention too.

Thanks :)

I'm not on the mainland so Berriewoods etc don't deliver to me. I currently feed my lad Acana (he is unable to eat grain food or we get lovely chewed raw/infected patches of skin and no coat, loose bum you name it) and I like the Acana and it seems to suit him (to the point he is getting fat..!!) but wonder if he'd be better on plain raw  or even a mix of both?
I can get chicken quarters/wings fairly cheaply (not as cheap as the mainland) and he'll eat fish in any form (tinned or raw) and will hoover up offal so I think between the Prize Choice/Nature's Menu and the shop I could get him pretty balanced? Would I be worth feeding the Acana couple of times a week to help keep him balanced if I'm feeding mainly Prize Choice?

I think that even some raw is better than none and in your situation it's probably well worth keeping a quality complete in the mix somewhere.  It shouldn't really be necessary if you can get a range of meat but you know he likes it, and does well on it and it's a great back up for when you have supply issues. 

I used to be be fixated on not combining raw and complete in one meal but after reading a lot of advice and opinion I decided to raise my youngster on a combo diet til he was 12 months. It really suited him.  I started at 50:50 split but moved to 90:10 (90% raw).  Even now I still sling a small amount of kibble in their meals if I'm a bit short of meat/mince.  Mine seem to appreciate the crunchy bits!!

Thanks :)

When you did 50/50, how did you split it? did you have x days of kibble and x of raw, or alternate days? little bit worried about making the step even though he eats a mix already.. it just seems scary when you definately commit!

when im feeding wings im literally talking half a minute frying as i know the risks associated with cooking chicken bones. the reason i switched her from kibble is ive tried every brand under the sun and my dog consistently refused to eat it up to the point were she went 4 days without eating. ive found the prize choice mince is a little like mousse and my dog really isnt keen on it but im mixing it with my veggie gloup and shes beginning to eat it, all other bones she gets raw, im in northern ireland and the last delivery i was quoted £48 which i think is a little expensive tbh.

> When you did 50/50, how did you split it?

My pup was kibble fed with the breeder and I moved him almost immediately to raw, like my other dogs.  However, this puppy just didn't settle quite so easily on 100% raw - I think he missed that contented full tummy feeling that helps them sleep (I've always noticed that kibble makes my dogs a bit droopy).  Once I put some kibble into every meal he settled much more easily for a post dinner snooze!!

I can't remember the exact portions but I always worked on kibble being equal to app 1/3rd of raw.  It's not a gram for gram ratio.  Nowadays, for each 100g of raw meat I swap out - I replace it with 30g of kibble.  I think I started out by calculating what he'd need if he was 100% raw fed OR 100% kibble fed and just halving both. Does that make sense? It's not an exact science and if he looked to be putting weight on too quickly it's the kibble I reduced.

He's 14 months now and I still give him a little kibble mixed in every mince based meal.  For no other reason than that it means I can balance the amount of food I need to defrost for the 3 of them.  He's currently on 500g of meat and 50g of kibble per meal.  When the ratio was greater I'd sometimes add extra water too, just to make sure he had plenty of fluids - I dodn't like the idea of the kibble sucking up moisture!!

Hope this helps :)

i read in tom lonsdales book that raw and kibble should never be fed together due to the different times it takes for each food to be digested, although it seems to be working fine for you. i think there is a good bit off lee way and its about finding a happy medium.

> i read in tom lonsdales book that raw and kibble should never be fed together due to the different times it takes for each food to be digested

Yes I know, I used to be very rigid about it and never combine the two - til I read so many people saying it doesn't really matter too much, and after practising on my baby velociraptor!  He has the guts of a combine harvester though and can also be trusted to drink enough.  When he was smaller I'd either add the extra water or pre soak the food to ensure he got enough fluids.

yea like i say you can over analize things and its about finding a happy in between, im currently sitting emailing companies to see if they deliver to northern ireland

> i read in tom lonsdales book that raw and kibble should never be fed together due to the different times it takes for each food to be digested

I read that too - but what I HAVE noticed is that if you feed bone and meat at the same meal, that too is digested at different times.... you get the bone poo-ed out later on, and also the fur or feather if there is any, later still. So, bearing in mind that wild prey would be eaten bones, flesh, fur or feather and all, does it matter?

I use prize Choice as my 3 adore tripe :) I use Prize Choice poultry necks for bone content as well as chicken wings. I make up my own veg mix using sweet potato as the base, apples, carrots, peas and broccoli.
I freeze it in take away containers and add it as and when or if I am flush I buy the natures menu fruit/veg nuggets for if I run out of my stuff.
I also like the tripe and beef chunks for variety, I buy the large free flow tripe bags and mix it with free flow chicken and my veg...

Sometimes I get chicken carcasses or turkey backs from Natural Instinct and the dogs LOVE them

I do still use kibble - Acana or TOTW but it makes up about 20%, my 3 have no issues being fed it as treat reward/part of a meal or alone

ive now had my dog on raw for a month, ive stopped feeding the prize choice minces as my dog simply refused to eat them. im now just getting my meat from the butchers lamb necks, legs of lamb, chicken wings, ox tail, ribs, she still gets the prize choice beef chunks and tripe chunks and she gets tins of sardines and mackerel, ive tried giving her blended veg but she simply turns her nose up at it, it came out of the blender more like mousse if im honest and she doesnt seem to like the texture, it was just peas, carrots, lettuce, some salmon oil and kelp, any tips to get her to eat this or do you think its not necessary? some books say it is and others say it isnt, ive stopped flash frying the wings and now she simply loves them raw like the rest of the meat and bones, ive noticed a real change in her doggy odour and far less coming out in the bathroom department which is a bonus. I bought some calf liver but she really wasnt impressed with it lol again i think its the texture that puts her off. do you think im varying her diet enough with lamb legs, lamb necks, ox tails, beef chunks, tripe chunks, chicken legs, chicken wings, ribs, sardines, mackerel, or am i leaving something out that i should be adding?
im currently spending roughly £10 per week in the butchers which i wouldve spent on kibble anyway, she seems much happier and content on raw and it just pleases me to see her enjoying her meals.