Curious to know how many of you feed the RMBs as a separate meal as opposed to combining them with a meat/veg etc meal?  I know Ian Billinghurst strongly advocates the separation but other books I've read just say to give the RMBs with the other food.  Does it actually matter?

I feed rmb's as a seperate meal - usually the big lamb bones which my butcher seems to have an abundance of or chicken wings,(but I'm not sure if chicken wings count as rmb's)???

40% of Jasper's food is veg/fruit mix - I know lots of the raw feeders don't do so much veg- but it really seems to suit Jaspr and I do follow  Ian Billingurst's advice!

In fact I should have said, I always count chicken wings as RSB's (raw scrawny bones) :D :D :D

I feed meat meals in the morning and RMB in the evening and add the offal to the evening meal with the bones. If the RMB content of a particular evening meal is low then I make up the quantity with heart or tripe. I have been feeding this way for over a year now and it suits our dog really well.

I only ever feed veg on the rare occasion that we have some left from our own meals. He does get a raw carrot from time to time to chew on and I often use carrot as training treats if we are learning something new and lots of treats are called for :)

Any particular reason why you give the RMBs as the evening meal Harley?  Just asking because the people who I know split the RMBs from the rest seem to give them in the mornings.

I give them in the evening as he is less active then and they have all night to be digested. It isn't a scientific reasoning just my own personal view on it :) As he is much more active during the day I just figured that I would feed the easier/quicker to digest food in the morning so he doesn't have a stomach full of food during his most active period. He is fed two hours before exercise anyway but just seemed to make sense to me :)

I feed the rmb's both morning and evening too

That makes sense Harley, thanks. :)

I feed a couple of raw chicken wings in the morning and then chicken portions or mince or a bit of each in the evening.  Cant get mine to touch veg or fruit...

Maxine

Mine have RMBs in the morning and for tea they have muscle meat and/or offal.  Used to feed them pulverised veg but they are not keen on it and I have dropped it for the last few months to see if there is a discernable difference in their condition but I cannot see any change. 

I feed my dog once a day (in the evening) and I feed her the rmb first and when she has finished that I give her the minced meat (or fish or offal) straight after.  I don't feed veg or grain cause I don't see the need for it and she doesn't like it anyway.

Jasper loves his veg/fruit mix it is probably because it has all the fruit juice in and yoghurt and of course raw eggs - YUMMY!
He did go off it for a while but then I realised I had been drinking the apple and pear juice instead of mixing it all in with his mix, since I've started to add it again he loves it! 

We are fostering a rescue dog here at the moment and I fed him BARF as soon as he arrived and he loves it, seems to be doing really well.

I think the best way of telling if the way you are feeding suits your dog is to see how he/she looks and how their health is generally.  For Jasper he looks amazingly healthy, beautiful coat, shiny eyes and lots of energy, and for Henry (the rescue) his coat is getting better by the day too and we noticed his eyes have started to sparkle again!

There are various ways of feeding raw, as there are feeding pet food, and I think if you find one that suits your dog then that's the method worth sticking to, if it isn't suiting for whatever reason then it might mean a change is needed!

No hard and fast rule here :)

They get RMB's am or pm depending on what time they will be getting walked :)

I am seriously considering the raw feed diet but have a question regarding what do people do if they holiday. We are lucky enough to get away for a couple of short breaks a year and maybe a 2 week holiday. I have 5 dogs and normally kennel the larger 2 leaving a friend to house sit for the 3 smaller ones.

If they go to kennels how do you continue the raw diet or do you just have to go with the flow of the kennel with what they feed?  Its also getting someone to feed the meat and bones and their time getting fresh meat in for the dogs daily.

just needed to know what others would do.

When we have been away we just normally buy something each day for them. We haven't left them in kennels since they have changed to raw but the place we take them to I am sure would feed what we ask them to as it is a farm and she only has a few dogs at at time so should be too much of an issue :)

I have only left our dog in kennels for a weekend since starting to raw feed over a year ago. I just packaged his food up into meal size portions, labelled it am or pm and took it frozen to the kennels who defrosted it as  needed. AMP do packs of frozen mince (which weigh 400g) of varying meat types - so I used one of these for his morning feed and made up the difference in weight in his evening feed which consists of raw meaty bones, muscle meat and offal.

The kennels were quite happy to feed this to him and supervised his eating the bones - but it takes him no time at all to get through a bone or two. As a raw diet is balanced over a period of a month or so you could provide the kennels with more meat and less RMB and then adjust when the dogs are home again. I actually use various kibbles for trainng treats at times so that his digestive system is used to kibble which could then be fed if the need arose without having too dire an effect on his stomach. It would be a last resort but is useful to know that he can eat kibble if he has to :)

I've been making enquiries to local kennels for this very reason, and I've found some kennels do allow you to take in the food you want, so you could freeze it into daily portions for the 2 in kennels and also for the ones at home too!

When our friends take care of Jasper, I've frozen his food into daily portions and I've minced the chicken wings with the veg as they don't like the idea of giving them whole - and you can also replace some of the meals with cottage cheese/tuna/pilchards/sardines etc it won't do any harm if they are not on raw for a few days of the year!

edited to say: when we take him away with us, we take some frozen portions, which obviously thaws out on the journey and then we buy meat/bones when we are away - it works out quite well!

Don't some people put the dogs onto ND or NM for ease and convience when in kennels or when on holiday with the dogs?

I guess it depends on how strict that person is about feeding raw to wether they want it continued or if they are happy to subsitute for afew days whilst away.

I use Naturediet for times when it is difficult to feed raw.  Usually when we go away, my parents stay at my house to look after the dogs and I freeze their daily portions in individual bags labelled with their names.