[the_discowhore]

For those of you that feed both, can you tell me a little about what and how you feed? Do you feed a morning raw meal and kibble in the evening? Do you still feed organs? What organs do you feed? Would you give a bone meal in the morning and kibble in the evening? Do you ever add raw meat (not bones) into your dog's kibble?

Researching for future puppy... I have found a GREAT raw food supplier (plus my parents have a farm and kill livestock), but I am not comfortable feeding 100% raw. Lottie & Libby are partially on a raw/kibble diet (sometimes more of one or the other) and they are in beautiful condition with great skin, poops and coat, but I want to hear some other peoples experiences.
Thanks in advance, and please no "you can't feed raw and kibble!!!!" posts

 

[Beaumont67]

I personally know a lady that manufactures BARF.
- she said kibble & raw does not mix daily, with their digestion track
It is one or the other.

So we feed 1/2 dry kibble and 2 cooked meals of meat/veggies/rice.

 

[LindaH]

I have fed raw and kibble together and have never seen Parker have any bad consequences from it. I believe adding raw is beneficial for a dog. There are lots of people on DT who feed both. I also give Parker a pork rib or neck bone once every 7 to 10 days to clean his teeth with no bad results. As with any new food, start off lightly. I think you could add raw meat with kibble or by itself. I dont give raw regularly but am more inclined to give Parker some if he is in the kitchen when I am preparing my evening meal or packaging meat to freeze. He can make off like a bandit there. I also believe leftovers are good as long as you dont give too much and it is what you would eat yourself, not just trimmed off fat, etc. Giving organs would be good, but keep in mind they are rich, so feed in small amounts. Raw liver is a laxative, cooked liver can constipate. IMO, raw heart would be very good to give. Maybe someone has some facts where it is bad to mix, but I would have to see & weigh. My common sense says itsok.

 

[mmctaq]

I personally know a lady that manufactures BARF.
- she said kibble & raw does not mix daily, with their digestion track
It is one or the other.

Ten or twelve years ago, I was on the raw list that invented this old wives tale when it was being invented (who remembers when rawfeeding was BARF on Smartgroups?). A bunch of people theorizing back and forth about this and that for three or four days, and all at once it somehow got transformed into gospel. There was never any science, there was never even any anecdotal evidence that anything negative would result from combining raw and kibble. It weren't true then, and it ain't true now.

 

[workingk9s]

When I was doing the 50/50 I would feed a kibble mean in the morning (because I was always in a hurry to get to work). At night I would feed a raw meal.

I would rotate:
Chicken backs
Chicken necks
Turkey necks
ground beef
ground turkey
Chicken hind quarters
Chicken thighs
Turkey wings
Beef chuncks

With the raw meal I would also add some kind of offal. Hearts, liver, tripe or gizzards. Could never get Eva to eat lung. Can't blame her, looked and felt horrible.

Also given sometimes, eggs.

 

[Herb2relax]

My dogs are on raw. After a few months of raw I gave Kyrah some kibble she puked from the middle of the night till the next mid morning. I do still feed her some milk bone dog biscuts and some other grain type treats but not meals. Since then I am nervous about feeding her kibble. But the occasional times hubby sneaks her anything that has been cooked with spices she normally pukes the next day. I believe she has a sensitive stomach.

My grandpup, Dexter, eats both. When he is with my daughter he eats kibble with an occasional turkey neck. When he is with me, which is 2-3 days a week usually, he eats 1/2 & 1/2. I still feed him 3x's a day when he is with me. He eats 1/2 portion dog food morning, small portion meat usually w/ bone early afternoon & rest of kibble portion in the evening. I have only given him a very tiny piece of liver or sweetbread here and there. Kyrah still can get loose stools from that. He has no problems. I started off slowly introducing small amounts of new meats.

My daughter's room mate has a small dog who eats all kibble. She says she can tell the difference b/c the other dogs breath stinks really bad compared to Dexter's.

Once you start it and the more you learn maybe you will become more comfortable with it. I am glad I finally took the plunge. I will never feed kibble again unless there is absolutely no choice.

 

[Adara]

I feed a few kibble meals a week. Each type of meal needs to be balanced. So for the raw meals, if you feed prey model over time they should be 80% meat, 10% bone, 5% liver and 5% other organ. You need to have balance over time. If you just give part of a raw diet, the raw meals won't have balance.

Most of my boarders have horrible kibble breath. Even with the ones eating high quality kibble (or so I assume with nice solid stools). The biggest thing I notice is the breath. STINKY

 

[o0 sHaDoWoLf 0o]

funny that you ask this question because I was just wondering about it. I consulted with my breeder and she feels that feeding 100 percent raw for a puppy isn't a good idea. She sold a puppy to a lady that fed all raw and the puppy was supper skinny and just looked bad so they bought the dog back. But she does believe in the 50/50. what I have been doing is feeding kibble and when I first got him the first week I feed him pieces of raw pork then pieces of raw chicken then I started to increase the amount of pieces and lessen the amount of kibble to balance it out.

my butcher makes a mix of organ, bone, and left over meat and packages it up but it is not a certain ratio just whatever they have left over so I only feed about 1/4 cup with his kibble.

This week I just added a full size chicken breast and I will prob next give him turkey neck or something. But so far so good all of his poo's have been solid and he actually eats a lot slower when eating the raw. With his kibble its so small he just swallows it all whole and I watch him eat it and there will be times hes eating so fast in large amount of bites the he has to stop and force it down his throat so I started to add water to his food to moisten it up so the dry kibble doesn't irritate his throat.

LOL just tonight he kept insisting on having a piece of celery so I have him some and he enjoyed it. I can't imagine giving nothing but kibble all the time, that would be so boring. He has done awesome so once I get more knowledgeable on it I will prob feed a little more raw than kibble but still have kibble in his diet if for some reason he would not be able to eat raw his system will be used to the kibble to eat it.

One of my clients feeds kibble and raw and he's doing fine so I don't believe in the whole do not feed kibble and raw deal. That like saying we are not allowed to eat cereal then meat.

 

[stryker2]

We do kibble then 2 of their meals during the week we do just Nature's Variety raw.

 

[LuvMyDobes]

I have fed both raw and kibble and when I did, I fed raw in the AM and kibble in the PM because it takes longer for the kibble to digest. If I fed at 7 AM and 5 PM, there was 10 hours between breakfast and dinner while 13 between dinner and breakfast.

 

[Adara]

funny that you ask this question because I was just wondering about it. I consulted with my breeder and she feels that feeding 100 percent raw for a puppy isn't a good idea. She sold a puppy to a lady that fed all raw and the puppy was supper skinny and just looked bad so they bought the dog back. But she does believe in the 50/50. what I have been doing is feeding kibble and when I first got him the first week I feed him pieces of raw pork then pieces of raw chicken then I started to increase the amount of pieces and lessen the amount of kibble to balance it out.

To be fair, a dog being too skinny is owner error of not feeding enough, not diet error. I'm all for people making their own decisions on what to feed I just wanted to point out if the owner had fed more food, the dog would not have been skinny. I made the same mistake with the first puppy I put on raw.

 

[Leliel]

What's the goal in feeding both, if I may inquire? Seems like more hassle to me? One of the things I like about feeding raw is not having to hit the petstore for dog food - I pick up Delta's food when I pick up my own. (Plus I was trying to isolate any food allergies, so adding kibble in our case would have defeated the purpose anyway.)

Just curious

 

[the_discowhore]

What's the goal in feeding both, if I may inquire? Seems like more hassle to me? One of the things I like about feeding raw is not having to hit the petstore for dog food - I pick up Delta's food when I pick up my own. (Plus I was trying to isolate any food allergies, so adding kibble in our case would have defeated the purpose anyway.)

Just curious

I would be ordering kibble online as none of the pet stores in my city stock any decent kibble LOL (and the online pet stores do free delivery for some pet foods!), plus being a vegetarian household at the moment, buying any meat is going to be a hassle anyway.

For myself, I want to feed 50/50 because I am not comfortable feeding 100% raw. Just little things put me off, having to buy a new massive freezer, if I am a away there is no way in hell my vegetarian b/f would be messing around with animal guts, if my dog is to stay with family or friends I don't want to put the pressure on them to cope with a difficult diet, I worry about being able to consistently source food, we have a lot of power outages in CHCH since the earthquakes and I would hate for my dog to go hungry because the raw meat has spoiled and all the supermarkets have closed, figuring out what/when to feed just seems scary and difficult, I want to keep kibble in the diet to be used as training treats, if we are away competing for a weekend kibble is just much more convenient and there are a variety of other reasons.

I want to feed some raw though as I love the benefits of feeding bones (great teeth, great breath, great to keep dog busy for awhile) and I will be able to source some meat/organs very cheaply/free (from my parents), but that source is not different protein sources.

FWIW, this isn't likely going to be a Doberman puppy I am getting

 

[o0 sHaDoWoLf 0o]

To be fair, a dog being too skinny is owner error of not feeding enough, not diet error. I'm all for people making their own decisions on what to feed I just wanted to point out if the owner had fed more food, the dog would not have been skinny. I made the same mistake with the first puppy I put on raw.

I agree, to make my breeder more comfortable for me and my breeder I am slowly walking into it since I am a noob to raw feeding being 100% of their diet

 

[o0 sHaDoWoLf 0o]

What's the goal in feeding both, if I may inquire? Seems like more hassle to me? One of the things I like about feeding raw is not having to hit the petstore for dog food - I pick up Delta's food when I pick up my own. (Plus I was trying to isolate any food allergies, so adding kibble in our case would have defeated the purpose anyway.)

Just curious

For me doing 50/50 would be ideal in case for any reason he would not be able to be fed raw while on the road or something it would not upset his system. And so that he would not become a picky eater if that were to ever happen, not being able to feed raw.

 

[DreamValley]

I fed Gino 100% raw. He was doing well and was a bit skinnier than his brothers.
NO gas, great coat, fresh breath.

Asha's breeder insisted to feed a puppy 50/50. We know a lot about raw feeding but phosphorus/calcium balance may be off and it will impact a puppy growth. I agreed.

While feeding Asha kibble in the morning I noticed huge Gino's interest in it.
Also I work fulltime... the morning is always hectic. Kibble in AM works very well for both of my dogs. Their coats are great, breath is fresh but they have a bit more gas. Oh well... we lose we win. I have more time and longer sleep and my skin looks better

I agree with MMCTAQ. That's not a science. The mix of high quality kibble and balanced raw food would never cause any problems.

We feed our dogs:
Kibble - Acana Grasslands

Raw - ground chicken, ground duck, duck necks, duck feet, chicken heads, ground beef, bison and elk tripe, beef organs, ground pork, pork hearts, tonque, etc. We mix a bit oatmeal in it.

 

[Dobiewankanobi]

I work full time also, so I feed my puppy Orijen LBP in the morning because things are hectic and I didn't want to mess around with raw meat while getting ready for work. He eats a raw meal for dinner and has a meaty bone snack in between.

His coat is shiny like glass, no gas, great teeth, etc. I know people say you shouldn't feed kibble and raw, but he has had No problems. As he gets older I will transition away from the kibble, but for now it's working out all right.

 

[the_discowhore]

I want to feed orijen as a kibble too, would like to feed Acana but no one in New Zealand sells it.

 

[DreamValley]

Orijen is great food. It may be a bit heavy for some dogs and they develop loose stools. Be ready to see greenish poo don't worry that's normal. The kibble is made in our province. Most people feed it.

If your dogs are OK on Orijen I would not worry to mix it with raw (kibble AM and raw PM). I prefer not mix it for the same meal.

 

[Dobiewankanobi]

I have a hard time finding the Acana local. Several boutique stores near my house have tons of Orijen though!

I forgot to comment on organs, etc. There is a butcher I use that grinds up raw beef with organs included (liver, tongues, kidneys, all the left overs really). I feed that a few times a week because I have a shepherd mix who refuses to eat anything that isn't ground. I also feed whole cornish game hens because they're a good ratio of muscle, bone and organ. If I feed something like a chicken leg quarter, then I add a little bit of liver to the bowl and maybe something like kidney. Or, I cook the liver and make little training snacks with it. The key with liver is to start slow in small portions.