DAY 3 OF RAW MEATY BONES

Right some updates from yesterday...

Their evening meal last night went really well. Everyone ate their chicken with gusto including Belle. She has now gotten the idea that this raw stuff is actually food and seemed to enjoy it.

Nobody pooped at all last night which is also good I guess cause it means that the chicken is not disagreeing with them as much as I feared.

Cleo waiting for her ball

This morning however, Lucky had a very awful mushy poo. :-( I am hoping that this is just the detox effect. So we shall see what happens tomorrow or later today. The rest of them had pretty well formed poo but I have to say that all of them had the smallest poop I have ever experienced with any of them! I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. 

I mean it obviously shows that they are digesting almost all the food that they have eaten and it's not just passing through their system like kibble. When they were on Orijen they only pooped once a day compared to twice a day on their previous kibble, but their poo was still quite sizeable.

Cleo getting ready to catch her tennis ball

This morning's breakfast went really well too. Everyone ate with no issues or complaint. So I am quite pleased with that.

They also ate their evening meal easily and seemed to really enjoy it. Lucky had his first chicken wing and breast quarter. And he managed it pretty well.

And she catches it perfectly

These pictures of Cleo were taken some time ago... and since she has been feeling poorly she has not been too keen on playing fetch or catch with her tennis ball. She normally is nuts about her ball. So I am really hoping that this raw feeding will bring back the old Cleo or at least increase her energy levels.

I am sure that there will be alot of you thinking that feeding raw must be incredibly expensive. That was what I thought too initially. But after I sat down and did some math, I realised that it wasn't more expensive than my feeding them kibble.

And let me just add that I am purchasing chicken from Isetan, which is probably one of the more expensive supermarkets in Malaysia (i.e I would say that its the equivalent of Waitrose in the UK), and still it comes up cheaper. Just to give you a cost comparison, here are the details of what I have spent and am spending:

Cost of feeding 4 medium/large dogs for a month on kibble and cooked chicken:
2 bags of Orijen 6 fish formula at RM304 per bag   = RM 608
Fresh chicken breast meat at RM70 per week        = RM 280
Baked Lamb ribs to clean teeth RM 80 per week    = RM 320

Total cost = RM1,208 per month

Cost of feeding 4 medium/large dogs fresh raw "Kami Sakura" chicken
I need 1.5 chickens per day, which is about 45 chickens a month
Cost per bird = RM24
Total cost =RM1,080

So I know you're probably thinking but I have not included the lamb ribs, but then since they are already chewing real bones, they don't need the ribs anymore. And my cost of feeding them is still cheaper than kibble and chicken supplements eventhough I am buying a pretty expensive chicken from an expensive supermarket.

Additionally, you can probably feed your dogs for a lot cheaper if you shop at Carrefour or Tesco, and of course if you go to the markets.  A normal chicken from my local supermarket (which is still pretty expensive) is only about RM15 per bird. And today I just saw in the papers that Tesco was doing a promotion for RM3.99 per bird.

And of course, from what my friends have told me and from what I have read, once your dog has adapted to a raw diet, you can start varying their meals. You can use organ meat, eggs, fish etc for some meals which would bring down the cost further.

So really the cost of feeding raw shouldn't be a factor that prevents you from switching your dog to raw. I'll be honest and say I am not sure if I will stick through with it for the long term. It will really depend on how well the kids are doing on a raw diet but if I quit it certainly will not be because of the cost.

I am hoping that my observations etc will be useful to those of you, who like me, are apprehensive about feeding raw.