The Art of Natural Dressage

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 11:46 am 
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oh Karen I forgot to answer your question. No I do not feed my cats anything other then raw meat(with bone), bio milk and bio eggs, fish and some table left overs.
I do add verm-x which will probably result in extra vitamins and minerals and I give them some curcuma or garlic now and then.

I used to give them cranberrie powder when they still had problems with their bladder and kidney due to the kibble I fed before. I have done that for a year I think, but they obviously do not need it anymore. Also I gave them a drinkwell which they love.
http://www.equihof.be/catalog/index.php ... anguage=en
I fill the basin with mineral stones and an aqua garden.

I should also say that I always have fresh herbs in a pot in the kitchen like basil, mint and rosemary on which they sometimes chew.
But then our critters are not allowed outside because of the road, evil farmers and other wacko's who would harm my poor babies... my poor mother heart can't take that. :ieks:
The number of cat bodies we find outside... :ieks: :sad:

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 4:04 pm 
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Thank you Josepha!

I will look into growing some greens for our Chance!

At the moment I am feeding her prepared raw foods, which are readily available here. It has some egg in it already, so that part of things is looked after. Her peeing is less already (she was drinking constantly and peeing so much!), and she is quick to tell me when she wants more food (she's very annoying and yowls loudly :funny: ). She was free fed before, but I don't want to do that with the raw food. If she has too much leftover after a meal - if she doesn't eat it right away, then it dries in the dish and she won't touch it. So for now she is fed small amounts 3 - 4 times a day. Rio is very jealous because he is only fed twice a day and the thinks Chance has the better deal.

I haven't convinced her to eat any small fish so that she might get a little bone in her diet, but I will keep trying.

All in all, both Rio and Chance are doing very, very well on the raw food!

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 7:12 pm 

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So here is my experience with feeding raw chicken drumsticks last night for the first time. Until now we had been feeding lots of raw meat but never the size bone that they could eat.
It was a little scary for me to see our older whippet crack the bone which splintered into pretty very sharp parts and she swallowed part of it and the other part I removed. This morning she through up the bone. So I'm wondering if chicken drumsticks are such a good idea. I'm now considering chicken or turkey necks, chicken feet for the bone part of the diet. Rabbits and ducks are pets in our house so no using them for pet food for sure. If it has a name noone gets to eat it.
The other difficult part is that feeding whole meat and bones rather than ground-up from a bowl leaves the kitchen floor a complete mess and I definitely don't want to wash it daily. :funny:
So I'm considering feeding raw bones only once a week whole and let them eat one after the other in a crate. The rest of the week they either get just meat or some ground meat and bones.
I'm not sure yet about the supplement question yet, either. I'm thinking buying a pet multi-vitamin probably couldn't hurt for animals that don't get any kibble.

Birgit


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 7:36 pm 
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That sounds like the best idea :) and poultry necks are really safe no doubt about that :)

Mostly natural de-wormers have all the healthy extras needed. Chemical vitamins really don't do anything other then polute the system as far as I've learned.
Maybe see if something like verm-x or any other source of natural vitamins is available near you?


http://www.verm-xusa.com/

http://www.onlynaturalpet.com/

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 9:41 pm 

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Josepha,
I tought you might have a good answer. Thanks so much. I'll look at the links. :) :kiss:

Birgit


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 9:50 pm 
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:blush: you're welcome Birgit :) it is just that I have been busy with this stuff for over 5 years now so...

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 5:03 am 

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We made some progress in our homemade food plans.
We bought 20 lbs. of chicken necks, which, after some of the skin is removed, should yield about 16 lbs. at the cost of less than $1.00/pound. These are not from organic or even pasture- raised animals because those are all bought up by the organic dog food manufacturers. :sad:
The price for a 25 lb bag of "Organix" kibble is about $60.00. If we buy some beef or organ meats at about $2.00/pound and organic grains like rolled oats, rolled barley at about $45.00/ 50 lb. bag, and then various small amounts of dairy and a few veggies we will not spend any more money then on the organic kibble. I have to get used to taking meat out of the freezer and cooking rolled grains in the morning but I think once I'm in the habit it won't take very long to prepare dog food. I hope to follow up with feeding cats raw meat soon, too, but of course they all hunt some of their own. :)
For those animals that have trouble with chewing up raw bones, we bought an electric meat grinder that is also able to handle poultry bones.
We will keep a bag of high-quality kibble on hand for emergencies.

Birgit


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 9:11 am 
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Oh I am so happy to read it and I think you are such an inspiration to all of us, the efford you go through.
Your carnivores are one happy lot!

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 9:49 pm 

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Thanks Josepha, it's a learning curve for sure. I'll share a bit how our progress is over the next couple of days.
This morning we had our first homecooked breakfast: brown rice with raw organic egg and a small amount of organic yoghurt and cream and some ground up eggshell for calcium. Everyone loved it. :) Feeding took me almost an hour but that is to be expected until I get more into a routine.
Tonight they will get beef with a very small amount of greens added (a friend donated about 50 lbs. of beef that was slightly older from their freezer). We are looking into buying some grass-fed beef from an older cow or bull that will not make good steaks for people and is less expensive.
Today I'll research where I can get some organ meats (heart, liver) and some fish (possibly will have to be canned mackerel, sardines or tuna) for a reasonable price.
Amounts we are feeding for raw meat approx. (based on our ability to afford it):
15 lb. dog 4 oz./day
30 lb. dog 6 oz./day
45- 70 lb. dog 8 oz./day
This is only in part determined by weight of dog, the other factor is whether they are easy keepers, body fat, body type etc.
If we fed meat and bones and animal products only we would have to roughly double the amounts.

Thanks again for all the good info.
I have joined a yahoo group on raw feeding but haven't had a chance to do any reading there yet.
We may have one fasting day for the dogs with a slower metabolism.

Birgit


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 7:58 am 

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We ended up doubling the amounts of meat and that was a little too much. It could be the amount of fat on the meat was too much. More fine-tuning needed. Dogs are ravenous for meat but even more for fish once a week. Today I forced them to slow down by throwing them one small piece at a time. They all remembered how to sit and lie down on command very quickly this way. :D
When we are short with time we still feed some of the organix kibble and they love that, too.
The meat grinder has been used only once so far. It works fine but it takes a while to clean.

Birgit


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 8:24 am 
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Quote:
Today I'll research where I can get some organ meats (heart, liver) and some fish (possibly will have to be canned mackerel, sardines or tuna) for a reasonable price.


I had a lovely chat with the fellow that makes the raw food that I buy for Rio and my cat. I needed to get some information from him on percentages of various ingredients so that I can discuss with the vet how to balance Rio's Ch'i through diet and supplements.

Anyway, while talking to him, he reminded me that both the heart and the lungs are really muscles. In his mind, they should not be classed as "organs" in the same way as liver and kidney and spleen, etc. Also, the lungs and heart (like other muscles in the body) may contain fat and that fat should be calculated into the percentage of overall fat in the diet.

He's fascinating (this butcher) and so much of what he says goes right over my head, but I hope that after more conversations in the future, I will understand more.

He just started offering horse meat though. :sad: I'm not sure how I feel about that. A little sad, but a little hypocritical as the beef I buy for Rio was likely not put to death in any way nicer than the fate of those horses. At any rate, I didn't buy any because my emotions are very mixed on it. I don't know that I ever could buy it.

I don't have a means to buy organic, grass fed (and perhaps more humanely handled at butchering time) beef for Rio as yet. Maybe one day, but for now it's more than I could possibly afford on a regular basis.

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 10:59 am 
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Quote:
Anyway, while talking to him, he reminded me that both the heart and the lungs are really muscles. In his mind, they should not be classed as "organs" in the same way as liver and kidney and spleen, etc. Also, the lungs and heart (like other muscles in the body) may contain fat and that fat should be calculated into the percentage of overall fat in the diet.


Yes, I soooo forgot to mention that! :roll: :funny:


Quote:
He just started offering horse meat though. I'm not sure how I feel about that. A little sad, but a little hypocritical as the beef I buy for Rio was likely not put to death in any way nicer than the fate of those horses. At any rate, I didn't buy any because my emotions are very mixed on it. I don't know that I ever could buy it.


Indeed it is and it caused me to become a vegetarian now, I believe over 8 years ago.

I am still strugling with the fact that in the future, when all humans have become vegetarians... what will we give our cats and dogs? Ralph thinks that the meat replacers then will be even good enough for our domestic carnivores. Let's hope so :)
I have to say, they already love the meat replacers we eat now, but I dare not let them eat that as main food. They just get it if we have left overs or treats from the table...

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PostPosted: Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:11 pm 
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Indeed it is and it caused me to become a vegetarian now


I may end up a vegetarian myself, but like you, would not expect my house predators to do so as well.

Over the last month I have been eating very differently, loads of fruit and veggies of all kinds, nothing processed, nothing with added sugar (if I need something sweetened slightly I use stevia). I am learning to enjoy the natural flavors of food but at the same time I'm now experimenting with veggies I've never eaten and different ways of cooking using herbs and spices to flavor things (rather than sugar, salt and fat). In the last 3.5 weeks I've lost 12 pounds (happy me!). I am still eating meat...mostly chicken and fish, but for instance I made a chicken and vegetable soup for myself and only ate a few bites of the chicken and gave the rest of the meat to Rio. My body is craving the vegetables. In time I will be more educated in how to utilize beans and legumes, etc for some of my protein. I will still eat eggs and dairy. I really like eggs and I adore cheeses and cottage cheese and yogurt. So maybe one day I will become a lacto ovo (?) type of vegetarian...with an occasional indulgence in seafood...anyway...I'm off topic now. :funny: :funny: :funny: but starting Rio on raw got me thinking very differently about my own diet as well, so it's changing too.

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:07 am 

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Karen,
congratulations on all your positive changes! :applause: :applause:
I still have fun trying out new foods, especially veggies and grains. My latest favorites are root vegetables that are baked in a healthy fat like olive oil or coconutoil and flavored with turmeric, paprika and garlic, yum.
Concerning the beans, I put all the same herbs and spices in bean dishes that I used to put in meat dishes. I often add some veggies and often add tomato sauce and garlic. For me low-cal does not work well anyhow, I do better with a higher fat, lower-carb diet so I usually add a healthy kind of fat to my bean stews and I find it adds a lot more flavor. We have made many different kinds of chili with different types of beans and lentils, usually starting with dry beans and letting them soak for 4-8 hours.
Thanks for pointing out that heart is not an organ, I was wondering about that. I know that it is more beneficial than other muscle meat but can't remember why. I also heard that of the organ meats liver is the most beneficial. I have to do so much more research on all this.
I found a store brand canned Alaskan Pink (Chum or dog) salmon in a one pound can at a reasonable price for the weekly fish dinner for the dogs. It has some skin and bones in it which is great in this case.
I've struggled with the horse meat issue. Horse slaughter is not allowed in the US for human consumption any more so all the horses get shipped to Canada or Mexico for slaughter. If horses have to be put down and they don't have infectious diseases I actually wish they could be put down humanely without drugs so that the meat could be used rather than getting wasted. I sure wouldn't want to watch the butchering though.
I guess I put enough different topics in this post that it's impossible to put it where it belongs. :funny: :funny:

Birgit


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:21 am 
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I would like to start a recipe sharing thread. :yes: I will do it in the Lifestyle section! This will help keep me from totally derailing this thread. :funny:

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