Dog Food Advisor Forums Michael H

Michael H

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  • in reply to: Big Dog Natural freeze dried #64204 Report Abuse
    Michael H
    Member

    My dogs like all the flavors, seem to be a little ill after eating the fish though. I won’t buy that protein again.

    My biggest irk currently is that I needed to cancel out the autoship since my family will be travelling soon, and they retroactively charged me back the 10% benefit of doing the autoship. Not cool.

    in reply to: Reel Raw #62996 Report Abuse
    Michael H
    Member

    I’ve had no problems with my orders from RR thus far. As for holes being in bags, frozen chunked meats make for sharp edges, and even if they are frozen from raw within the bag, it will still expand and can cause perforation. Treat it like any raw meat being defrosted-put in a ziploc bag and/or on a container/plate to catch any drippings. Same for grocery store meats-I change bags even for water defrosting, as you don’t know who or how many people have handled the bags in transit to your home.

    I’ve not ordered bulk meats, just the variety ultimate combos (one with RMB’s, one with ground in as my older dog is a gulper and keeps trying to choke on any rmb he gets), and all have been fine in the meat to fat/skin ratio.

    in reply to: Big Dog Natural freeze dried #58727 Report Abuse
    Michael H
    Member

    To DogFoodie:

    For kibble he’s on Orijen 6-Fish, as that is the main one he can have without the presence of an allergenic ingredient, and does fine, so unless it’s some very strange fish BDN uses, he tolerates it fine. Bassets are prone to yeast as it is-for him, it’s always on the undercarriage, where he lies on it all day with no air circulation. I wanted to move onto freeze dried foods as I haven’t come across a canned food that I like, and all kibbles have too high of carbs, and I want to keep his down as much as possible. I can’t afford raw for all meals for both dogs, so trying to do 1 meal of raw, 1 of another food a day. Ordered BDN and reel raw on the same day, BDN came in 2 days, still waiting until 12/5 for my raw stuff, so I tried the 2/day of BDN to see how they do on it. They love it and my other dog is doing great, I just don’t know why this happened, pretty upset.

    in reply to: Big Dog Natural freeze dried #58721 Report Abuse
    Michael H
    Member

    My 2 dogs like BDN too, however we just got back from a $400 emergency vet visit from our 8yo Basset having a “fever of unknown origin”. The only change he has had has been with this food over the last week (tripe and fish). His fever is getting better, but it got up to 105, which is scary. I’m really hoping it’s coincidental, as it’s been very hard to find food he’s not allergic to. I put in an order to reel raw but it won’t arrive until 12/5. He does OK on Orijen kibble, but still has yeast issues with it. Our other dog is doing fine on BDN, the only thing being she seems to still be hungry after even giving a little more of the recommended feeding amount, but she is younger and more active-our hound sleeps at least 14 hours a day, so we keep him as trim as possible.

    I for some reason thought BDN was freeze dried too, not this 24 hour 100d air dried process…that screams unsafe to me. I know for people you have to follow the “Danger Zone” rules of 40-140d F.

    http://www.fsis.usda.gov/shared/PDF/Danger_Zone.pdf

    Considering trying the freeze dried Orijen instead if this caused the issue-anyone like their freeze dried foods?

    Michael H
    Member

    Tried some heart with the cat, warmed it in a 100d water bath (I have a sous vide controller I use with a crock pot), she ate about an ounce, so maybe there’s hope. From a feeding calculator it says she may need 6-8oz raw food a day, but I’m assuming the heart is very rich.

    Still a little confused on all the portions of the ‘meaty meats’, rmb, and organs, especially if I feed the 1 meal of it. I see that the ratio is 80 meat/10 bone/10 organs (half liver), thought I’m unsure how ‘meaty’ the rmb needs to be, or if it’s more so just about the bone calcium to match phosphorous, and the potential teeth cleaning. From the calculators I’ve found, seems my dogs (both averaging 43lb, somehow) @ 2% would be nearly 100oz of raw food a week, if fed only raw. So, 80oz meat, 10oz bone, 5oz liver, 5 oz other organs, roughly, and half those amounts if I feed FD for dinner.

    To get the correct oz of bone, am I supposed to guess how much of the rmb is bone vs meat? Or do I just weigh the rmb pieces and feed 10oz a week of them? For example, a chicken thigh seems to be more meat to bone than eating a chicken wing. (I’m probably looking way too hard into this :-).

    So far for the freeze dried meals I’m liking either Big Dog Natural, K9 Natural (New Zealand stuff), or maybe Orijen, since Bernie has done better on their kibble…though gassy. I’m not all convinced the extra stuff in Orijen justifies the price-“chicory root, dandelion root, summer savory, peppermint leaf*, ginger root*”. Looks like a lot of marketing fluff. BDN looks good from the fermented veggies and tripe, though the cod liver oil is a concern…I’ve taken that myself and OD’d on Vitamin A, corner of my mouth cracked open, so painful. Not sure what other FD foods may be good. Suggestions?

    Thanks for all the help!

    PS Thanks for mentioning Hare Today and MPC. I’ll keep MPC in mind for next month-they have a stop pretty close to me, but I’m past the day to order until next month it seems, drat! HT’s shipping seems a little much, so I’ll need to crunch some numbers. That’s the worst part, pricing everything out to see what’s the best deal.

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by Michael H.
    in reply to: Reel Raw #57782 Report Abuse
    Michael H
    Member

    I’m interested in ordering from them, mainly due to stating that all the meats are pastured, and the variety. Also, it seems like an option for our cat, since the grinds all seem to have heart in them, save for the tripe-which is also being a challenge to procure as far as affordability is concerned. Though I still read to avoid grinds for cats, even with heart in them, as the bacteria can consume the taurine. Urgh!

    Michael H
    Member

    Visited the butcher today. I found I can get beef heart at 2.29/lb from the butcher, so I may end up going there weekly for some and maybe grind it in with another meat myself. I have a gimpy grinder that can do meat, not bone though. They do bone in grinding, but can’t offer it until deer season is over. Wish they had any pastured/grassfed meats, but at least its promised they don’t use sodium/broth injected items.

    They also had frozen cows brain there! Not sure if they’d go for that, haha.

    So from them I found I have access to:
    Organs-beef heart/liver/brain, chicken liver/unsure of hearts/gizzards(is this meaty or organ?), possibly spleen I think if they can order it.

    RMB-bone in chicken parts, turkey necks/wings, assorted ribs. Other necks, trachea, chicken feet, etc. are still hard to find. Bernie is a gulper so I’m not sure what size to even use-too small and no chewing action, too big and he may choke on it. Zuli is a gnawer and has great teeth already, 3yo and never needed a dental.

    I forgot to mention that between us boarding guest dogs from our home, and another cat present from my sister in law who lives with us, I may just be able to raw feed for the first meal of the day, while everyone else is put away. Either that, or have RMB meals in the morning, since I’m assuming they’ll take a while to chow down and everyone else will go nuts if they sense what’s going on.

    Do you think my ‘bases’ may be covered if I did raw in the AM and a good freeze dried in the PM?

    in reply to: My allergic-to-life Basset Hound #57698 Report Abuse
    Michael H
    Member

    Thanks for all the input everyone! Right now I’m mostly considering raw, but that in itself is a deep rabbit hole to go down. I’m going to make a post specifically about my questions on that in that forum.

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)