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Old 23-04-2010, 19:40   #24
yukidomari
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Location: Los Angeles CA
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Mikael, if you lived closer, we could swap meats. I need some deer/venison. I can trade you for fur-on whole rabbit, feathered quail, beef, lamb or pork.

There is some balancing involved for 100% raw, but the general rule of thumb is meat/bone/organ in the ratio of 80/10/10, half of the organ being liver, the other half another secreting organ like thymus, kidney or brain (roughly emulates a whole animal).. and roughly half of the meat being red meat for the myoglobin content. It's not a hard rule.. think about how you feed yourself, it's like that.

Certainly not everyone picks raw but just to put this out there in regards to raw not being appropriate, not being proven, etc, there is certainly commercial raw in the states now that has passed AAFCO standards as being complete & balanced, same standards as for dry pet foods.. for all the pet parents who are concerned about it not being balanced. (Nature's Variety, Stella & Chewy, Honest Kitchen, Ziwipeak et al). Course, these companies also jack up the price.. Ziwipeak is about $22 for I believe 3lbs.

Many friends have eased into do-it-yourself raw through the use of the above - we did.

I am also pro-kibble if a person chooses to do kibble. But, at the very least I will never use a kibble that uses ethoxiquin as a chemical preserver, or menadione (synthetic K3).. both substances severely limited in human foods for toxicity but for some reason widely used in pet foods.

And a last bit.. high protein foods like EVO or Orijen have dry-matter meat percentage of ~40%. While this seems high, in reality if this food had the same ratio of water as raw meat, it would be equivalent in protein ratio. This is the same reason why balanced wet dog foods usually have about 7% - 10% protein content, because of the water weight, yet a dry dog food with 7% to 10% protein content would not pass AAFCO standards.
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