I've been feeding him about 1lb a day (which is 2% of his body weight) and he's doing fabulously. He gets a turkey back or neck (plenty of calcium, fat, and protein), a little bit of organ meat, and a healthy scoop of canned pumpkin every morning. It is less work-intensive for me to feed him once a day and he hasn't seemed to care. He seems to really enjoy eating it and his digestion has been great. The turkey seems to be an improvement on the raw chicken he was eating before, as that gave him the runs. The pumpkin is also providing the fiber that he needs. And it has the hilarious side effect of making his poo bright orange... makes it easier to spot in the yard for pickup, I suppose. Haha. I also sprinkle brewer's yeast on his food once every few days. I haven't experimented with blended leafy greens (which are supposed to represent the stomach contents of herbivores) yet but I might give that a try next time I go to the store. The butcher raw feeds his dogs (six Aussies!) and recommended raw oats, too, but I haven't looked that up yet to see if it's a good idea.
All the meat and pumpkin cost about $25 and has lasted about a week and I think I have about another week still in the freezer to feed him. So, pretty cost effective, if slightly more expensive than the kibble I was feeding him, but the kibble wasn't an awesome quality anyway.
I've been following the rawdogs community but I thought it would be ok to post this here :D
This picture is the night I got him. He was probably about 5-6 months old. I keep looking at this thinking about how teensy he was! He weighed about 32 pounds the day I got him, and is now pushing 50.
We're having the beginnings of sunny weather and Boone is enjoying it, obviously :)
However, it's still rainy enough here to make the dogparks a complete mud pit. Here he is with his English Pointer sister, Grendel, looking upset at being put in the back of the Subaru.
After I do his eye ointment for his eye infection, he looks like he's been crying. This photo makes him look like a big ball of emotion! Haha.
My roommate recently got a cat and Boone is really into him. The cat isn't so sure. He's in the bathroom sink, haha. Boone has also been making introductions with my pet rat, which are going swimmingly. Boone is so clumsy that he isn't really allowed to play with the rat, but he tries. He play bows to him and acts like the rat is a dog! And we recently got baby chicks so I'm hoping that he'll be ok with them once they're older...maybe even learn a bit of non-professional poultry herding! Haha.