Raw feeding involves feeding domestic animals like dogs and cats diets composed of majorly uncooked meat, edible bones, and organs. The ingredients used in making natural foods for domestic animals vary in composition; some pet owners make their homemade diets while others purchase from retail stores.
Most dog owners have personal reasons for feeding primal dog food to their dogs, from health benefits, beliefs, nutrition, etc.; no matter the reason for providing your pet raw foods, it’s necessary that you serve the food in the best possible way.
As pet owners, you’re tasked with adequately feeding your pets. If you choose to provide your dogs with primal raw dog foods, you’ll have to serve them properly to avoid safety hazards.
Whether you purchase the food from a retail store or choose a DIY option for homemade diets, you’ll ultimately have to serve the food to your dogs. If you’re searching for the best way to do primal raw food to your dogs, here are the seven most effective ways.
1. Safe Handling
Before you start preparing your pet’s food, you need to ensure that everything you’re going to need is ready and stored in a safe and accessible location. For example, meats and poultry should be stored in separate locations to avoid mixups during food preparation.
You also want to ensure that raw meat and poultry are stored far beyond the reach of children unless you might just casually run into your little kids stuffing them into their mouths.
2. Sanitize Your Kitchen
When cooking for yourself or your family, you usually sanitize all your cooking utensils, and you make sure all your cooking surfaces are adequately cleaned – the same goes for your pet. Just because dogs get dirty often doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sanitize your kitchen before preparing their food; remember, they’re also vulnerable to germs.
If you’re making your food on a countertop, you can clean it with a little bleach or water mixture; you can use sweet-scented oils to eradicate the smell of the bleach after cleaning. You can also use disinfecting wipes to facilitate quick clean-up after preparing the food.
3. Make Room in your Freezer
Your freezer is home to most of the food you’d like to store over a long period for later cooking, like steaks or chicken breasts. Likewise, you should also keep your pet’s food in the freezer.
Once you finish preparing your pet’s food, it’s always a good idea to keep them frozen until you’re ready to serve them to your pet. However, when serving frozen primal raw foods to your dogs, ensure that it’s fully thawed; if not, your pet will have difficulty digesting the food.
Rehydrated frozen dog food will remain fresh for about five days under refrigeration.
4. Feeding Ration
After preparing the food, you now have to decide how much of it you’ll have to serve to your pet. The amount of food you give to your pets depends on their age, size, health conditions, level of activity, and many other factors.
To determine the precise amount to feed your pets, consult your vet for detailed specifications. Generally, if you’re feeding your pets three times daily, divide the ration for the day into three, and you should be good to go.
5. Refrigerate Dried Balanced Bases
If you’re using dried freeze-dried foods, you should store them in a cool and dry environment to preserve the nutrients. When you’re rehydrating the food, you can use warm water or goat milk to maximize the number of nutrients in the food.
Incorporating a hydration agent like water or raw goat milk helps ensure maximum nutrient absorption.
6. Add a Snack
Aside from feeding your pets their traditional ration, you can complement it with a bit of a snack. Recreational bones are among the most popular snacks for dogs; they help keep your pet’s teeth healthy and serve as a tasty reward after a hectic training session.
Recreational bones can be served directly from the freezer but work best serving them outdoors. If you serve your pets raw bones, ensure that you place them on a surface that can be cleaned easily.
7. Clean Up
After feeding your dogs a well-prepared meal, it’s time to clean up. It would be best to always clean your pet bowls after feeding your pets. If you fail to clean it regularly, germs and bacteria will gradually start living on the bowls and contaminate your pet’s food.
After feeding your pets, wash their bowls and other feeding items with warm soapy water. To help you streamline the cleaning process, feed your pets with steel or glass bowls instead of rubber or plastic because steel yields easily to a cleaning agent.
You can also use wipes or disinfectants to help you clean faster.
Conclusion
Feeding primal raw food to dogs is not a difficult task; however, you might not have been doing it optimally. Luckily, this article has provided you with quick, easy-to-use steps to start using immediately when next you feed your pets.
References
1. Dangers of feeding pets human foods
Dangers of Feeding Pets Human Food
2. How to defrost your pets food properly
