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Switching a Senior to Raw
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I have fed Jaeger a raw diet now for almost a year and I have nothing but good things to say about it. He is 2 and looks amazing. With my boyfriend moving home, he has decided to start feeding his almost 9 yr old weim a raw diet as well. I will be prepping her food for the next month here when I do Jaeger’s in a couple weeks. I’ve already ordered the meat-it’s kind of strange ordering twice the amount of meat in 1 go (almost 200lbs)! I have been doing a little research on supplements to add in for a senior and what not so I’m good there. My only question is, have any of you switched to raw when your dog was a senior? Should I transition her slowly or go cold turkey (no pun intended, LOL). What supplements have you added?
-Steph & Jaeger
I don’t have any helpful advice for switching seniors over, but I would think you could go cold turkey like with younger dogs? Hopefully someone with a senior dog can chime in! If not, there are some raw feeding forums that could be helpful! What supplements do you have Jaeger on right now? I want to make sure I have all my bases covered 🙂
I don’t have Jaeger on any supplements. The only thing I really add is fish oil to each meal because we don’t feed a lot of fish. I mostly do chicken, beef and organs with eggs, yogurt, ACV, and a very small amount of fruit/veggies. Since its nice out now, I throw him a beef trachea, gullet or turkey neck to chew on outside from time to time to clean his teeth and because its a great source of glucosamine for those joints!
-Steph & Jaeger
After spending most the day online, I found out that most people switched right to raw with seniors and didn’t have an issue. Obviously sticking to 1 protein for the first couple weeks is key, like any newbie.
-Steph & Jaeger
Perfect! That sounds like what I do. I add fish oil as well, but have seen people adding more supplements. The majority of what I have read makes it seem unnecessary, but I trust weim people the most 😉 Glad you found the info you needed for Lady! I’m sure she is going to love her new diet!
I hope so! I gave her some liver, heart and gizzards this morning as a treat to see how she would do and she gulped to down! Haha.
-Steph & Jaeger
We have switched 3 senior rescues to raw cold turkey without any problems. Only thing I do is give the newby only 1 kind of raw to see how they react (in case they are allergic to something). Our base food is beef, then I add in the poultry a few days later, then fish a few days later, then green tripe. They won’t have any long term damage if they don’t get a very balanced diet for 1 or 2 weeks while I am making sure all goes well.
I add salmon/fish/some other stuff oil to the evening meal and glucosamine to the morning meal.
Edit: some people also add veggies to the mix. I did green beans as a filler to get Seamus’ weight down but haven’t found any hard evidence that veggies are needed (other than the weekly green tripe). However, with Amos’ rumbling tummy I would love to hear if someone has found research on feeding veggies.
Thanks for the input!!! The only veggies I do are a little sweet potato and broccoli or carrots along with either apples or blue berries. I puree and mix these with yogurt, eggs, ACV, and a little honey. I call it my veggie blend. This whole mix only makes up about 5% of the diet. The rest is RMB, muscle, green tripe and organ meat (with 5% being liver alone). I have about 6lbs of beef cuts I ground up in my freezer that I have left over from my last prep. I’m going to start her on that I think for a week or so. She is a bit of a pig (not overweight, she just eats anything and is usually fine with it) so I’m not really that worried of any negative effects. Then I’ll add in the chicken and organs and veggie blend over the next week.
As far as feeding veggies, I feed them but I don’t make it a huge part of the diet. Some places I read they say to add it and some places I read say it isn’t necessary because if you are feeding a wide variety of organ meats, they should be getting enough vitamins from that. It’s really a personal choice, I suppose. I follow the BARF diet and that says to make veggie/fruit 15% of their diet. I don’t think that much is necessary, which is why I only do about 5%.
-Steph & Jaeger
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