Farmore Frozen Raw?

[Lauren Frisbie]

Hey guys! It's been awhile! I'm back with some questions, lol. I have Whiskey, a 9 month old Silky Terrier. He weighs 4 pounds(i know wayyyyy under breed standard.) Anyways, he's been on Merrick for a couple months now, but I'm getting ready to switch to the Farmore raw frozen diet. My two questions are:

1. The raw food comes in 1 lb. "chubs," the chubs are kind of like tubes of ground beef. He will only need to eat about 1/4 c. of the food per day, which means that one chub will last eight days. So, if I can't unfreeze the chubs and they only last for 2 days in my fridge how do I seperate out the portions? I've tried sawing it while it's frozen already, but it's extremely difficult and I really don't want to have to do that EVERY time I get food. I read on another site(it was a raw frozen food that came in tubes, can't remember the name) that thawing once and seperating it out won't kill the animal. Is this ok to do? Or even semi-thawing, just so it's easier to cut?

2. Can I feed it to my 6 week old kitten? The distributor told me I could, but I wanna be sure before I do. I thought that dogs and cats need different veggie/meat ratios?

Any help is greatly appreciated!!! Thanks, ~Lauren

[Missy Stewart]

Hi Lauren :D

I buy my JRT Sonny's raw in 5 lb chubs (and since he weighs only 15 pounds) I have to cut it up and freeze it. Now I buy anywhere from 50-100 lbs at a time and just feed off of it for months, so my situation sounds a bit different.

One of the best investments that I have made in feeding raw has been in one of the Food Saver vacume packing systems. When I get his food I let it thaw out just enough to cut with a good sharp hit from a hand-held meat cleaver (I bought this at bed/bath and beyond). Once it is cut, I vacume seal it and stick it in his freezer. The vacume sealing is great if you ever want to buy anything in bulk b/c it completely prevents freezer burn.

Now if you are really only buying 5 lbs at a time... you could use a good freezer bag. Now I have found that anything in the freezer over a month with freezer bags does start showing signs of freezer burn. So I personally don't like to use this as a long term option.

Like I mentioned earlier, thawing it a little is ok. You want the meat to still feel very cold and somewhat icy. Also I will usually keep the meat for 3-4 days in my fridge before I throw it out. Now I'm not using this as a reason to be careless, but dogs do have VERY short acidic digestive tracts that are made for combating the bacteria in raw foods. Honestly, feeding meat that has been in your fridge for 3 or 4 days is not going to hurt anything. Just keep it well wrapped and in an air-tight container. The reason for this is that sometimes there are meals that Sonny wants to skip... and keeping it an extra day is often better than wasteing it and throwing it out (this would get VERY expensive).
Also, if you really think about it, dogs will find the most disgusting sun-baked carcasses outside that for whatever reason drive them crazy, and grossly enough, rarely make them sick. Imagine if you ate something like that... you would be puking for days!!! :shock: The dogs digestive system is completely different!!!

Also, about your cat. From what I have read, cats need a higher meat concentration in their foods than dogs do. I know that some of the raw-food companies (I think Amore is one of them) have seperate diets for cats b/c of this. If I were you I would check into it a little more. Now I have never fed Farmore, so I am really not familiar with what is in it, but if it contains grains, I would certainly consider that somewhat innapropriate for a cat. But that is just my take on it ;)

[Grace Erick]

Lauren,

That distributer was lying. Cats and dogs have different food needs and one has to do with the amount of ash is in the food amongst other things.

If you plan to use this food all the time, I don't know if it will be worthwhile to invest in one of those machines that takes the air out of the freezer bag so you don't get freezer burn. That is what my husband's fishermen friend's do. They catch all their fish in the summer and store it in a second freezer for the winter.

Regular bags get frost in them and freezer burn right away.

I posted a topic about how long the shelf life is of opened canned food and it's only 3 days. Four may be okay too, but I think they want to play it safe, but I don't know if the raw food has any preservatives at all, so 3 days is probably best.

Bye, Grace

[Lauren Frisbie]

Ok, my main concern was if I can thaw it to cut it. I tried to cut it completely frozen and about killed myself doing it. Now I know I can thaw it a little bit. We do have something like a vacuum sealer thing, I will try to find it and use that. Do you cut it up into single size servings Missy? In my opinion, that would be easiest. Well, I e-mailed the company and they said that by law they have to tell me that Farmore is not formulated for cats, but kibble cat food, even the premium, is about 50-60% meat and Farmore is 78% meat. She said I could feed it, but that cats do need taurine. So should I not try to feed it at all or ask my vet or just add taurine? If I am supposed to add taurine, where do I get it? Thanks so much for the help, Lauren

[Grace Erick]

Lauren,

I read that **** Van Patten's Natural Balance has taurine in it which they say is good for bigger dogs, though I see it in Chihuahua food also. I did look up taurine and saw that dogs make it on their own, so unless your dog is not producing it for some reason, they don't need more of it in their food, but Natural Balance says otherwise.

There is so much info out there circulating about "this" and "that", I don't know if extra taurine is necessary or not. NB says extra taurine is good for cardiovascular health.

Here is the link to their page discussing taurine in their food:

http://www.naturalbalancein c.com/home/health.html

Bye, Grace

[Missy Stewart]

Hi again!!

With the volume of meat that I buy, I would spend hunderds of dollars on Food Saver bags if I were to vacume seal meal size portions. Like I said before, I usually buy anywhere from 50-100 lbs at a time, so when I vacume seal it... I'll usually do 1-1.5 lbs per bag. If you have never used a vacume packer, you have to take into consideration the price of the bags. They are about $10.00 a box (at the cheapest), and do not go very far. Sonny will go through a bag in approx. 3 days. In the past year, I have had no problems with the meat spoiling, so I have really had no reason to change it.

Now I also feed whole prey items, and these are the ones that I have to worry about more!! Not really about keeping them in my fridge, but more so him "burrying" them when I am not looking!!! There have been times when I have seen him pull out a piece of petrified meat from the corner of my closet only to take off a million miles an hour, chomping it down before I can get it away from him! :shock: YUCK!!! Moral of the story! Keep an eye on your dog while he is eating!!!!

[Missy Stewart]

Honestly, if you are really serious about trying raw feeding, I would join the raw feeding forum/group. It contains lots of really valuable info on raw feeding, and has a lot of really knowledgable people. I would reccomend joining, and just reading what a lof of the members have to say. There are literally thousands of posts that answer a lot of common questions.

Here is the only catch. These are DIE HARD raw feeders! And many of them are VERY opinionated. So sometimes until you have made up your mind, it is best to stay silent and read up first :wink: Here is the link if you are interested. If it does not work, just let me know. The reason I am giving you this is b/c there are many ways of doing raw outside of "pre-packaged" frozen versions that you find in your pet store. If you are serious about doing this, I would really suggest that you look into all apsects of it!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding/

I have also done a lot of research on raw feeding, so if you want my e-mail address where we can talk more, just let me know. The idea of raw feeding really freaks out a lot of people... and for the most part, I try not to dig into a lot of detail on it on "general" dog forums. It typically stirs up more controversey than it is worth ;)

Anyways, good luck to you! And if you are feeling brave, sign up for the raw feeding forum! ;) I'm also a member over there, and it is really a more suitable site for discussing raw feeding in detail.

Good luck :-D

[Lauren Frisbie]

Grace, I was talking about taurine for my cat. That's what the Farmore lady said that the cat would need if I fed Farmore to her, lol, sorry I wasn't more clear on that. Missy, yes, we have a FoodSaver that I dug out of the garage, lol. And yes, the bags are quite expensive, however, they are washable and Whiskey would only eat about 1/4c daily so for me it's more of an option. I did join the raw group and my membership is pending. I would most certainly like your e-mail to talk more in depth with you. I too think it's funny that people think feeding raw is so weird. I work at PetsMart and I told my friends there that I am switching to raw and almost all of them have never even heard of that! I was like what?!?!?! You don't what BARF is? They were like "eeeewwww raw meat???" Lol, it was funny. Anyways, thanks for all the help, I love this site! ~Lauren

[Missy Stewart]

I pm'd you my e-mail address :-D