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Cooking premade raw - is it safe?

1K views 6 replies 6 participants last post by  Inga 
#1 ·
I ordered a bunch of ground raw for Oliver from my local raw feeding group. He's really picky and I have a bunch of stuff he doesn't want to eat (yes I could tough love him but I don't see the need). I was thinking about cooking it off and giving it to my parent's dogs, mixed with their kibble, but it has bone in it. Even though it's ground and I can't feel any bone, it just feels like ground meat, I'm wary. The bone content is about 8-10%. Is it safe to cook ground meat that has bone in it and then feed it? I would give them it raw but since they aren't going to be fully switching it doesn't make sense to upset their systems like that, when they are used to getting cooked foods already.
 
#2 ·
I haven't had any problems feeding raw and kibble and a lot of dogs are fine with it. Unless they have known sensitive stomachs, they're likely to be fine with having raw as one meal of the day and kibble as another or mixed (I prefer separate meals just for simplifying serving it up)
 
#3 ·
The way I see it, if a dog can handle eating another mammals poop, followed by freshly cut grass, followed by a taco they found near a dumpster, they can handle a little raw or cooked meat with some bone in it.
 
#5 ·
The concern around cooked bones is for whole or large pieces of bone. Once cooked they easily splinter and can do lots of damage to the digestive tract. Ground bone in commercial raw is not going to do any damage because the pieces are small enough to pass through without a problem.

That said, cooking commercial raw will ruin the nutritional profile of the food. If it's just for a few weeks and being fed along with kibble, I wouldn't worry about it. Just keep it to 25% or less of the diet.

But I really don't see any reason to cook it...feed it raw. Start off slow and increase. Don't feed it along with kibble as they have different digestion rates which can affect some dogs.
 
#6 ·
Okay, cool. The reason I'm not feeding it to them raw is that I did have them fully raw while I was still living at home and my GP has a very sensitive stomach. I needed to be very exact with the amount of bone/organ I gave her and she needed three meals a day. I am not living there anymore so I'm just going to be cooking it and giving it to my parents, as they aren't into raw feeding like I am and even if I portion it out it probably won't get done or done right. It's only about 3 days worth of food even mixed with their kibble - the two of them together add up to 230lbs and I bought it for a 15lb dog originally so it'll go much faster for them.

They get cooked ground beef, salmon, eggs, chicken, pork, etc with their kibble regularly and handle that fine, I just wasn't sure about the bones. My boy just apparently will not eat raw goat or llama!
 
#7 ·
Mine eat raw and kibble at the same time. If the bones are ground up fine, it shouldn't be an issue. The other option is to just gently brown (barely) and try your dog with it again. My one girl wasn't a fan of raw at all and like you, I wasn't going to starve her to make her eat something she found completely unappealing. She would happily wolf down the meat if I cooked it even the tiniest bit. I think it made it smell more appealing to her as well. Try giving her a tablespoon of plain, nonfat yogurt with it to help in digestion
 
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