Grinding?

[megs]

Pearl is doing great with raw.  She's never had a problem getting through bones.  I think she's getting a bit sick of chicken though because she's leaving more and more of it in her bowl.  She eats so delicately and Boone is a gulper.

Boone on the other hand can't crunch through bones yet, I don't know if he ever will.  I thought he was able to get through wing portions, not the ones that look like drumsticks but the ones with the 2 smaller bones.  I now suspect that he was swallowing them whole.  I gave him a pretty large chicken neck and he tried to swallow that whole which was a little scary.  I have been feeding him Instinct frozen raw food along with the Fromm's puppy food that the breeder recommended because it's too nerve wracking to give him whole pieces of meat.  When he tried to swallow the chicken neck, I pulled it out of his throat and cut it into tiny pieces which he inhaled without chewing.

Layne, I know you grind for your kids.  Can you point me in the right direction on how to get started?  What grinder and what meats/organs you use.  I don't know how to source things like green tripe, etc.  Do you order them online?

[KivaLuver]

Find a Northern tools near you and buy one of their grinders. They last for years and make grinding a snap. It will be worth the money I promise you. http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200631877_200631877 This one is a bit different from the one I bought but I got it years ago.

You can grind any part of the chicken, turkey necks if they fit down the shoot, any part of rabbit. You can't put beef or pork bones down it but it grinds through muscle meat like a hot knife in butter. As far as the green tripe goes, I buy mine from a local groomer that also sells high end dog foods including premade raw and fresh. We have a co-op locally that buys from greentripe.com in bulk. I would contact greentripe.com and ask if anyone in your area orders and go in on the order with them or find out if there is a distributor in your area. Bravo also sells it so if you contact bravo they might be able to hook you up with a distributor too.

I started grinding because Kiva was a gulper. That little dog would swallow chicken necks whole and just barely crush up a wing. It was like that all her life. Grinding was a good solution.