Raw feeding 911 Part VII
One thing I am passionate about is to provide my family and our furriends healthy meals/snacks. I cook for my family everyday, and I make lunch for my husband to bring to work, and we barely have process food on our plate/in his lunch box.
For our stumpy little dog "Palette" the Corgi,we have switched her diet to fresh food diet a.k.a. raw diet 4 years ago, and you would not find processed food items on her feeding mat on her meal time.
As I have written in the previous entry titled "Cooking with fresh ingredients Part II ", since celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has started Food Revolution campaign;bring fresh food to school lunch menu, I have started noticing many more celebrity chefs such as Rachael Ray etc.. are working on their own project to encourage people to eat fresh food not processed food.
First lady Michelle Obama has started organic garden at the White house, and hope to encourage people to eat fresh food more. According to cbs news article (For the full article, please click here), the organic garden has 55 kinds of vegetable,berries,and herbs.
I have grown sweet peppers,herbs etc and,I must say that sweet peppers right off the plant tastes much better than the one you will get at grocery stores.
I think that bringing the fresh food more on our plate is good thing,and better for our health. Less preservatives,less sodium,less sugar, less additives..all of these benefit for our health.
So,why not for our furriends? If you have read in the previous entry titled "Dog food history", very first dog food was introduced from England to the states in 1890, and dog food history is not that long.
Modern people today are in busy life-style. So,many may not think about taking a moment and read the label of the products,but I personally think that knowing what you really are giving to your dogs is very important.After all, good diet will be the base of their health.
Today's desert; Duck feet! Yum!
Did you know poultry feet has natural source of glucosamin and good for joint health?
Today's half of entree; a whole sardine! I love seafood!
Did you know that oily fish such as sardine,mackerel,salmon are great natural source of Omega3,which is good for skin and coat?
In the previous entry titled "Raw feeding 911", "Raw feeding 911 Part II", "Raw feeding 911 Part III", "Raw feeding 911 Part IV", I wrote basic of the the diet such as what to feed, how much to feed, what to do when your dog had digestive upset, what to do when traveling, and other tools that is good to have such as freezer. Also, you have found the videos of our dog "Palette" eating her meals in the entry "Raw feeding 911 Part IV".
As you see in those entries, with fresh food diet, your dogs can eat various kinds of protein source. and they can get all different kinds of nutrients from each protein source. Therefore, it is not just about food being less preservatives,additives etc. They can dine on wide variety of meals with this type of diet.
Through previous entry "Raw feeding 911" to "Raw feeding 911 Part VI", you would get some ideas how raw feeding works, what to expect, what to do for vacation etc.
Here, I would like to write about where to get all of those food.
Where can you get food for dogs on raw diet?
When you just start feeding raw diet, you would hear such such people feed this or that, and you would see all kinds of protein source mentioned by fellow raw feeders, and you may start wondering about whether your menu is varied enough.
However, when you just start feeding the raw food, getting your dogs used to the new diet is the top priority. Variety comes later.
When I switched Palette's diet to raw diet,this is how I have put priority to introduce varied items.
1. Decide the very first protein source (For Palette, it was Chicken) to introduce, and focus on getting her used to the new diet
** Raw food tastes different, and texture is different and some dogs may need time to getting used to the diet menu
2. I knew by the end of week 1 that "Liver" is very nutrient dense items and need them to be included. So, getting her used to "liver" was my second priority.
On week 2, I kept her on chicken menu and started adding very small amount of chicken liver to the meal.
3. I have written down what other protein source I would like to feed and introduced one at a time,very slowly with baby step.
** During the introduction to other protein source, if I see Palette does good on "Beef" for example, next week, I kept her on Beef and started introducing very small amount of "Beef liver", and by this time, I could rotate liver ;chicken liver or beef liver.
** By week 3, I knew that oily fish such as salmon,herring,mackerel,sardines provides omega3,which is good for skin and coat, and I have set the next priority to "Fish".
** After week 5, I kept introducing new protein source one at a time and when everything on the "would love to feed" list was introduced, I went back to chicken and started adding miscellaneous items such as Egg, green tripe, fish body oil one at a time.
So, by the time I started introducing the miscellaneous items, I knew that Palette does good on everything listed on "would love to feed" list and also knew by then that what she hates and what takes long time to feeding through.
With Palette, for example, I had problem with Quail. I got it from Quail farm but she just had hard time to be enthusiastic about eating them, and with the very last quail I fed, she vomited out the whole quail. So, Quail is no longer on her menu.
She loves quail eggs though. You can get them at Asian store.
With second round of "would love to feed" list, I started feeding mixed and match. Then, third round of the list, I started offering big meal once a month. Palette loves the diet and does good on the fresh food diet.
Some may wonder where we raw feeders would get the varied food items from, but most basic items such as Chicken, Pork, Beef, Turkey, you can get them at regular grocery stores.
The grocery stores we go to also has Venison,Duck, Rabbit occasionally. If you did not find what you were looking for, ask the meat guy at the grocery stores and see if he can do special order for you. You can also look at freezer section. Sometimes, stuff I see at fresh meat shelves, but sometimes I see Duck etc in freezer. I sometime find liver kept in the freezer too. So, look around the store.
If you follow the season, you can shop smart too. Turkey is best stock up after Thanksgiving, and ribs and other BBQ items gets price down in summer time. Lamb price goes down around Easter. And, as usual, watch out for sales.
Some odd items such as chicken feet, organs etc are most likely be found at Asian stores or Ethnic stores. You may find Duck at Asian stores too.
What is green tripe?Where do you find them?
One thing you would not find at regular grocery stores is green tripe,which is unwashed stomach from ruminants such as cow and lamb. Ruminants animals have 4 stomachs; rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum.
According to greentripe.com website, when animals swallow grass, the grass goes to rumen and reticulum, and grass gets regurgitated,chewed,and regurgitated grass goes down to 3rd,4th chamber,namely, omasum and abomasum. There,grass gets broke down with gastric juice,enzyme,and amino acid.
To read more on green tripe at greentripe.com website,please click here.
You may find the scalded,deodorized white colored tripe at grocery store, but it is not what we raw feeders would feed to our dogs.
The one we feed is unwashed,unprocessed tripe, and it cannot be sold as human consumption. You would never find those at grocery stores near you.
The color of the tripe is brown/grey and sometimes it has green tint from grass cow has eaten.
Good thing about green tripe is that it still has enzyme in the tripe and it helps your dogs to digest their food. It also has good bacteria for guts (lactic acid bacteria),which you would often find in yogurt or probiotics.
I feed the green tripe as side dish about size of ice cube. It is just my preference. When you feed the small sized green tripe, its smell is minimized. I heard a lot about green tripe has its specific smell to it before I start feeding the green tripe. And, I was wondering how it smells and I know now.
It smells like .. barn in hot humid summer. Since I feed small sized tripe, I barely smell the tripe. I usually cut to ice cube size when I get them and then, bag them up to freeze. Current tripe I have is ground tripe mixed with spleen. Palette loves it.
Ground green tripe mixed with spleen..
One cube is one side dish to go with Palette's entree..
Since many dogs adore green tripe, some may tend to feed green tripe a lot. However, as with any food items, more is not always better. As I understand it, green tripe lacks in tyrosine (amino acid), which you can find a lot in red meat. So, even if you will feed the green tripe, you will still need the variety of food on their menu.
Also, because of the popularity of green tripe, now pet food industries start offering more variety in tripe products.
There are canned version of green tripe, but canned items whether they are canned soup or canned anything, it is cooked with heat. This means, enzyme may be destroyed and nutrient might be less than the amount your furry friends can get through raw green tripe. Not only that, tripe is not the only ingredients.
Ingredients goes.. tripe,garlic,and vegetable gum.
Too much garlic can cause anemia in dogs, and when you have choice of getting the plain raw green tripe, why do you choose processed tripe?
I noticed some of the canned tripe has fish oil in it, but as I understand it, supplement like Fish oil gets effected by heat,light,and air. So, I wonder if the fish oil in the tripe does not get effected by the heat during the production process.
I would,personally prefer to give omega3 by "real" fresh oily fish (sardine,mackerel,salmon) or give fish body oil capsule.
Where can you find raw food suppliers?
I get those green tripe and things I cannot get locally from raw food suppliers. Google "raw food suppliers" and you will get plenty of search result.
Since I am on east coast of the states, I get my green tripe from Haretoday in PA. I find that the owner of the place is very good at communication with customers, and if I find errors in my orders, she fixed them promptly, and it is one good thing about them. I do not get any endorsement. I am just one happy customer for them. They also carry Duck,Pheasant, Goat, organs etc.. and I usually get some along with tripe.
I have tried some other suppliers, too.
In the past, I had experienced one place ships food without gelpak in hot summer, and I have got meat with room temperature. Also, I had one place I had to call many time to find out the order status, and only to find out they say they did not get the order detail..good thing it was set to pay after order was arrived.. I never got order from them,after all (even after they said on the phone they got my stuff,and when I did not hear from them,I kept asking about order via e-mail,no e-mail reply,no order delivered..,although I was ready to pay if the order was arrived)..
One thing I found it hard to find are whole mackerel, and whole sardines. They both good fish to feed due omega 3. I thought that I would find them easy at Asian stores because I used to eat those fish a lot back in Japan but, no luck. I found one that were smoked etc but no luck finding the plain fresh one.
Someone has told me in the past the she can get fresh sardine at fish market. So, if your area had fish market, it is worth looking around and see if you find any.
Therefore,I ended up ordering those fish online. I used to have great fish place in CA specialize in fish often used for sushi. Their fish were very clean, no cloud/white eyes on fish and I was very happy, and Palette loved those but they have changed their business to catering and stopped online fish stores so, I had to try another...
I have tried a couple of online fish place. One place with sardine; their sardine was not in good shape; bruised, cloudy-ish eyes, and I did not feel their fish were as fresh as other fish place in CA. Palette was not that enthusiastic about it too. Good thing I just ordered small amount to experiment with.
Another fish place for Mackerel. Their mackerel was okay, but when I got the order, some of the mackerel I got were with guts squeezed out from body. Body had no bruise but it was not a pleasant experience to find the frozen fish with guts squeezed out from body. Palette was not as enthusiastic as the one from CA,but she ate it ok.
Later on, I have found a place that offer fresh fish such as sardine and, I liked their sardine a lot. Their sardine is individually quick frozen and each sardine is very plump,no bruise on skin and Palette loves them. The bag says "Nigel" brand, and it is product of Portuguese. You can look and see if you can get the brand of sardine near you.
I used to think I was very lucky to find the place I can get the fish from but, I recently had nightmare experience with the supplier. It took almost one month to complete my single simple order.
When I was wondering about my order status, I even wondered if I ever get the order shipped as it should, there were no contact from them despite my e-mails asking about the order status. I e-mailed them one week from the date order placed, and no reply. And e-mailed them again, no reply. Then, I found out that they have got a social media account for the store so, I ended up asking about my order on their page, and finally I got the reply on the page with possible delivery date.
However, I did not get the order on the possible delivery date. Then,17 days later, I finally got my order but they said Duck feet was out of stock so,I did not get the full order.Before they bring the topic on refund, I had to ask about refund.. and after 24 days later from the order placed, I finally got my refund and my order was completed.
It was the distributor of raw food company and, turned out they were using the drop ship method,which means, you will place an order on their website, and they would turned around and order at other place and they are the one to ship the products not the one you have placed an order from.
I was not happy about late delivery but, more so about lack of communication with customers. They say they might look for another place that ships the products or discontinue the frozen food entirely, but as long as they would stay with the same communication manner, I do not think they would do any better.
If I were them, I would let the customer know about delay of the order, and let them know that the portion of products ordered were out of stock right away at the time I noticed,and not wait until days later. I would also not use the drop ship method to take an orders from customers.
My point is, if you were to order something from distributor of raw food company, make sure that you can contact with them with prompt reply from them, and consider the fact that some distributors may use the drop ship method.
After the bad experience, I have experienced great one.
I found a raw food coop in our area and the coop actually order from raw food company that carry the sardine I was happy about. It is a big score for me. It is great idea to look for raw food coop near you. Since many people order items together, price you would pay for stuff will be much cheaper than you would order online by yourself.
So, this week, I have experienced ordering through a raw food coop for the first time. It is nice to meet other people that feed raw food to their dogs too. One thing I learned is that when you go pick up the food at coop pick up area, it helps if you have gloves. I will remember that next time
Palette had no idea what to expect when we were back from the raw food coop pick up. I must say, she was delighted with what she saw when we came into the house. I could see her nub was moving right to left with nose glued to the box I brought in.
I brought in one box that had 10 Mackerel, and one box that had 30lb of Duck feet. Considering one Duck feet weigh around 1.5 oz per feet, I probably got 300 Duck feet to deal with. It took long time to separate the feet and bag them up to put in the freezer,but it was worth it. I am happy with what I got.
I found that the coop can offer mackerel I had hard time to find, and although I knew Palette loves seafood, I was not sure if their mackerel gets her excited about, how she does on them, so I ordered small amount this time, but she was over the top joy. She loved them. I plan to get more next time.
When you start feeding raw food to your dogs, buying in bulk sounds good idea to all, but I think that it is best to buy small first, just to be sure your dogs do fine on them,and they love the stuff you get for them.
After that, you can buy in bulk and look for more ways to save big. It is not fun to have huge amount of stuff that you have just found your dogs would turns their nose up.
I usually buy small if I change the suppliers,too. Sometimes, it makes difference to dogs. I have experienced that Palette went nuts for stuff from one supplier, and one same products from other supplier not so much.
Now, I can show you how Palette's day (raw food pick up day) was like. You can see how excited she was.She just had to taste test the products (occupational habit being a K9 executive chef at Yassy's Gourmet Dog Kitchen) even though I knew she liked it.
Bellow picture is the Mackerel I got through a coop. Very clean,plump, no guts squeezed out, no bruise, no cloudy/white eyes.. looks very good. It was a little smaller than the ones I used to get (I used to get the one that one fish weigh about 1 lb 8 oz. This one weigh about 10 oz to 14 oz per fish) but it was nice looking fish.
Mackerel..
Mackerel closer look...
The fish was frozen, and a little bit of ice on its eye and a little reflection make it look like cloudy eyes but it is not.Nice looking plump Mackerel.I was really happy.If the fish quality stays the same, this will be the way for me to order Mackerel for Palette.
What is that? Did you get it for me?? *Sniff,sniff*
Just a nibble..
Hmm.. THAT is what I am talking about!
*Tasting deliciousness (Umami) with closed eyes*
Hey,Mom. What is that? Is that for me too?
I cannot believe what I see...
I want one!
I can help you opening the box
Let me sniff at them very..very.. good..
Nom,nom,nom..Frozen Duck feet!! Love them!
Thawed Duck feet tastes as good as frozen Duck feet.Yum!
Mom and Dad says it looks funny when webbed Duck foot is hanging out from my mouth
Lastly, I will leave the tips on what to look for to buy a fresh fish.
<What to look for to buy a fresh fish>
** If you could smell the fish, choose the one that smells like ocean. It should not have fishy smell.
** Fish eyes should be clean, it should not be cloudy/white-ish eyes.
** Fish eyes should not have sunken.
** Gills should be reddish
** Fish should have plump,firm body without no bruise on skin
** If you were to purchase packaged fresh fish, press the fish to feel the firmness of the fish. If it were firm,it is fresh
** Also,when you purchase packaged fish, inspect the package and see if the package has any blood or juice running out from the fish. If you see the blood is running out in the package, it means, it has been long since the fish was prepared to be packaged up.
With stuff from grocery stores, coop, online raw supplier, you can get nice variety of food items. If you know farmers, it is a plus too.
I enjoy watching how much Palette enjoy her meals, and I hope she lives longer with good health..
Also, I hope that more and more dogs get to eat the fresh food diet meals and stay healthy, and live long..
For our stumpy little dog "Palette" the Corgi,we have switched her diet to fresh food diet a.k.a. raw diet 4 years ago, and you would not find processed food items on her feeding mat on her meal time.
As I have written in the previous entry titled "Cooking with fresh ingredients Part II ", since celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has started Food Revolution campaign;bring fresh food to school lunch menu, I have started noticing many more celebrity chefs such as Rachael Ray etc.. are working on their own project to encourage people to eat fresh food not processed food.
First lady Michelle Obama has started organic garden at the White house, and hope to encourage people to eat fresh food more. According to cbs news article (For the full article, please click here), the organic garden has 55 kinds of vegetable,berries,and herbs.
I have grown sweet peppers,herbs etc and,I must say that sweet peppers right off the plant tastes much better than the one you will get at grocery stores.
I think that bringing the fresh food more on our plate is good thing,and better for our health. Less preservatives,less sodium,less sugar, less additives..all of these benefit for our health.
So,why not for our furriends? If you have read in the previous entry titled "Dog food history", very first dog food was introduced from England to the states in 1890, and dog food history is not that long.
Modern people today are in busy life-style. So,many may not think about taking a moment and read the label of the products,but I personally think that knowing what you really are giving to your dogs is very important.After all, good diet will be the base of their health.
Today's desert; Duck feet! Yum!
Did you know poultry feet has natural source of glucosamin and good for joint health?
Today's half of entree; a whole sardine! I love seafood!
Did you know that oily fish such as sardine,mackerel,salmon are great natural source of Omega3,which is good for skin and coat?
In the previous entry titled "Raw feeding 911", "Raw feeding 911 Part II", "Raw feeding 911 Part III", "Raw feeding 911 Part IV", I wrote basic of the the diet such as what to feed, how much to feed, what to do when your dog had digestive upset, what to do when traveling, and other tools that is good to have such as freezer. Also, you have found the videos of our dog "Palette" eating her meals in the entry "Raw feeding 911 Part IV".
As you see in those entries, with fresh food diet, your dogs can eat various kinds of protein source. and they can get all different kinds of nutrients from each protein source. Therefore, it is not just about food being less preservatives,additives etc. They can dine on wide variety of meals with this type of diet.
Through previous entry "Raw feeding 911" to "Raw feeding 911 Part VI", you would get some ideas how raw feeding works, what to expect, what to do for vacation etc.
Here, I would like to write about where to get all of those food.
Where can you get food for dogs on raw diet?
When you just start feeding raw diet, you would hear such such people feed this or that, and you would see all kinds of protein source mentioned by fellow raw feeders, and you may start wondering about whether your menu is varied enough.
However, when you just start feeding the raw food, getting your dogs used to the new diet is the top priority. Variety comes later.
When I switched Palette's diet to raw diet,this is how I have put priority to introduce varied items.
1. Decide the very first protein source (For Palette, it was Chicken) to introduce, and focus on getting her used to the new diet
** Raw food tastes different, and texture is different and some dogs may need time to getting used to the diet menu
2. I knew by the end of week 1 that "Liver" is very nutrient dense items and need them to be included. So, getting her used to "liver" was my second priority.
On week 2, I kept her on chicken menu and started adding very small amount of chicken liver to the meal.
3. I have written down what other protein source I would like to feed and introduced one at a time,very slowly with baby step.
** During the introduction to other protein source, if I see Palette does good on "Beef" for example, next week, I kept her on Beef and started introducing very small amount of "Beef liver", and by this time, I could rotate liver ;chicken liver or beef liver.
** By week 3, I knew that oily fish such as salmon,herring,mackerel,sardines provides omega3,which is good for skin and coat, and I have set the next priority to "Fish".
** After week 5, I kept introducing new protein source one at a time and when everything on the "would love to feed" list was introduced, I went back to chicken and started adding miscellaneous items such as Egg, green tripe, fish body oil one at a time.
So, by the time I started introducing the miscellaneous items, I knew that Palette does good on everything listed on "would love to feed" list and also knew by then that what she hates and what takes long time to feeding through.
With Palette, for example, I had problem with Quail. I got it from Quail farm but she just had hard time to be enthusiastic about eating them, and with the very last quail I fed, she vomited out the whole quail. So, Quail is no longer on her menu.
She loves quail eggs though. You can get them at Asian store.
With second round of "would love to feed" list, I started feeding mixed and match. Then, third round of the list, I started offering big meal once a month. Palette loves the diet and does good on the fresh food diet.
Some may wonder where we raw feeders would get the varied food items from, but most basic items such as Chicken, Pork, Beef, Turkey, you can get them at regular grocery stores.
The grocery stores we go to also has Venison,Duck, Rabbit occasionally. If you did not find what you were looking for, ask the meat guy at the grocery stores and see if he can do special order for you. You can also look at freezer section. Sometimes, stuff I see at fresh meat shelves, but sometimes I see Duck etc in freezer. I sometime find liver kept in the freezer too. So, look around the store.
If you follow the season, you can shop smart too. Turkey is best stock up after Thanksgiving, and ribs and other BBQ items gets price down in summer time. Lamb price goes down around Easter. And, as usual, watch out for sales.
Some odd items such as chicken feet, organs etc are most likely be found at Asian stores or Ethnic stores. You may find Duck at Asian stores too.
What is green tripe?Where do you find them?
One thing you would not find at regular grocery stores is green tripe,which is unwashed stomach from ruminants such as cow and lamb. Ruminants animals have 4 stomachs; rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum.
According to greentripe.com website, when animals swallow grass, the grass goes to rumen and reticulum, and grass gets regurgitated,chewed,and regurgitated grass goes down to 3rd,4th chamber,namely, omasum and abomasum. There,grass gets broke down with gastric juice,enzyme,and amino acid.
To read more on green tripe at greentripe.com website,please click here.
You may find the scalded,deodorized white colored tripe at grocery store, but it is not what we raw feeders would feed to our dogs.
The one we feed is unwashed,unprocessed tripe, and it cannot be sold as human consumption. You would never find those at grocery stores near you.
The color of the tripe is brown/grey and sometimes it has green tint from grass cow has eaten.
Good thing about green tripe is that it still has enzyme in the tripe and it helps your dogs to digest their food. It also has good bacteria for guts (lactic acid bacteria),which you would often find in yogurt or probiotics.
I feed the green tripe as side dish about size of ice cube. It is just my preference. When you feed the small sized green tripe, its smell is minimized. I heard a lot about green tripe has its specific smell to it before I start feeding the green tripe. And, I was wondering how it smells and I know now.
It smells like .. barn in hot humid summer. Since I feed small sized tripe, I barely smell the tripe. I usually cut to ice cube size when I get them and then, bag them up to freeze. Current tripe I have is ground tripe mixed with spleen. Palette loves it.
Ground green tripe mixed with spleen..
One cube is one side dish to go with Palette's entree..
Since many dogs adore green tripe, some may tend to feed green tripe a lot. However, as with any food items, more is not always better. As I understand it, green tripe lacks in tyrosine (amino acid), which you can find a lot in red meat. So, even if you will feed the green tripe, you will still need the variety of food on their menu.
Also, because of the popularity of green tripe, now pet food industries start offering more variety in tripe products.
There are canned version of green tripe, but canned items whether they are canned soup or canned anything, it is cooked with heat. This means, enzyme may be destroyed and nutrient might be less than the amount your furry friends can get through raw green tripe. Not only that, tripe is not the only ingredients.
Ingredients goes.. tripe,garlic,and vegetable gum.
Too much garlic can cause anemia in dogs, and when you have choice of getting the plain raw green tripe, why do you choose processed tripe?
I noticed some of the canned tripe has fish oil in it, but as I understand it, supplement like Fish oil gets effected by heat,light,and air. So, I wonder if the fish oil in the tripe does not get effected by the heat during the production process.
I would,personally prefer to give omega3 by "real" fresh oily fish (sardine,mackerel,salmon) or give fish body oil capsule.
Where can you find raw food suppliers?
I get those green tripe and things I cannot get locally from raw food suppliers. Google "raw food suppliers" and you will get plenty of search result.
Since I am on east coast of the states, I get my green tripe from Haretoday in PA. I find that the owner of the place is very good at communication with customers, and if I find errors in my orders, she fixed them promptly, and it is one good thing about them. I do not get any endorsement. I am just one happy customer for them. They also carry Duck,Pheasant, Goat, organs etc.. and I usually get some along with tripe.
I have tried some other suppliers, too.
In the past, I had experienced one place ships food without gelpak in hot summer, and I have got meat with room temperature. Also, I had one place I had to call many time to find out the order status, and only to find out they say they did not get the order detail..good thing it was set to pay after order was arrived.. I never got order from them,after all (even after they said on the phone they got my stuff,and when I did not hear from them,I kept asking about order via e-mail,no e-mail reply,no order delivered..,although I was ready to pay if the order was arrived)..
One thing I found it hard to find are whole mackerel, and whole sardines. They both good fish to feed due omega 3. I thought that I would find them easy at Asian stores because I used to eat those fish a lot back in Japan but, no luck. I found one that were smoked etc but no luck finding the plain fresh one.
Someone has told me in the past the she can get fresh sardine at fish market. So, if your area had fish market, it is worth looking around and see if you find any.
Therefore,I ended up ordering those fish online. I used to have great fish place in CA specialize in fish often used for sushi. Their fish were very clean, no cloud/white eyes on fish and I was very happy, and Palette loved those but they have changed their business to catering and stopped online fish stores so, I had to try another...
I have tried a couple of online fish place. One place with sardine; their sardine was not in good shape; bruised, cloudy-ish eyes, and I did not feel their fish were as fresh as other fish place in CA. Palette was not that enthusiastic about it too. Good thing I just ordered small amount to experiment with.
Another fish place for Mackerel. Their mackerel was okay, but when I got the order, some of the mackerel I got were with guts squeezed out from body. Body had no bruise but it was not a pleasant experience to find the frozen fish with guts squeezed out from body. Palette was not as enthusiastic as the one from CA,but she ate it ok.
Later on, I have found a place that offer fresh fish such as sardine and, I liked their sardine a lot. Their sardine is individually quick frozen and each sardine is very plump,no bruise on skin and Palette loves them. The bag says "Nigel" brand, and it is product of Portuguese. You can look and see if you can get the brand of sardine near you.
I used to think I was very lucky to find the place I can get the fish from but, I recently had nightmare experience with the supplier. It took almost one month to complete my single simple order.
When I was wondering about my order status, I even wondered if I ever get the order shipped as it should, there were no contact from them despite my e-mails asking about the order status. I e-mailed them one week from the date order placed, and no reply. And e-mailed them again, no reply. Then, I found out that they have got a social media account for the store so, I ended up asking about my order on their page, and finally I got the reply on the page with possible delivery date.
However, I did not get the order on the possible delivery date. Then,17 days later, I finally got my order but they said Duck feet was out of stock so,I did not get the full order.Before they bring the topic on refund, I had to ask about refund.. and after 24 days later from the order placed, I finally got my refund and my order was completed.
It was the distributor of raw food company and, turned out they were using the drop ship method,which means, you will place an order on their website, and they would turned around and order at other place and they are the one to ship the products not the one you have placed an order from.
I was not happy about late delivery but, more so about lack of communication with customers. They say they might look for another place that ships the products or discontinue the frozen food entirely, but as long as they would stay with the same communication manner, I do not think they would do any better.
If I were them, I would let the customer know about delay of the order, and let them know that the portion of products ordered were out of stock right away at the time I noticed,and not wait until days later. I would also not use the drop ship method to take an orders from customers.
My point is, if you were to order something from distributor of raw food company, make sure that you can contact with them with prompt reply from them, and consider the fact that some distributors may use the drop ship method.
After the bad experience, I have experienced great one.
I found a raw food coop in our area and the coop actually order from raw food company that carry the sardine I was happy about. It is a big score for me. It is great idea to look for raw food coop near you. Since many people order items together, price you would pay for stuff will be much cheaper than you would order online by yourself.
So, this week, I have experienced ordering through a raw food coop for the first time. It is nice to meet other people that feed raw food to their dogs too. One thing I learned is that when you go pick up the food at coop pick up area, it helps if you have gloves. I will remember that next time
Palette had no idea what to expect when we were back from the raw food coop pick up. I must say, she was delighted with what she saw when we came into the house. I could see her nub was moving right to left with nose glued to the box I brought in.
I brought in one box that had 10 Mackerel, and one box that had 30lb of Duck feet. Considering one Duck feet weigh around 1.5 oz per feet, I probably got 300 Duck feet to deal with. It took long time to separate the feet and bag them up to put in the freezer,but it was worth it. I am happy with what I got.
I found that the coop can offer mackerel I had hard time to find, and although I knew Palette loves seafood, I was not sure if their mackerel gets her excited about, how she does on them, so I ordered small amount this time, but she was over the top joy. She loved them. I plan to get more next time.
When you start feeding raw food to your dogs, buying in bulk sounds good idea to all, but I think that it is best to buy small first, just to be sure your dogs do fine on them,and they love the stuff you get for them.
After that, you can buy in bulk and look for more ways to save big. It is not fun to have huge amount of stuff that you have just found your dogs would turns their nose up.
I usually buy small if I change the suppliers,too. Sometimes, it makes difference to dogs. I have experienced that Palette went nuts for stuff from one supplier, and one same products from other supplier not so much.
Now, I can show you how Palette's day (raw food pick up day) was like. You can see how excited she was.She just had to taste test the products (occupational habit being a K9 executive chef at Yassy's Gourmet Dog Kitchen
) even though I knew she liked it.Bellow picture is the Mackerel I got through a coop. Very clean,plump, no guts squeezed out, no bruise, no cloudy/white eyes.. looks very good. It was a little smaller than the ones I used to get (I used to get the one that one fish weigh about 1 lb 8 oz. This one weigh about 10 oz to 14 oz per fish) but it was nice looking fish.
Mackerel..
Mackerel closer look...
The fish was frozen, and a little bit of ice on its eye and a little reflection make it look like cloudy eyes but it is not.Nice looking plump Mackerel.I was really happy.If the fish quality stays the same, this will be the way for me to order Mackerel for Palette.
What is that? Did you get it for me?? *Sniff,sniff*
Just a nibble..
Hmm.. THAT is what I am talking about!
*Tasting deliciousness (Umami) with closed eyes*
Hey,Mom. What is that? Is that for me too?
I cannot believe what I see...
I want one!
I can help you opening the box
Let me sniff at them very..very.. good..
Nom,nom,nom..Frozen Duck feet!! Love them!
Thawed Duck feet tastes as good as frozen Duck feet.Yum!
Mom and Dad says it looks funny when webbed Duck foot is hanging out from my mouth
Lastly, I will leave the tips on what to look for to buy a fresh fish.
<What to look for to buy a fresh fish>
** If you could smell the fish, choose the one that smells like ocean. It should not have fishy smell.
** Fish eyes should be clean, it should not be cloudy/white-ish eyes.
** Fish eyes should not have sunken.
** Gills should be reddish
** Fish should have plump,firm body without no bruise on skin
** If you were to purchase packaged fresh fish, press the fish to feel the firmness of the fish. If it were firm,it is fresh
** Also,when you purchase packaged fish, inspect the package and see if the package has any blood or juice running out from the fish. If you see the blood is running out in the package, it means, it has been long since the fish was prepared to be packaged up.
With stuff from grocery stores, coop, online raw supplier, you can get nice variety of food items. If you know farmers, it is a plus too.
I enjoy watching how much Palette enjoy her meals, and I hope she lives longer with good health..
Also, I hope that more and more dogs get to eat the fresh food diet meals and stay healthy, and live long..
Comments