Is farmers dog raw or cooked

Frequently Asked Questions

The Farmers Dog creates a variety of human-grade recipes that are simple in nature using different proteins and vegetables to account for dietary restrictions. Our board-certified veterinary nutritionists carefully formulate each recipe to be 100% complete and balanced according to AAFCO standards, and we use all human-grade ingredients and processes to do so.

Every recipe has clean human-grade proteins, mixed with simple whole foods, and balanced with vitamins and minerals. Thats it. We never use feed-grade ingredients, and we dont process our ingredients to be shelf-stable, ensuring your dog is getting the highest quality, most natural nutrients available. All of our ingredients are human-grade and sourced from reputable food suppliers, local farms, and other human food purveyors that meet human-grade standards.

You can find the specific ingredient lists for the meal plan we recommend on the Your Plan section of our meal plan questionnaire.

Is farmers dog food cooked or raw?

The Farmers Dog The food is cooked at low temperatures, so pet owners never have to handle raw food. It arrives frozen, and all meals must be stored in the freezer and thawed in the fridge before serving. The Farmers Dog freezes multiple servings in each pack.

Is farmers dog affordable?

The Farmers Dog cost is: Around $4 to $5 per day for a 25-pound dog. Around $8 to $9 per day for a 55-pound dog.

Do vets recommend farmers dog?

Overall, The Farmers Dog Food brand has been recommended by veterinary nutritionists.

What is monthly cost of the farmers dog for small dog?

How much does The Farmers dog cost per day and per month? The cost of The Farmers Dog begins at around $60 per month for the smallest dogs. Prices increase for larger dogs, and costs vary based on your dogs specific needs and the recipes you choose.

How much is the farmers dog food subscription?

How much does The Farmers Dog Cost? Fresh dog food subscriptions range from $2-$12/day and depend on your dogs needs and the frequency of deliveries. DIY Nutrient Mix plans start at $1/week and include free shipping.

Does the farmers dog food cause diarrhea?

While many people see no negative effects on digestion while theyre transitioning their dogs food, you may see changes in consistency of your dogs poop during this phase. This usually means looser stools or diarrhea. This should last a few days, depending on your dog, and how rapidly youre transitioning.

How long can farmers dog food sit out?

DONT LEAVE PET FOOD SITTING OUT TOO LONG Canned food, once opened, can be left out from 2 to no more than 4 hours. Any unused canned food should be immediately put in the refrigerator.

Does Farmer dog food need to be refrigerated?

Do I need to refrigerate the food? Yes! Since our food is truly fresh and we dont use any preservatives, its essential that you treat it like real food (because it is!). Keep the food at a safe temperature in a refrigerator or freezer.

Does the farmers dog have grain in it?

We find The Farmers Dog to be an outstanding, grain-free wet food. Each human-grade recipe uses a generous amount of fresh named meat as its main source of animal protein thus earning the brand 5 stars.

Where is the farmers dog food made?

The Farmers Dog Inc. is in New York, NY. The food is designed and formulated by a team of board-certified veterinary nutritionists and is made in USDA kitchens within the United States using only USDA quality ingredients that are fit for human consumption.

Are eggs good for dogs?

Are Eggs Good for Dogs? Eggs are perfectly safe for dogs, Eggs are a great source of nutrition for your canine companion. They are high in protein, fatty acids, vitamins, and fatty acids that help support your dog inside and out. Remember that eggs are only as good as the chicken they come from.

Is rice good for dogs?

The answer is yes. Rice is an ingredient sometimes found in commercial dog foods. Many pet owners feed white rice to their sick dog. One of the reasons white rice is the chosen grain for a dog with an upset stomach is that its easy to digest, quick to prepare, and low in fiber.

Who owns the farmers dog?

Brett Podolsky and Jonathan Regev, cofounders of The Farmers Dog, with their dogs.

Is fresh dog food better than dry?

Dogs often prefer the taste of fresh meals to dry dog food. Ingredients are minimally processed. Freshly prepared dog food is healthier for dogs and results in marked health improvements for many dogs.

How many times a day do you feed farmers dog?

Many veterinary nutrition experts recommend it (even high-performance working dogs thrive on a once-a-day feeding schedule). Try to feed your dogs meal at approximately the same time each day. If you prefer to feed twice a day, consider feeding both meals within an eight-hour period.

How long does farmers dog food last in the refrigerator?

Once the food has cooled down and is portioned based on your instructions, you can set aside a few portions for each dog and put them in the fridgeyou can store food in the fridge for up to 4 days. Store the rest in the freezer.

What can I feed my dog to firm up his stool?

If you have checked the feeding amount is correct, cut out treats and spaced the meals and your dog is still producing soft poo the addition of just a couple of tablespoons of cooked carrot, sweet potato or squash to their meal can work wonders in firming up their poo. It should be a pretty quick change too.

How long does farmers dog last in the freezer?

The food is then quickly frozen (not deep frozen) and shipped to your home. No preservatives are ever used in The Farmers Dog recipes, so the food has a much shorter shelf life of 4 days once it is thawed in the refrigerator. If kept frozen, the packaged meals will stay fresh for 4 months.

Can I defrost farmers dog food in the microwave?

Get in some hot water However, we do NOT recommend heating the food in the microwave, as this will destroy the foods natural nutrients the best part about our fresh recipes!

Is it OK to put water in dry dog food?

Add water to dry dog food to make it more palatable and enhance the dogs hydration. So yes, it is OK to mix dry dog food with water. Moist dog food is always preferred by dogs over dry kibble, especially with weaning puppies. It tastes better, it smells better.

What is the healthiest food to feed your dog?

• Kale. This supercharged leafy green contains loads of vitamins, including A, E, and C.
• Carrots. Crunchy and naturally sweet, carrots are loved by most dogs.
• Pumpkin.
• Sweet Potatoes.
• Fish.
• Nori (dried seaweed)
• Chia seeds.
• Quinoa.

What dog foods are killing dogs?

• Acana (named in 67 reports)
• Zignature (64)
• Taste of the Wild (53)
• 4health (32)
• Earthborn Holistic (32)
• Blue Buffalo (31)
• Natures Domain (29)
• Fromm (24)

Can I feed my dog rice everyday?

Your dog can eat cooked rice every day, but remember there has to be a balance of the nutrients your companion needs, which are protein, fat from meat or oil, calcium, essential fatty acids, and carbohydrates.

How do you unfreeze a farmers dog?

If (like us) you are not always on top of things, dont fret These packs can be defrosted in warm water in just a matter of minutes! Once your packs are adequately soft, all you need to do is squeeze out the appropriate amount and you are good to go.

What vegetables are good for dogs?

Carrots, peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, and bananas are packed with important vitamins, along with potassium, which is good for a dogs muscles, nerves, and kidneys. Their fiber can also help dogs stay regular. Oranges are great source of vitamin C.

Should Your Dog's Food Be Raw or Cooked? Pros and Cons

Most people who feed real food to their dogs cook the food. And that's fine much, much better than feeding kibble or canned.

But an increasing number of owners, breeders, trainers, even veterinarians, have gone back to the traditional practice of feeding raw food to their dogs.

Dogs have been fed raw food (meat, fish, eggs) for more than fifteen thousand years.

It's only comparatively recently that people began offering cooked food. A dog's digestive system isn't really designed for digesting cooked food, but it can usually adapt to simple cooked foods like meat, fish, eggs, and veggies.

At least.... many dogs can.

So if you've decided you want to try feeding real food, your first decision should be: raw or cooked?

As you can see, raw wins on all counts except for the risk of bacteria.

Let's talk first about all those green checkmarks where raw is superior to cooked.

Then I'll answer the controversial question, "Is raw food safe to feed a dog?"

5 reasons raw food is better than cooked food

Reason #1: Dogs are designed to eat raw food, to completely digest raw food, and to draw the maximum nutrients from raw food.

Every part of your dog's digestive tract is tailor-made for raw food. The shape of his teeth are perfect for tearing meat. The strength of his jaws crushes small bones. The powerful hydrochloric acid in his stomach breaks down tough food material and kills bacteria. His short, straight intestinal tract quickly eliminates any questionable food before it can do any harm.

That's the digestive system of a raw meat eater. That's the digestive system of your dog, whether Chihuahua or a Great Dane.

The entire canine family (wolves, coyotes, wild dogs, domesticated dogs) has a digestive system designed to eat, digest, and absorb raw meat.

Which makes sense, because they can't roast or bake the rabbits they catch, right? They just eat the thing raw.

That's why a raw diet is also called a biologically-appropriate or species-appropriate diet.

Reason #2: Eating raw food keeps a dog's digestive system fit and healthy.

You know the old expression, "Use it or lose it"? When a dog's digestive system goes to work digesting raw food, his digestive system is being exercised, which helps it stay strong and healthy.

Unfortunately, cooked meat makes your dog's digestive system lazy. When you cook meat, the heat breaks down the meat so that what you serve to the dog is already semi-digested. Eating semi-digested meat doesn't exercise his digestive system, and this lack of use can open the door to future digestive ailments.

Reason #3: Raw food is packed with enzymes, vitamins, amino acids, and antioxidants.

Sadly, these vital nutrients are damaged by cooking. In the case of essential digestive enzymes, now your dog must produce those missing enzymes in his pancreas. Forcing the pancreas to work overtime when it shouldn't need to, can lead to pancreatic ailments.

When you cook your dog's food, or whenever you feed kibble or canned food (which are always cooked), you should ADD synthetic digestive enzymes to the food to help him digest it. Prozyme, Naturvet, and Dr. Goodpet are popular brands.

Reason #4: Raw foods contain a unique form of moisture that cooked foods don't have.

We all know that meat and veggies are naturally wet. Touch meat and you can feel its juices. Peel a carrot and the inside looks and feels moist and juicy.

But here I'm not talking about the kind of moisture that you can see or feel.

There's a more important kind of moisture that raw foods have. It's an internal moisture packed inside the molecular cells of raw meat, vegetables, and fruits.

Internal moisture is only released after the food reaches the intestines. This liquid bathes the intestines to keep them moist and slippery, which helps avoid constipation.

Unfortunately, although cooked meat and veggies look and feel moist, their molecular cells have been broken down by the heat, and their valuable internal moisture has been lost.

Reason #5: Dogs are less commonly allergic to raw food, and more often allergic to cooked food.

For example, Cashew is a Cocker Spaniel owned by a friend of mine. Cashew is allergic to cooked beef, and also to kibble and canned foods that contain beef. (All kibble and canned foods are cooked).

But when switched to raw beef, Cashew had no problems. This is probably because the proteins in raw beef are in their natural form and thus recognizable by the dog's digestive system.

Whereas cooking alters the molecular shape of meat proteins so much that the digestive tract doesn't even recognize it as food. Then the dog's immune system says, "Hey, what's that?" and sends out waves of histamines to attack the unrecognized "intruder". The result can be chronic allergies or digestive upsets.

Related:5 Best Raw Dog Foods (Frozen & Freeze-Dried)

Is raw food safe?

Whenever the topic of raw food comes up, especially raw meat, the #1 concern that dog owners have is, "Isn't that risky?"

Our mothers and grandmothers have taught us to be careful around raw meat. We wash our hands thoroughly after handling it. We sterilize our countertops.

So how could raw meat be safe for dogs? Doesn't it have bacteria in it? Like e.coli or salmonella?

Yes, pathogens can be present in raw meat.

Pathogens can exist on raw veggies and fruits, too. There have been many supermarket recalls of veggies and fruits for bacterial contamination.

Even dry and canned dog foods (which are all cooked) have been recalled for contamination from pathogens.

Unless we keep our dogs in a bubble, we cannot keep them away from pathogens. Bacteria is everywhere. That's the bad news.

The good news is that a small number of bacteria doesn't bother a healthy dog with a normal immune system. It's gross to think about, but doesn't your dog lick his own behind? Lots of e.coli in poop, but he doesn't get sick from that. Bacteria only become dangerous when they're able to colonize and multiply, and that rarely happens in a healthy dog.

Remember when I said that the canine family has a digestive system designed for raw food? Let's look at how that works:

1. A dog's stomach produces powerful hydrochloric acid. Bacteria die off in acidic environments.
2. A dog's digestive tract is short, which means waste material zips through quickly. Any bacteria that may have escaped the strong stomach acid doesn't have much time to dig in and multiply before getting pooped out.

In other words, strong stomach acids + quick elimination = little chance of normal bacteria causing any problems for a normal dog.

Ah-ha! Notice that I said "little chance of normal bacteria causing any problems for a normal dog."

You might have some questions about that word normal. For example, "If you buy raw meat at the supermarket and it happens to contain bacteria, how do you know it's normal bacteria?

What if it's LOTS of bacteria? Or some superform of bacteria?

You've probably seen ugly documentaries about the sorry state of our slaughterhouses and meat processing plants. They're awful.

Could the raw meat you buy at the supermarket be so contaminated that it's too much for even a DOG'S strong digestive system to handle?

That's a fair question. I have the same concern.

So I don't feed raw meat from the supermarket. I feed organic, grass-fed meat from my local farmer's market. The livestock is raised on small farms, grass-fed, without hormones or antibiotics, and without being processed through the giant processing plants that supply supermarkets with their meat. I can't prove that my meat is safer, but it feels safer.

I also rotate my homemade raw diet with a commercial raw diet that has been subjected to a safety process that kills bacteria. It's called High Pressure Pasteurization and it means the food was treated with extremely high water pressure that kills bad buggers like e.coli, salmonella, and listeria. One company describes it as "putting the squeeze" on pathogens without destroying vital nutrients as would occur with heating.

Next question..... just as we might ask what "normal" bacteria is, we might ask what a "normal" dog is.

Obviously our dogs aren't wolves and they're not wild. Is the digestive system of a domesticated dog still able to handle raw?

Yes. All over the world, thousands upon thousands of owners, breeders, trainers, and veterinarians feed raw. They feed raw to puppies and adult dogs, to mixed breeds, crossbreeds, and purebreds, from Chihuahuas to Great Danes.

The digestive system of a domestic dog is not appreciably different from that of a wild dog.

However....

The longer your particular dog has been eating cooked food (or dry kibble or canned food, which are also cooked), the more slowly you should transition him to raw.

This is because his digestive system has become lazier and less functional from the unnatural diet. It needs a few weeks to build up the proper enzymes for a natural diet

What if a dog is unhealthy? Suppose he already has a digestive disease or a compromised immune system?

Interestingly, sometimes those dogs are the best candidates for switching to a raw diet. It might even be a game-changer in curing or improving his ailment. Talk it over with a vet who either recommends raw or at least has an open mind about it.

On the other hand, there are some dogs for whom a cooked homemade diet might be the best choice. Now, if your vet doesn't even recommend cooked homemade, I would bet he's probably selling Science Diet or another crappy kibble or canned diet. Personally I would look for another vet. Because that's not an open mind at all.

2 ways to feed raw food

Either assemble the raw ingredients yourself, or buy a commercial (pre-made) raw food.... or do some of each.

1) To prepare it yourself, see my simple homemade recipe.

2) To buy a commercial raw food, visit your local pet store. You'll find frozen raw food in the freezer section; just defrost and serve. You'll find small bags of freeze-dried raw food on a shelf; just add water and serve. I use the frozen myself, but both are good.

You can also buy these foods online.

See my recommended brands of frozen and freeze-dried dog food.

Commercial raw diets make complete meals by themselves, or when combined with my homemade recipe, or even with kibble or canned food.

To feed cooked food

See my simple homemade recipe.