Salmon?

[Kananga]

I was at Costco and picked up a bag of frozen Salmon burgers. They are quite tasty, but it got me thinking, it's around $14-15 for a bag and that includes 12x 4oz patties (3 lbs). Would this be something ideal for a Basenji's diet? The cost is pretty decent when you consider what other frozen raw foods cost (pre-made). And the other bonus is that each patty is about the right portion for what he'd need. I used to do around 3-4oz a meal when I had him on raw previously. I really thought about this when I gave him a small piece of salmon and he went crazy for it.

I had Kananga on Nature's Variety raw for awhile and had switched him back to kibble (had a tough time finding a good supply of the raw food locally and he preferred the kibble for some reason). The bags were around $18-20 each and they were 3lbs as well.

Thoughts?

[curlytails]

I would be worried about other ingredients or seasonings mixed in with the salmon burgers. I'm assuming they're not made entirely of salmon…?

Raw salmon also shouldn't be fed fresh, or so I found out. I'm pretty new at raw feeding myself, so this is something I checked recently about:

http://www.itsfortheanimals.com/must_cook_salmon_for_dogs.htm

That site says you should freeze it for 7 days, but I go for a full month. Presumably, the salmon burgers at Costco have already been frozen for some time, though.

We've been doing well with various kinds of fish that we purchase cheap from local Asian groceries. One of their favorites so far is whole, raw sardines. They're usually 2 to 2.5 ounces apiece, so it's easy to portion them out (mine get some kibble in the morning on raw days, so I just adjust the evening raw as necessary). I get 8 to a bag (approx. 1 pound) for just a little over $2.

We can also get salmon belly for pretty cheap, about $1.99 a pound. Again, that's frozen for a while.

[Buana]

So it?s human food?

You have to look carefully at the ingriedients, there are a lot of stuff they put in "our" food that isn't healthy for our dogs.

We feed raw salmon, at this moment not as a whole meal but as one ingredient.
They get both get a salmon head and they eat it completely.

We feed only raw and when we get a bigger fridge, we're going to feed a prey menu.
With raw feeding it's very important to get ALL the ingredients of the menu right.
You just can't only feed fish, same as you can't only feed muscle.

[Kananga]

Yea, they are raw patties though, wild salmon (not farmed). I'll look at the ingredients to be certain.

I thought it was interesting given the cost. Figured maybe it'd make for an interesting snack for him or partial meal.

[curlytails]

Agreed about not feeding raw fish only. Our dogs get raw fish twice a week at most, usually just once.

I also found this link to be useful, just to get an idea of mercury content relative to kinds of fish:

http://www.gotmercury.org/article.php?list=type&type=75

[Kipawa]

@curlytails:

Agreed about not feeding raw fish only. Our dogs get raw fish twice a week at most, usually just once.

I also found this link to be useful, just to get an idea of mercury content relative to kinds of fish:

http://www.gotmercury.org/article.php?list=type&type=75

Thanks for this link - I've bookmarked it. I like that it also gives you a PPM (parts per million) count for each fish. That way you can scroll down the list and pick out those with less mercury.