Ground raw question

[lnsybean44]

My grandfather has an industrial grinder that I am going to use to grind meat, organs and bone. Then I was going to make it into "meatballs" to make serving easier. They will still get chunks of food and turkey necks etc for their teeth and enrichment. I was going to do three flavors of "meat balls", probably pork (pork ribs, chops, chicken liver, beef heart, other organs I can find), beef (steaks, beef bone, marrow bone, heart and chicken liver, other organs) and chicken (whole chickens, organs) with supplemental rabbit (whole rabbit diced).

What do I have to watch for when grinding my food? How many times should I run it thorugh the grinder to ensure the bones are ground enough?

Does anyone else ffed ground raw foods?

[halbear]

Hey insybean44! I'm definitely no expert with regard to the whole raw feeding thing, but I do grind my ferrets food. I bought a little at home use type of grinder and I put the fine-ground grinding plate on there and it works great! I send the whole chopped chicken (bones and all) through there. I also add hearts, livers, etc. I only run it through once, and any bones caught on the grinder plate I just discard. Sometimes however an occassional semi large size bone will get through and usually the ferrets just spit it out. Sometimes though, they will chew it up. If I notice and particularly sharp or jagged bones in the food, I remove them immediately. In any case, my girls are doing great! I am sorry that I could not be better help to you but I hope this somewhat answers your question. Good luck, and happy chopping!!!!

[Heather]

It depends entirely on your furbabies. My guys eat everything from fine to course ground bones....they're meant to handle bone. The only thing to watch is sometimes, they'll get some small bone wedged between their teeth, they may need your help to extricate the bone chunk. As they become more proficient they will get less bone chunks caught up and it will become only a rare occasional thing. Good luck
ciao