What is Prey Model Raw and why should I feed it?

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Prey Model Raw diet seeks to mimic the natural diet of our companion pets by providing meat, bone and organs in the approximate ratios that they are found in prey animals; that is 80% muscle meat, 10% soft, edible bone and 10% secreting organs. This can be achieved by feeding whole prey items like rabbit, rodents, birds (think chicken or duck) or other animals small enough to be consumed in a single sitting or we can devise meals from larger animals like sheep, cows, deer, goats, and pigs portioned to these ratios (frankenprey). Contrary to other feeding methods, we do not advise feeding plant matter, as it has been shown that wild dogs and wolves would shake out the contents of their preys’ stomach and discard this rather than consume it.

Read more on Wolves & PMR

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What about the vitamins and minerals in vegetables? Our dogs and cats lack the necessary enzymes to break down plant matter, and so will get little or no benefit from any plants (fruit, vegetables, seeds and legumes) included in their diet. At best, you are adding fibre and empty calories, at the worst, you are straining their system and potentially adding anti-nutritive matter that will block the uptake of necessary nutrients that they would get from the meat, bone and organ meals. Read more on this here.

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How will you know if your companion is getting all the nutrition they need? By offering variety! Just as you eat a varied diet throughout the week without measuring every mouthful and know you are eating the right things for your best nutrition, we can do the same for our companions. Giving a minimum of 3-4 proteins, either mixed together or rotated over time will ensure that you are hitting all the nutritional notes as the profile of each animal varies slightly. Changing up which organs and/or which animals those organs comes from helps with this too, as the organ meats are powerhouses of nutrition. That being said, always feed 5% liver, but you can give beef liver one week, pork liver another week and so on. The more variety you can offer in protein and organ sources the better! While most owners choose to try to give the 80/10/5/5 ratios daily, many companions will tolerate this being balanced over the week. Not every meal needs every element, so long as it is balanced over time.

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What about the bones? You’ve always been told NOT to feed your pet bones! So long as you stick to RAW, soft, edible bone  and avoid larger weight bearing bones like marrow bone, or bones from larger animals like cow or moose. Soft bone provides the calcium your pet needs, and feeding at 10% of the meal weight balances the phosphorus levels of the diet. The other option is to source ground bone-in meats (from specialty suppliers) or grind yourself, although this may lower the overall nutrient value compared to whole-animal or intact portion meals. Do not substitute with bone meal or calcium supplements as these are impossible to correctly dose and may not have the bio-availability of fresh, raw bone.

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So your options for feeding PMR are whole prey, either offered as-is or portioned to daily meal size, ‘frankenprey’ where you mix and match meat bone and organ from one or more source in whole pieces and chunks in an approximate 80/10/5/5 ratio, or whole ground animal or ‘complete’ ground food, often available from raw food suppliers.

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When switching to a prey model raw diet, you will see your pets thrive. Poop will be smaller, better formed, less frequent and less smelly. Teeth and breath will be cleaner. Coats will be softer and shinier. Skin and yeast issues may be improved or eliminated. As raw food is around 70% moisture, you may notice your pet drinking less, but this is nothing to be concerned about. Fresh, clean water should be available to them, but they may get most of their hydration needs from their meals. You may see improvements in behaviour and mobility as well - calmer puppies and more energetic seniors!