Sojourner Farms

[Gina Heitz <brier@oregonsbest.com>]

>I can't remember if Sojourner Farms European-Style pet food mix was
>mentioned when we were all corresponding about food ?  The holistic place
>HIGHLY recommends this stuff that is mixed with raw meat.  It's a natural
>diet made easy, apparently.  All I have is their brochure and know nothing
>about it (maybe it's lousy stuff), but I thought since they were so adamant
>about its greatness I'd mention it to all of you. www.sojos.com



No I don't think we ever discussed this "food".  I really wouldn't call it 
a food and I found the web site to be not very comprehensive.  It's more 
like an additive to add to a diet that looks as though it would make 
feeding a raw diet easier from a marketing point of view.  Mostly grains 
that one can buy in most good markets and few supplements.  It still calls 
for feeding raw meat and veggies.  If your going to go to the "trouble" of 
feeding raw you might as well go whole hog... <smile>

  Raw feeding isn't really hard if you have the resources and the time to 
organize your processes. I am as you all know feeding 13 dogs and it takes 
me less than 45 minutes each day to feed now including clean up.  Here is 
the basic drill around here:

One day a week I mix up a batch of veggie mix:  I grind and juice veggies 
of various and sundry kinds:  Carrots, parsley, squash, beets, several 
kinds of greens (turnip greens, kale, mustard greens ect)  cauliflower, 
broccoli, yams just about what ever I find on sale.  I do try to mix and 
match at least 3 to 4 veggies into each weeks mix up and select from 
diffrent colors for the diffrent properties each adds to the diet.

To this mix I add diffrent things each week.  Yogurt, cottage cheese, goats 
milk, eggs, canned beans, canned fish, cooked lentils.  I always add ground 
flax, sunflower seeds and usually some kind of a nut as in walnuts, hazel 
nuts even peanuts or peanut butter.

I don't feed a lot of grain but grains I do add in but not with any great 
frequency are:  oats barley and bran.  Oats you need to be cautious 
with  as they are a warm food and warm foods cause body heat and body heat 
can cause hot spots.

Every morning I look at each dog and assess their needs, Ie SeaJay is a 
high energy boy and needs a lot of food.  Kaycee is a senior and uses her 
food very efficiently.  TRiX is growing like a weed and requires diffrent 
foods than the basics to fulfill her needs.  I add more of some things to 
her diet and less of others.  Haus well he is eating almost 1 1/2 times as 
SeaJay.  Twister is another high cal girl and needs more fat in her diet as 
SeaJay does.

So in the AM everyone starts out with the same:  1/4 cup of the veggie mix 
to that I add depending on the dog but aprox. 6 ounces of ground meat, 
beef, chicken, turkey.  Everyone gets a turkey neck or a chicken hind 
quarter or several wings.  I then add to each dogs bowl the little extra's 
they require.  Kaycee gets no chicken skin, SeaJay or Twister get 
hers.  SeaJay always gets more ground meat or an extra piece of RMB or an 
extra egg.  To TRiX meals I usually will add a blob of cottage cheese or 
1/4 cup of goats milk and an egg or extra yogurt.  Everyone gets at least 
three eggs a week too...

Supplements I add are V-C, B-50, V-E, kelp, whole body fish oil, cod liver 
oil and that is about it anymore and I don't give any of these on a daily 
basis any more with the exception of the C.  I just mix it up during the 
week and I would say everyone gets these things about 4 times a week.  I 
don't worry about balance.

For TRiX and Haus who eat 2x a day the evening meal is just RMB's.

Simple to me. :-)

Gina