Food Friday: Primal Nuggets Rabbit Formula Raw Dog Food

One of our local pet stores recently began carrying a variety of Primal Nuggets raw dog food. We've tried Primal Pronto, the pelleted form, before. The nuggets come in a wider variety of protein sources, with a total of six different options for Brisbane and his chicken, turkey, duck, and egg allergies.

Rather than small rapidly-defrosting pellets, Primal Nuggets are rectangular prisms of raw meat. Each weighs about 1 ounce and provides 39 calories. The food is 85% rabbit meat, bone, and organs. The other 15% is made up of things like squash, celery, collard greens, and vitamins. This is a single-source protein food that would be a good choice for a dog with food allergies. There are a number of fruit and vegetable ingredients, but these are less likely to be allergens. Of course, for a really serious elimination diet you would want to be feeding straight rabbit meat.

Primal Nuggets predate the Pronto pellets, but they are smaller than the patties I fed Brisbane when he was a baby. I actually found them to be nearly as convenient as the Pronto, Brisbane and Sisci would both happily eat them frozen. The nuggets didn't stick together in the bag so I could just grab a couple, toss them in a bowl, and serve them up immediately. Of course this would never work with Ru, as refrigerated food makes him shiver uncontrollably and he definitely won't touch anything frozen. He's not a fan of raw food in general because it's always cold.

The Primal website specifically states that their food should be fully defrosted before serving, but I have been feeding Brisbane frozen meat for a decade with no issue that I can see. Frozen or defrosted, raw or cooked, fresh or kibble, it all comes out looking the same.

The how-to-feed page also uses the term 'toxins' without specifying what substances they are referring to, which usually means they have no idea and are just throwing the word around.

Like all raw foods, Primal Nuggets are fairly expensive. That said, my dogs don't eat a ton and I'm not using this as their entire diet. It's definitely a worthwhile food to have in the rotation, and is something I would be comfortable feeding for an extended period of time. It's a great option for dogs with allergies, and awesome for rotating between protein sources. Brisbane can have their rabbit, venison, pheasant, pork, beef, lamb, and beef and salmon foods, and I would definitely be comfortable rotating through those on a permanent basis if I had to choose just one food for some reason. Primal frozen foods are rated five out of five stars on Dog Food Advisor, with the chicken and lamb formulas meriting four stars due to their high fat to protein ratio.

Have you fed your dog raw food? What type?