Raw feeding a Newfoundland with bloat risk

A Newfoundland with a bloat history and joint strain is exactly the kind of dog where raw feeding needs to be done with real care — the benefits are genuine, but the risks of getting portion size, bone content, or meal timing wrong are higher than with most breeds. Raw done well can be excellent, but done badly it creates nutritional gaps that cause real harm over time, and the difference is balance and sourcing. Before I point you in the right direction: has your dog been formally diagnosed as GDV-risk, or is this a breed-precaution concern? And are you looking for a complete ready-made raw, or are you planning to prepare meals yourself?

Good — that's an important distinction. A precautionary approach is sensible, and it means you have real flexibility, you just need to build good habits around meal timing. For a complete ready-made, I want to know a couple more things: roughly how much does he weigh, and does he have any confirmed food sensitivities or protein intolerances? Newfoundlands can run anywhere from 55kg to over 70kg, which affects how you cost and portion a raw plan significantly.

Perfect. At 62kg with early joint wear and a bloat precaution, here's what matters most in a ready-made raw: complete nutritional balance so you're not supplementing guesswork, a moderate bone content that won't add gastric load, and ideally some natural glucosamine and chondroitin from the ingredients themselves — not just added synthetically. The product I'd point you to is Natures Menu Country Hunter Raw Nuggets. They're a frozen complete raw in nugget form, which is genuinely useful for a large dog because you can portion by weight very precisely — no hacking at frozen rolls. The recipes use whole prey inclusions like bone, offal, and green tripe, which provide natural joint-supportive compounds. I'd go with their Venison or Duck variety for him — both are relatively lean proteins, which helps manage weight on a dog prone to joint strain, and neither is a high-purine protein that would stress kidneys over time. Feed two smaller meals a day rather than one large one, timed at least 90 minutes away from any exercise — that's your main bloat mitigation alongside the ready-made format keeping meal composition consistent.

At 62kg and assuming he's not overweight, you'd be feeding around 2% of body weight daily for a maintenance adult — so roughly 1.2kg of raw per day. With Natures Menu Country Hunter nuggets, a 1kg bag typically runs around £5–£6 on Amazon UK, so you're looking at approximately £180–£220 per month. That's a real cost, and it's worth being honest about. If that's too steep, I can point you to a couple of alternatives that are slightly less expensive per kilo while still being nutritionally complete — but Country Hunter is genuinely one of the cleaner ready-made raws available, and for a dog with his profile, consistency and quality of ingredients matter more than with a younger, lower-risk dog.

The green tripe and whole prey inclusions in Country Hunter do provide natural glucosamine and chondroitin, which is a meaningful baseline. For a 5-year-old with early wear rather than diagnosed arthritis, that's likely sufficient to start. I'd give it three months, then reassess at his next vet check — if the vet sees progression, adding a dedicated joint supplement like YuMOVE is a straightforward addition. But don't layer supplements on before you know they're needed; you'll spend money and potentially unbalance things unnecessarily. Get the food foundation right first.