Hello All,
Kind of new to the RAW diet here and was wondering what most of you folks who have been feeding RAW do when your pup begins to cut his adult teeth? Do you continue to give them their bones or do you grind them up during this stage of the thier teething process? My pup Max does very well with chewing up his chicken necks, wings and so forth, just did not know if this would continue to be the case once he really started to get his adult teeth, or at that time does he need a bit of help? Right now I cut the chicken wings and necks up into several pieces, he does chew them and I do not make them small enough for him to just swallow them. When he was 8 weeks old he got his tongue cut ( just about off at the tip) so now he has a small hole all the way through his little tongue, the vet said that he would be fine as long as he was eating and he is eating pretty well for sure, from 9.9 lbs at 8 weeks old to a bit over 26 at 13 to 14 weeks. So I feel pretty comfortable that he is eating okay and growing like a weed. He is still thin and you can see just the out line of his ribs, so that all seems to be going well. Just really was wondering what to do when he hit that stage between his adult teeth and lossing his puppy teeth.
Any help or advice from folks who have already walked this road would be greatly appericated.
Yes I know a bit early on this question but then again I got Ed's 8 weeks to 8 months 2 months before Max came home :-).
Thx,
Jay

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.....Do you continue to give them their bones or do you grind them up during this stage of the thier teething process? My pup Max does very well with chewing up his chicken necks, wings and so forth, just did not know if this would continue to be the case once he really started to get his adult teeth.....

I personally don't have puppies. I have read a ton on raw feeding and I do feed raw and I have friends with puppies. <img src="http://www.leerburgkennels.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I think he will be fine, and will love the chewing involved.

BTW, I think chicken backs are great, too, along with the necks and wings.

Connie,
Thanks for your response and yes I have seen your name all over the board here :-). Max seems to be doing very well and I wish that I could find chicken backs in Houston Texas, it seems to be almost impossible to find them here for some strange reason, heck finding necks is a pretty tuff thing to do as well. My wife and I drive all over the place some times looking, just have not found a place in Houston that sells them, maybe I will get lucky and some one from my area will post a response as well. We went up to Ark to visit my son last week and in the store when we asked about chicken necks they looked at us like we have 10 eyes and 4 heads... LOL Feeding RAW is the way to go and we are more than willing for some of the strange looks, Max is well worth it and if it can buy him even one more day of life over kibble I would and will continue to drive all over hecks half acer to find it. :-)..
Thanks again!!!
Jay

My 6 mo old GSD puppy has been on raw since he was born. I think the backs/necks/frames have helped with teething. I wouldn't grind them up for that reason.

Jay try looking in asian supermarkets or food stores,I buy all my meat and fish in a chinese supermarket.You would not believe the selection they have!

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Connie,
Thanks for your response and yes I have seen your name all over the board here :-). Max seems to be doing very well and I wish that I could find chicken backs in Houston Texas, it seems to be almost impossible to find them here for some strange reason, heck finding necks is a pretty tuff thing to do as well. My wife and I drive all over the place some times looking, just have not found a place in Houston that sells them, maybe I will get lucky and some one from my area will post a response as well. We went up to Ark to visit my son last week and in the store when we asked about chicken necks they looked at us like we have 10 eyes and 4 heads... Jay

Find yourself a real butcher - Sokups here in my home town will order me 40lb boxes frozen. I get a whole months worth of bones for $24. Same thing for pork neck bones or whatever bones you feed. A real butcher will be happy to special order it.

teething is the perfect time to feed whole rmbs as it will help satisfy his desire to chew. it's actually safer to not cut the bones up. let him chew them up. larger pieces are better than small ones.

if you want to feed chicken, why not feed whole fryers from the supermarket? that's what i do. i cut them in half while they are half frozen. a big, sharp meat cleaver type knife does the trick. then you know he is getting the right meat/bone ratio.

too much bone can be constipating, so watch it on the pork neck bones! and it's good to feed organ meats a couple of times a week as they keep the bowels moving. beef heart and beef liver are an excellent choice.

I have a little puppy. He is 9 weeks old and weighs about 5 lbs. He loves to chew. He is on a semi-raw diet. I use raw beef for training treats and he eats Honest Kitchen for his meals. The question I have is whether he is too little age-wise or size-wise for bones. If he is old enough for bones, given his age and size, what kind of bones would you recommend. He'll chew on just about anything!

my pup was weaned on chicken wings and chicken necks. that's a great place to start.

Thanks so much for the advice on the chicken wings (I can't find necks. My store doesn't carry them). At first I gave him a whole wing. It took me about 15 minutes to realize it was just too big for him to handle. I took it back and cut it at the joint. I have to admit, I was leary giving my dog a chicken bone. It just seemed counter intuitive to everything I had learned before. But I trust this site and all the bright people on it. I gave him the bone and he is having a GREAT time. I thought the bone would last for days, but he has been working on it non-stop for about an hour now and has it down to the joint. And praise God, he hasn't choked once. This will be a regular part of his diet now. I still skeeve the raw chicken and worry about getting salmonella if he licks me (he loves to give kisses!), but I'll work around all this, cause I know he loves it and more important I know it's good for him. Thanks for the help!