I've several house/kennel dogs and decided to move them over to an all raw diet. Their ages are between 10 weeks and 2.5 years. I just have some questions about moving over to this diet. a)Is it still okay to feed them commercial dog biscuits or will this interfer with digestion? b)Some of them seem to be vomiting up yellow bile (normally at night) that sometimes has bits of bone in it. Is this just a stage they go through? c) When they say use pulverised meat, not chunks, so they eat the veggies mixed in, is this hamburger meat that you can buy? This seems to have a lot of fat. The last question is: The puppy would eat nothing but bones if I let him. How much should the bone ratio to meat be and is it okay to let weaning litters chew on bones? Thanks.

Originally posted by Ami:
. a)Is it still okay to feed them commercial dog biscuits or will this interfer with digestion? b)Some of them seem to be vomiting up yellow bile (normally at night) that sometimes has bits of bone in it. Is this just a stage they go through? c) When they say use pulverised meat, not chunks, so they eat the veggies mixed in, is this hamburger meat that you can buy? This seems to have a lot of fat. The last question is: The puppy would eat nothing but bones if I let him. How much should the bone ratio to meat be and is it okay to let weaning litters chew on bones? Thanks. a)Why feed commercial dog biscuits? They are full of the same crap that is in commercial dog food. If you want to give some kind of treat Ed sells liver biscuit type treats on his website or you can make your own. If you have a whole bunch of biscuits already laying around the house then go ahead and feed them. When I switched my dogs (6 years ago) I donated all my treats and leftover food to the shelter so I wouldn't have to feel like I was wasting it.

b)a lot of dogs have trouble digesting bones at first, try adding probiotic powder to the food for a while. I get mine at http://www.b-naturals.com.

c)You can use any kind of meat, either ground or chunks but most people use ground meat so the dogs can't pick the veggies out.(I very rarely feed veggies to my own dogs) The high fat content is good for dogs unless you have one that is overweight or has pancreatitis issues.

d)you will get varying opinions on the meat to bone ratio. Some people say 50/50, others say 70/30.......I don't stress about it. I don't know the ratio of my own diet so as long as my dogs are healthy and happy then I just pay attention to varying their diet and hope to achieve balance over time. Maybe give your pup meatier bones to eat (i.e. chicken thighs ) Puppies do need more raw bone in the diet than adults as a rule.

I don't see why weaning pups can't chew on bones, I have raised my last 2 litters on a completely raw diet and they did fine. They started chewing on chicken back at around 3 1/2 weeks although I have done some reading that says it's best to wait til 4 weeks to offer any kind food.......something about preventing allergies later on.

Any kind of meat should be fine, as Cindy said. Mine hate chicken, but sometimes eat goat, lamb, turkey, beef, and on occasion have fed them pork & fish. It doesn't make any difference if it's ground meat or chunks...they'll probably love it no matter what form it's in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> My dogs don't get much in the way of veggies either. They eat mostly meat, and neither dog has had a problem with the high fat content.

So far as feeding the little puppies bones, you would probably be fine giving them chicken necks or something similar. Just watch them carefully, the first time I gave my female (she was about 4 months old), a turkey neck she swallowed it whole...and this was one whopping big turkey neck! She scared me half to death, but she ended up throwing up the bone about an hour later and she was fine.

Yellow bile is usually a sign of an imbalance in the juices in the stomach. Usually adding a tablespoon or so of yogurt to their food will solve the problem.

The probiotics and/or a good digestive enzyme should fix the bile puking too and won't add dairy (lactose) to the diet.

I don't feed any grains or dairy to my dogs. Lactose and gluten feed yeast and cancer cells, dogs have no nutritional need for them either so why feed them if they aren't needed?

Many dogs with chronic skin and ear problems clear up once dairy products and all grains are removed from the diet. I have one dog in particular that is like a different animal once I researched and tweaked the diet.

Of course, adding yogurt for a dog without any yeast or lactose issues is certainly better than going back to commercial dog food!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I've read and heard that dairy products can cause serious problems to dogs. Although that may be the norm and dogs don't need dairy in their diets, I have not had any problems with dairy products with my two dogs. I have one who used to have terrible skin problems, but I feed them dairy products and the skin problem is gone, so luckily that wasn't the cause of the skin problems in his case. One of my dogs is an absolute dairy nut...he LOVES cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, cream cheese, milk, etc. In fact, he likes these things BETTER than he likes meat. Don't get me wrong, he only gets them occasionally, but I personally haven't had any problems.

During teething, one would think it'd be especially important to have the minerals in bones. However, can they handle the bones, or does one grind them up somehow?

Mine were started on meaty bones between 3 1/2 and 4 months of age, and we didn't have a problem. I started them out on chicken necks because they are small.

I'm not sure how young you can start a puppy, but I believe I read in one of the books that Ed sells, that pups can be started on meaty bones when they are weaned. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> I think I saw that in Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats by Kymythy R. Schultze. Maybe someone can confirm that...I can't check because I let someone borrow my copy.

I have the book by Ian Billinghurst, Give Your Dog a Bone. Basically a decent book, but redundant as hell, and not too clear on a couple things, namely the thing about which I'm asking.

I weaned both my litters of GSD's last year directly to a raw diet. At about 3 1/2 weeks they got chicken backs to chew on and by 4 1/2 weeks they were completely eating them.

Billinghurst's books are OK, I don't agree with the amount of grain, dairy and veggies he recommends but anything is better than kibble IMO.
I think it's important to read everything you can and make your own decisions for your own dogs! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I have ground chicken backs for my puppies in the past but I really don't believe it's necessary for large breeds. (I have GSDs,a Dobermann, a Malinois and a Corgi) Maybe if I raised Yorkies or some little mosquito sized dogs......LOL Even the Corgi as a pup had no problem chewing and digesting chicken wings and backs.

The things that I do agree with Billinghurst on are the exercise that dogs get from eating the raw meaty bones. It also keeps them mentally happier too I think.