For those of you who do feed veggies. Do you calculate that into the meal percentage or are veggies just "extra"?

Trying to use the spreadsheet that Keith posted, just my analytical mind again....

BTW love the spreadsheet, helps me feel way better

Personally I calculate it into my dogs diet.

I really think it is personal preference on the veggie stuff.

 Quote: candace sayre

For those of you who do feed veggies. Do you calculate that into the meal percentage or are veggies just "extra"?

Trying to use the spreadsheet that Keith posted, just my analytical mind again....

BTW love the spreadsheet, helps me feel way better

The reason I add it after all the protein ingredients, and don't count is as part of the weight or measurements, is that produce is generally very low in calories, and has no protein or fat. It can be high in water (and, therefore, weight), though. And that weight is mainly water,which I don't want to affect the weights I am feeding of meat/bones, etc.

So I gauge the meat, fat, bones, etc., first, including eggs, yogurt, and anything else that adds protein and fat and calcium, and then add the produce.

Just the way I look at it.

I agree ,I think Veggies are a preference only.I do not and will never do veggies for my K9s I do not see: A) fact, that they need it B) that they even have a benefit from eating veggies.I think that it sounds good to Humans, because to us it is a healthy food group to add to our meals but I really think that's where it should be left, in a humans plate not a dog bowl..
JMO
Wolves were seeing eating flower petals, but never digging up veggies or looking for fruits

Thanks Connie and Angelique.

Like I said, my analytical mind likes to have everything in order before I start something I just think with the phytonutrients (and I am absolutely not going to order and/or feed fresh green tripe, the thought of the smell alone just gags me) it certainly can't hurt to add veggies.

I will just use the spreadsheet without calculating veggies into it and just consider them "extra".

Thanks again for your replies. It helps my mind rest a little easier about this whole raw feeding thing

 Quote: candace sayre

I just think with the phytonutrients .... it certainly can't hurt to add veggies. ...

I'm with you.

I used to think that the strict prey model folks had a valid point about considering produce a waste of time (although I have always included produce) --- and then I watched the UC Gray Wolf Project long-distance videos.

Now I know that the timber wolf (the very close relative of our dogs) not only does eat all the stomach contents of small prey (and some of the stomach contents of large ruminants), which includes partially-digested produce, but also eat young greens and ripe fallen fruit, even in times of plentiful prey....

I've always thought that I did not want to withhold something that the animal might eat on his own, since our dogs can't instinctively correct our errors in feeding them by running down to the store and picking up some liver or blueberries.

I guess I would rather err on the side of abundance when I'm considering what the wild canid chooses to eat in good times.

I do think that the crucial macronutrient requirements are met when we give raw bones, meat, fat, and organs.

But I prefer to try to replicate the wild diet and include the "processed" produce that the dog would eat when he devours small prey in its entirety, as well as make up for the modern lack of Omega 3s by including fish oil and Vitamin E.

All we can each do is do the reading and interpret the research as well as we each can. We won't all see every aspect in exactly the same way.

I agree too , but what fallen fruits are you talking about that is found in their wild habitat? And what young greens?
I have in my reading , my own books and at the library, i have not read that anywhere that they eat fruits, wild grass yes, flower pedals yes, but no fruits.I am curious to what type of fruits they find.I have not see the gray wolf project but it sounds like a good information ...

Connie, thank you again so much for your reply. I have not watched a lot of what wild canids eat (other than the Discovery Channel), but from all of my reading, I get that stomach contents of prey animals (be it deer, elk, moose, rabbit, etc.) are something that wild canids eat.

I agree with you that the macro(major)nutrients that our babies need are met with the RMB's, muscle meat, fat, and organs.I am also with you on the fact that our critters cannot run down to the store and get what they need and we have not provided for them, so I would rather err on the side of "give it and not need it than need it and not give it". After all, if you give it and they don't need it, they will just p**p it out, won't they?

 Quote: angelique cadogan

I agree too , but what fallen fruits are you talking about that is found in their wild habitat? And what young greens?
I have in my reading , my own books and at the library, i have not read that anywhere that they eat fruits, wild grass yes, flower pedals yes, but no fruits.I am curious to what type of fruits they find.I have not see the gray wolf project but it sounds like a good information ...

I didn't know about wild grass, but I believe it.

What was clear were fallen (overripe) berries, lichens, buds, and the youngest of the ferns that grow around streams.

These sound like desperate measures, but, again, this was during periods of lots of prey.

And the small prey they devoured (the digestive systems of which they did *not* discard or leave until the meat was depleted) contained nuts, greens, and seeds.

The biggest prey they took down, though, had the liver and lungs (and maybe this would be because they would be so blood-rich) devoured first, and only one of the stomachs of the big ungulates (and sorry; I don't remember which one) was bothered with.

I didn't see all the following on video, but "insects, nuts, berries, fruits, shellfish, birds, earthworms, carrion and human garbage" are listed (after several types of prey animals, of course) in The Wolf Almanac by Robert Buschon.

I have a page of notes somewhere that I can dig out, listing the various non-meat foods that wolves have actually been seen eating or that have been part of the analyzed stomach contents of wolf autopsies.

Again, I didn't put a lot of stock in this kind of evidence unless it involved wolves who were not desperate for food and who had enough prey available.

 Quote: candace sayre

I would rather err on the side of "give it and not need it than need it and not give it". After all, if you give it and they don't need it, they will just p**p it out, won't they?

Largely, yes, I think -- as long as we do not give anything that's toxic to canids, or non-animal protein foods on a regular basis as part of the protein they require.

I think there's a lot of evidence that dogs fed vegetable proteins as part of the protein they need will incur organ stress in the system's attempts to extract and process the protein in grains (like corn, for example, or wheat), as the pancreas tries to produce unnatural amounts of amylase, etc.

The canine system is just not designed to efficiently use plant protein on a daily basis.

JMO.