So I will be getting a Chihuahua pup in two weeks, he will be 8 weeks old and probably weigh around a pound or so, 5-6lbs full grown. The breeder has him on kibble and I of course want him to be on raw. I'm worried about hypoglycemia and the portion sizes...etc. Should I keep him on kibble until he's older and he won't risk a sugar crash if he's picky about eating the meat?

If not, what would be a good thing to feed? I was thinking necks and skinned thigh pieces but I worry about the bone in the thigh with such a small dog.

Anyone out there with a chi and feeds raw?

Sorry if there's been a thread about this and I missed it. Thanks for your time.

You'd be right at an 8 week old chi not being able to get through a thigh bone. The jaw strength just isn't there and it's a little too big of a meal at that point. 1/4 - 1/3 of a cup of volume total is going to be just about all you can do for a meal on a normal size 8 week old show chi.

Normally with a baby pap I'll mix up ground 2 lbs ground or chopped raw chicken or turkey, with 1 1/2 cups of ground egg shells or chopped raw chicken bone, 3 ice cube size bits of ground or finely chopped liver, and 1/3 cup veggie pulp. I store this in a plastic bag in my fridge and when feeding time comes I'll just scoop out 1/4 cup into a cat dish which I serve just below room temp. Once they finish the dish in a reasonable amount of time I start moving the volume up and the number of meals down.

The reason for the just below room temp thing is I find my puppies tend to get really really cold and pukey if I don't. It takes a lot of energy for a wee puppy to warm up a ice cold meal.

I start offering necks as a rec bone and once they can consume them (normally at about 4-5 months old). I start switching them over to an adult diet. Most of my papillons can't crack a thigh bone until their adult teeth are totally in.

You'll need to offer food around 4x - 5x a day to start. You'll also need some karo syrup on hand just in case your dog has a low blood sugar moment.

Melissa about covered it. I have a Chi and he has no problem as an adult, w/just about anything I give him. If your pup is THAT small that choking isn't an issue, try mini drumsticks or chicken wingettes. I give these to Widget all the time, but I know how he eats and trust him not to try to swallow it whole.

The Honest Kitchen might be a good thing for you to do in the interim while you figure out just how much raw meat/bone he can handle. That way, w/Embark or Force (I'd go with Embark), you know his nutritional needs are being met regardless of how picky he is w/the RMBs.

 Quote: jenni williams

Melissa about covered it. I have a Chi and he has no problem as an adult, w/just about anything I give him. If your pup is THAT small that choking isn't an issue, try mini drumsticks or chicken wingettes. I give these to Widget all the time, but I know how he eats and trust him not to try to swallow it whole.

The Honest Kitchen might be a good thing for you to do in the interim while you figure out just how much raw meat/bone he can handle. That way, w/Embark or Force (I'd go with Embark), you know his nutritional needs are being met regardless of how picky he is w/the RMBs.

Big huge ditto to THK for anyone who isn't quite sure of all-raw yet.

http://leerburg.com/honestkitchen.htm

Adding the raw meat or RMBs to the rehydrated THK in the proportions on the package is an excellent bridge to all-raw, IMO, and even an excellent (if a little spendy) permanent diet.


http://leerburg.com/embark.htm
"Embark is our grain free, low carbohydrate dog food. This diet was designed for dogs of all life stages including active adults, puppies, pregnancy and nursing."


P.S. Melissa helped me in PMs to devise a raw diet for a newly adopted (but senior) Papillon, on the small side even for her breed, who was eager to get that chicken back inside herself but would have taken days at the rate she was going to accomplish it, and I'm happy to say that her owners are now having a ball making a tiny raw diet for her, and the dog is thrilled with her new food.

I'll second embark as a THK choice if you decide to go that route. My dogs love it compared to Thrive and you can also mix burger and such in with no problems. It's also easier to do a temperature control simply by using hot water when you make it. I weaned four pups on it last year and it did a great job, I'll use it again in the future. It is expensive but on a chi that you'll be using 1/4 a cup at a time per meal it'll last you a long time.

I find temperature problems go away as the puppy gets bigger and closer to the 2.5 - 3lb range. Although my smaller adult dogs will shake for a bit after a big cold meal I have yet to have one hurl after that initial tiny puppy stage.

If you are having trouble coming up with chopped chicken bones simply beating the crud out of a chicken back with a meat hammer and chopping it up or running it through a grinder will be a pretty good way to get bone, or you can grind necks or chop as well.

Let us know if your pup is a hard sell on consistent eating. It happens a lot with toy dog puppies and there are a few tricks to get food into them willingly.

 Quote: Melissa Thom

.... If you are having trouble coming up with chopped chicken bones simply beating the crud out of a chicken back with a meat hammer and chopping it up ....

This was what we did with my neighbor's dog who was working so diligently on her first skinned chicken back.

Now they have ordered Embark from Leerburg, and they have stocked up on Cornish hens (on sale at the moment), and they have had the natural food store butcher grind a whole SmartChicken. (They will do this for no charge if they can have a little notice.) They plan to add the whole ground chicken in gradually because of course all the fat and skin are included and they are starting her off with the skin and fat mostly peeled off so there are no diarrhea surprises after a life on cruddy kibble.

I'm just pointing out that there are lots of options for even the smallest of dogs. And variety (gradually, of course) is such a great thing.

With Melissa's puppy concoction, would it be a good idea to start with a more limited ingredient blend?

 Quote: Michael_Wise

With Melissa's puppy concoction, would it be a good idea to start with a more limited ingredient blend?

You mean starting with one ingredient and adding one at a time? Oh yes. I'm a huge believer in that.

Good catch, Michael!

I didn't limit ingredients with that recipe when I did the last pup and I had no trouble but perhaps I got lucky, my dogs tend not to have digestion issues.

My concern on limiting ingredients with a puppy is that what do you limit and for how long? I have seen some pretty slow conversions done by people here on adult dogs, my major concern with that slow conversion is that puppies need protein, calcium, fat, and essential vitamins to develop not just maintain like an adult dog. At this age denying a vitamin for a week IMO matters.

 Quote: Melissa Thom

I didn't limit ingredients with that recipe when I did the last pup and I had no trouble but perhaps I got lucky, my dogs tend not to have digestion issues.

My concern on limiting ingredients with a puppy is that what do you limit and for how long? I have seen some pretty slow conversions done by people here on adult dogs, my major concern with that slow conversion is that puppies need protein, calcium, fat, and essential vitamins to develop not just maintain like an adult dog. At this age denying a vitamin for a week IMO matters.

Oh, no .... in this switch from kibble, it's adding in each ingredient one per day, backing up only if there is any poop deterioration. In five or six days the diet is complete (except for the additional protein source variety).

The first item is the crucial calcium-phosphorus ratio (the RMB), such as chicken backs, with no alteration except the skin peeled off for a day or two. (For example, it would never be recommended to begin with no-calcium muscle meat.)

Absolutely correct that the very gradual conversion on an adult dog who has developed colitis or something similar on kibble is not the same speed with which a puppy gets all his ingredients. Protein, calcium, fat, and essential vitamins are in place by day two or three, unless something triggered soft poop and there's a day's slowdown.

Organ meat is one of the items that is often added slowly (because it's the most likely to trigger diarrhea if it's added all at once).

Of course, if I was a breeder, weaning right onto raw and with the knowledge that my pups were sturdy and had no GI issues (like you, like Ed and Cindy), I'd be different from someone getting their pup from a breeder who fed kibble and having to make that switch.