Hi,
I recently started to give beef liver, in very tiny pc's, once daily in pm feeding. I give chicken breast w/ bone (barely any skin),chicken gizzard, turkey necks/ground turkey, a little ground beef (it's expensive for the stuff that's not really fatty) can of sardines every few wk's but so far this is it. He's been on all raw now since probably December. I am looking to introduce something else & was thinking heart but would i treat this the same way i do the liver & only give a tiny pc & gradually work up to the whole thing & should i wait until he is 100% good w/ a regular size pc of liver before i try the heart? I feel like he needs more variety. I am not going to get turkey necks this time because they come frozen & i have to cut them myself & they are hard as heck to cut & recently he had blood in his stool (friday night, sat morning & night) enough that i thought maybe the turkey neck somehow was to blame for this so i am doing away w/ those. so i fed him yesterday w/ no bone, just gizzard & ground turkey & this morning, i did not see any blood, i plan to give no bone today too & then If no blood tonight, then will move forward.
suggestions?

Thanks.

Lisa

If you eliminate the turkey necks, you'll need to find something else to replace the bone in this diet. There's not much bone on a chicken breast, and in my experience, about half the diet needs to be "raw meaty bones." In about what proportions are you feeding these things now? What's the dog's poop like normally?

Since you bring up the issue of price...Chicken breasts are a fairly expensive item to feed, when chicken backs, leg quarters, necks, would all be considerably cheaper and provide more bone. Even buying whole chickens and cutting them up would be a much better value than feeding chicken breasts.

Also, unless your dog has a particular issue with fat, there's no reason to keep removing it, or buying premium ground beef. I would recommend you start gradually increasing the fat back up to levels at which you don't have to remove chicken skin, etc. Fat is not bad. It's good to go easy at first, but by now, you can start adding it back in.

Heart is a good cheap source of muscle meat. You'd feed it the same way you're feeding the hamburger meat. Like anything, start with a small piece, but I doubt if you'll have any trouble with it. Hearts and gizzards can be treated like any muscle meat--they are not "organs" for the purposes of raw feeding. Liver and kidney are the ones that you have to introduce in very tiny bits like you are doing--and no need to go overboard with organ meat. You might eventually work up to 10% of the diet in organs, but no more.

What made you think the turkey necks might cause bleeding? Did you see undigested bone in the poop, or what?

Another easy source of variety is pork. Also eggs.

I had given him turkey necks & gizzards, he is a gulper & i need to cut up the turkey necks, they do make me nervous when he is eating them, they are so hard, i use cleaver to cut them up & i am slamming it down as hard as i can & it takes a lot to cut them. sometimes i have a short pc that is not as long but is very thick& those make me afraid it will get stuck or hurt him because he chews it enough to get the thing down & sometimes it's not enough, i can see how he is trying to swallow it.

The chicken breast he chews the same way, he never chews it & some drops to the floor, it's still all in his mouth, one big pc & he just keeps shoveling it in until he can get it down.

the breast are only $1.14 lb which is a great price i thought, 40 lb box but they're the only thing i can get fresh, not frozen & the turkey necks i have to defrost a 30 lb box (which i have no room to do in the refrigerator) & it's NOT good to let that sit for days on my counter so that's another thing i don't like about them, they are .79 lb.

his poop is normally good, firm but not too firm, maybe a little mooshy when i first gave the liver but then gave even smaller pc & it was good. once in a while there is bone in it but tiny & i wasn't worried, he has recenly had a bigger piece that did come out w/ the bloody stool & it was still bloody for 3 more poops which is what made me concerned.

i'm afraid of pork bones due to 1.5 yrs ago when i tried feeding him raw pork ribs he got very sick (throwing up 4-5 times) a few hours after he ate them. he's never had pork since then.

My dog is a golden retriever who can put the lb's on fast & due to his gulping situation i thought it better to cut down on the fat & slowly give him some but not a lot but you know better than me, i'm new at this but the thought of him gagging on that gags me!

as far as proportions, i weigh everything (ast this point i have to so i know he's getting enough but not too much & again i'm new at this so maybe in a year i won't) he gets between .76 - .80 per meal, 2 meals per day.

i don't give chicken breast & turkey at the same meal, sometimes he'll get one chicken breast, depending on how much it weigh's, if it's not enough then i add gizzards, ground turkey or on occasion ground beef to it & the same w/ the turkey neck, which is never a meal on it's own, i would give a turkey neck & ground beef or some gizzards & that's the way it goes.

for a pm snack so he does not throw up bile in the am i give him a little ground meat of whatever i have & add some ground spinich & lima beans to make a patti & then put his salmon oil on it.

re: heart, beef or chicken? i am assuming beef since he already gets the breasts & not much beef or what do you suggest?

what kind of pork do you give your dog?

i want to make sure he gets enough actual meat & gets to actually chew some of his food because obviously he doesn't w/ ground anything & that's why i like the chicken, the turkey necks don't have much meat (doesn't look like it to me anyway)

i got him chicken backs before (1.5 yrs ago) & those had a ton of fat on them & not much meat, so to me if i got backs i would have to give a lot of ground meat w/ it to balance all the bone (unless i'm crazy & i'm looking at this all wrong.. which is possible)

Edited by Connie Sutherland (02/28/2011 01:19 PM)
Edit reason: broken into paragraphs

One thing that I use that can be very helpful if you should need to cut those Tom turkey necks is a rubber mallet.
You can get them at most hardware stores for really cheap.

If you live near Albertson's grocery store, they sell both chicken necks and backs for very good prices.

I used to have a dog that was a gulper. I got him to slow down by holding the turkey neck for him when he was a puppy and eventually, he learned to slow down and chew the neck very well.
Something to consider trying. I know turkey necks can be intimidating, but eventually they get the hang of it and you won't have to hold them anymore.


ETA: It would be very helpful to have paragraphs Lisa, just much easier to read instead of one big paragraph.

 Quote: Joyce Salazar

ETA: It would be very helpful to have paragraphs Lisa, just much easier to read instead of one big paragraph.

You are so right! I know many regular experienced folks will just go right past a huge block of unrelieved text.

I broke it into paragraphs.

Just wanted to add that with RMB's the best ratio
is 1:1. Turkey and chicken necks are great for this.
Backs have a bit more bone, so you do have balance
with additional meat.

I just find it helpful to feed this ratio when figuring out
meals.

You don't have to feed turkey necks if they make you uncomfortable. Chicken parts are a fine way to get bones in your dog's diet. You're already feeding ground turkey, so you've got turkey covered in the checklist of "variety."

You might try chicken backs again--I think they are great. No, they aren't as "meaty" as a breast (although there is some meat on a back, along with some bits of organ meat stuck to the spine too, generally). Could be another way to add bone that the now missing turkey necks were covering. There are also chicken necks and duck necks--both of which are smaller than turkey necks.

When you mentioned hearts, I assumed beef hearts--but any heart meat is fine to feed. If you're goal is variety, then perhaps beef heart would be a better choice than chicken hearts. You're already feeding chicken gizzards.

And you've got some ground beef in there.

So that gives you chicken, turkey, beef--and ocassional sardines. It's not bad variety.

If you don't already feed eggs, that's an easy one to add. Cooked eggs are a cheap alternate protein. Egg shell could also be a way to add additional "bone" in a diet that doesn't have enough. But it doesn't take much. Half an egg shell is enough calcium to be "bone" in a pound of boneless meat.

As for pork. I don't feed pork bones either. But there are several cuts of cheap pork muscle meat---pork butt, pork picnic, even pork hearts---all muscle meat.

It sounds to me like you're doing pretty well with this diet. You've got decent variety, have slowly introduced liver, and learning what works best for you and your dog.

Joyce,

Great suggetion re: paragraphs, i just get typing & don't realize what it looks like.

Doesn't the mallet crush the necks?

Thank you to all who are helping me w/ my paragraphs!

Stupid question, what do you mean ratio 1:1