Re: Hey It's been a while
[Re: Tracy Collins ]
#371197 - 12/27/2012 12:08 PM |
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Yes, the vitamin E and fish oil sold for humans is the same for dogs. The amount in the multivitamin tablet isn't enough.
The fish oil provides an essential fatty acid that is largely missing in even the best dog's diet, raw or manufactured, so supplementing it is important for all dogs. The vitamin E is added because it helps the dog's body metabolize the fish oil.
I have no problems with multivitamins as a nutritional "safety net" to supply missing nutrients. I take one myself. But I don't give one to my dogs. I'd rather spend those dollars on things I know they need more--like the fish oil and E...along with a varied diet that includes multiple protein sources.
So here's what I'd like to see you do to fine-tune your raw feeding:
1. Substitute a third of the chicken you're currently feeding with some other protein source. You can "rotate" in turkey, beef, pork, cooked eggs, canned fish, or anything else you can find. By the way--what chicken parts are you feeding now? Leg quarters? Whole chickens?
2. Continue to pay attention to the poops. If you add some boneless meat (say, a hunk of pork shoulder) you'll need to adjust the "boniness" of the chicken. I think chicken backs are just about the perfect dog food--they have lots of soft bones in them, they are super-cheap, and they are just right for mixing with some boneless meat in a meal.
(the amount of bone in the diet is largely responsible for the firm--but not rock-hard--poop consistency that raw-fed dogs have.)
3. Feed organ meats, liver or kidney, several times a week---up to 5-10% of the diet. But start this EXTREMELY slowly. Start with a piece of liver the size of your pinky fingernail. Then gradually increase the amount you feed. Too much organ meat fed at one time, especially to a dog unused to it, WILL cause diarrhea, I guarantee it. Organ meats provide a lot of nutrients that are not available in muscle meat. They are a must-have, IMO.
4. Stop focusing so much on the veggies as an "important" part of the diet. They are fine to feed some--and they do provide some additional vitamins---but not to the exclusion of the more important animal-source proteins in the diet. Vegetable matter should not make up any more than 5-10% at most. Also--any vegetables you feed your dog need to be "processed" in some way to make the nutrients available. Cooking, freezing, or pureeing are all possibilities. Raw vegetables will pass right through the dog and come out the other end unused because unlike humans, dogs cannot digest cellulose. So you have to do a little "pre-digesting" for them in order to make any plant-based food a suitable source of nutrition.
(this is why many people seek out "green tripe"...which is the partially digested vegetable matter left inside a cow's stomach. Dogs instinctively love this stinky mess. You can accomplish the same thing by freezing vegetables until they are mush, or putting them in the Cuisinart and blending them to pulp.)
Leafy greens and berries will give you the most nutritional bang for the buck...but mine also like occasional scraps of carrot, broccoli stems, peas, apple, sweet potato. But again, any of these plant foods are a very small "side dish" to a diet that is very-much meat based.
Hope some of this rambling helps.
Tracy's outline here is excellent. I second everything he has said, especially the fact that vegetables are really more of a small add in, and are not as vitally important as the variety of meats, and additional organs. Those are the most important part of raw diet.
Meat to bone ratio being the most important. Please make sure that you are feeding enough RMB's because calcium is so very important. I love this outline Tracy.
RC! Just remember that animal hearts are not organ meat, but muscle meat, and can be a great part of the diet.
Joyce Salazar
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Re: Hey It's been a while
[Re: RC Dennis ]
#371200 - 12/27/2012 01:38 PM |
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thats an awesome outline, Im going to follow that. I printed it & stuck it on my fridge. I get 40lb boxes of legs & thighs and my frozen veggies at a local wholesale food supply. Their veggies are not processed, they buy fresh cut and package them at the store. Quanity wise I give them 2legs & 2 thighs each morning and same in the eve while Im cooking dinner. We eat alot of pork here so I can change one or 2 days of chicken to pork easily enough. My mother in law is 86 and we puree her food she has gotten to where she couldn't chew so good I could probably give them a 1/2 cup? of her food it's mostly veggies.
I have given Tibby scrambled eggs before but she throws it up, is it ok to give them uncooked eggs? I always heard that was good for their coat or is that a urban dog myth?
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Re: Hey It's been a while
[Re: RC Dennis ]
#371201 - 12/27/2012 01:39 PM |
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oh, 1 more Q are gizzards better than liver?
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Re: Hey It's been a while
[Re: RC Dennis ]
#371202 - 12/27/2012 01:57 PM |
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Gizzards (and hearts) can be counted as boneless muscle meat (not "organs" for the purposes of raw-feeding.
I buy gizzards in bulk and sometimes use them--they are good and cheap. You're aiming for variety...so adding chicken gizzards to a chicken-only diet isn't really accomplishing that. But, yes, chicken gizzards are fine dog food.
Organ meat = liver, kidney (or, if you are adventurous, brain, eyes, thymus, pancreas, spleen.)
Muscle meat = heart, gizzard, and any skeletal muscle (i.e. any ordinary "meat" without bones.
RMB = "raw meaty bones"...any meat with EDIBLE bones in it. This is what your chicken parts are. For a large dog, you can also try turkey parts, pork ribs or pork neck bones. Or even rabbit parts, squirrel, goat, lamb---any critter small enough that your dog could consume the bones.
Big bones (knuckle bones, beef bones) = toys. These are not food. We're only talking about the kind of bones that a dog can eat entirely in a few minutes. Few dogs can actually consume the bones of a cow, deer, or even the leg bones of a pig. Too hard. And probably a risk for breaking a tooth.
A little more than half the diet should be RMB. A little less than half should be muscle meat. 5-10% organs. Veggies, even less.
The wholesale food supply place sounds great! Ask them what else they can get for you in bulk.... chicken backs? Duck necks? turkey parts? Beef or pork hearts?
if you're buying frozen veg, that's processed enough. You know how when you thaw out veggies that have been frozen and they are mushy? That's because freezing breaks the cell walls of the plant. That's all that's required. You don't have to ALSO puree the veggies unless you want to.
Eggs: an occasional raw egg is okay. If you're going to feed a lot of eggs (I do--I keep chickens), then cooking them is better.
Cinco | Jack | Fanny | Ellie | Chip | Deacon |
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Re: Hey It's been a while
[Re: RC Dennis ]
#371203 - 12/27/2012 02:22 PM |
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read the article at dogaware.... 3 times lol... seems i'm lacking a good bit, answered my previos questions though. thank you.
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Re: Hey It's been a while
[Re: RC Dennis ]
#371204 - 12/27/2012 02:44 PM |
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Re: Hey It's been a while
[Re: RC Dennis ]
#371209 - 12/27/2012 04:14 PM |
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Re: Hey It's been a while
[Re: RC Dennis ]
#371273 - 12/28/2012 04:16 PM |
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Do you have any pics taken from above the dog(s), with the dog standing?
I was hoping to get a good view of the waistline to make sure there's not a pound or two extra creeping on.
You got great advice on this thread!
To add one thing ..... that daily vitamin is vitamins only, right? Not minerals?
And as Tracy said:
"Again, congrats and good for you. Now that you're comfortable with raw feeding and are seeing success, it's time to just "take it to the next level." "
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Re: Hey It's been a while
[Re: RC Dennis ]
#371281 - 12/28/2012 07:19 PM |
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the vitamins are GNC ultra mega multivitamin plus premium formula. The bottle claims Amino Acids & minerals to support a healthy coat, Added antioxidants plus digestive enzymes
Crude Protein 21%
Crude Fat 9%
Lysine 18.75mg
Methionine 18.75mg
Cysteine 18.75mg
Threonine 18.75mg
Calcium 165mg
Phosphorus 110mg
Potassium 16mg
Sodium 6mg
Chloride 10mg
Magnesium 4 mg
Iron 3.5mg
Copper 0.15mg
Manganese 0.3mg
Zinc 2mg
Iodine 0.6mg
Vitamin A 1500IU
Vitamin D 150 IU
Vitamin E 15IU
Thiamin 2mg
Riboflavin 1.5mg
Niacin 11mg
Pyridoxine 1mg
Vitamin B-12 0.7mcg
Choline 40mg
Omega 3 Fatty Acids from fish oil 0.13%
Ascorbic Acid 135mg
Tourine 50mg
Glycine 18.75mg
Aspartic Acid 18.75mg
Proline 18.75mg
Serine 18.75mg
Cellulose 5 CMCU
alpha-Amylase 90SKB
Lipase 10LU
Papain 1125PU
Menadione 2.5 mcg
Stop giving it to them?
They aren't fat, Tibby is just "thick" wide bodied Rott. Fritzi is closer to the breed standard for females, Tibby should have been a male.
According to the % of food to dog size ratio I don't think they are getting enough food, but They would eat 10 pounds of food if you just kept feeding them, they'd eat till they puke, they really only get about 3 pounds of meat food each per day and I always give them some of the veggies when I'm cooking, I was glad to read they need to be steamed because thats what they have been getting. The 40 pound box of chicken legs & thighs gives me 6 bags of food, thats about 6.5 pounds per bag. And as I said earlier that is split into 2 meals daily, 1 in the morn & 1 in the eve. I feed them while I'm cooking dinner and they don't want to be under the table while the rest of the pack eats. I don't allow table begging, they chill in the living room while we eat & seem happy to do so.
Whole chickens are actually a few cents cheaper by the pound than legs & thighs, and the breast meat would reduce the amount of bone they get, would that be a better option than strictly legs & thighs? I'm going to change their entire diet starting on the first when I buy meats for the month. I'll get less chicken and add more pork. I mostly shop at Sams except for the bulk chicken & frozen veggies I get that at a local wholesaler. I get the whole pork loins & cut my own filets.
They get outside several times a day & do plenty of running around, they play stalk & chase with each other plus I work them with various toys.
I added 3 pics to that page with them standing , for some reason they look disproportioned, like their legs are short, not sure why. But you can see they aren't chubby but they aren't scrawny either. The last weighing Tibby was 113lbs and fritzi was 90.1 lbs ... i need to trim their nails lol
heres the link again
http://www.rcdennis.com/dogs/tibby_fritzi_12_27_2012.html
Thanks for your help/patience, I'm sure you've answered the same Q's a thousand times. I feel kinda lame.
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Re: Hey It's been a while
[Re: RC Dennis ]
#371283 - 12/28/2012 07:45 PM |
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If you look down at the dog(s) from above, you see a good inward curve at the waist area?
No, you're not lame. And we answer those questions a thousand times because we believe so strongly in a balanced diet of real food.
"Whole chickens are actually a few cents cheaper by the pound than legs & thighs, and the breast meat would reduce the amount of bone they get, would that be a better option than strictly legs & thighs?"
Well, your aim right now is variety. Adding more chicken meat is, IMO, less desirable than adding other meats. If you look here, the first post explains how to start your food bowl with RMBs before adding in the boneless muscle meat or whatever other forms of variety proteins you are adding to your RMBs. Since most of us depend heavily on chicken for the RMBs, we try to go elsewhere for the added proteins.
http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=32656&page=1#366439
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