Thanks for the info, with shadow at 5 months and growing this will be helpful.

 Quote: Aaron Myracle

The cooked chicken/rice combo was for the dog while he was sick.
That's the standard diet for a dog on antibiotics. You can't feed a dog raw while they're on a course of antibiotics.

90% hamburger and 10% chicken breast is... way, WAY too muscle heavy. There's virtually no bone in that mix.

I agree with Orijen being the best quality kibble on the market.

thats why i said START with that.. its easier to digest. i wouldnt cook anything just cuz they are on antibiotics. maybe give them meds first thing in the morning and feed them closer to bed time... but to be honest with you, my dogs never get sick so medicine isnt really an issue.

cottage cheese and yogurt are natural pro biotics. you just have to be careful and give small amounts cuz they are dairy products. i dont really wanna give you a ton of advice,cuz im not a dog nutriotionist, but i can tell you from my personal experiacnce. usually what i have noticed is that when you go from kibble to raw you get runny poops. sometimes gas. generally, when starting a dog, i keep an eye on his poop, when it solidfies, and comes out firm and small, you can start adding variety. ive never know it to take longer than 3 or 4 days, with the excpetion of dogs that have worms. Once you get whole leg quarters going down, you can move on to pork bones and stuff..depending on how big your dog is give him bones that will make him sit and chew for a while. it will "get his juices flowing" just make sure he chews and isnt swallowing his food whole.

i feed my dog anything i can get, vension ( i get a couple hundred pounds per hunting season for free) hamburger (the tubes are the cheapest) chicken, duck, fish if i can get them fresh, or when i go fishing. i also give my dogs some blue berries every now and then. i sometimes get trimmings from the slaughter house (you would be surprised how much they throw away) as long as you have alot of variety you will be fine. I even go so far as to order kangaroo meat every now and then (its delicious for us to lol)

Are you talking about the probiotic-enriched cottage cheese, or just regular cottage cheese?

You're not really describing the bone ratios you're recommending.
If you're feeding venison, which bones?
Ditto for hamburger and kangaroo.

just normal cottage cheese is what i ahve always used.. i couldnt really tell you about a bone ratio, i mean if the chicken has bones in it, thats what they get, if i give him a tbone, he gets that much bone, if i give him a pork chop, he gets taht much bone...i dont usually make a big deal out of measuring it all out. just make sure they get variety and you will be golden.

as far as the venison, i have that shoulders and hams cut into sections and give the bone thats in that with the meat. the rest of the meat is generally bone free anyways.

 Quote: James Biggs

just normal cottage cheese is what i ahve always used.. i couldnt really tell you about a bone ratio, i mean if the chicken has bones in it, thats what they get, if i give him a tbone, he gets that much bone, if i give him a pork chop, he gets taht much bone...i dont usually make a big deal out of measuring it all out. just make sure they get variety and you will be golden.

The problem is, it isn't that simple.
Muscle meat is high in phosphorus. Without bone, the body will strip it's OWN bones to obtain that calcium to re-balance the calcium/phosphorus ratio.

right, but my dogs get cheese, yogurt, leg quarters with bone in them daily, chicken backs that are mostly bone, pork neck BONES. deer hams have bones in them ..lol.. I think they are getting plenty.

Deer hams are also a TON of meat. Ditto for a pork chop. Ground beef has none. Beef stew meat has none.
The meat to bone ratio is still way out of whack.

I don't think you can consider two spoonfuls of cottage cheese a week, a source of calcium, even if we're assuming that dogs are able to process dairy sources of calcium.

Do you understand what I mean by ratio?

As an example, your recommendation to the OP of hamburger and chicken breasts was around a 95/5 ratio of muscle to bone.