Quote: connie sutherland

... About the weight-bearing bones thing...Cindy responds that commercial leg quarters are young and soft and that: "A 9 week old malinois or GSD can chow down a leg or thigh bone without a problem. A yorkie may not be able to."

So, chicken thigh/leg ratio of meat/bone is okay, and the only
question was the weight-bearing bone being too hard to chew & digest?

So, then they can be included as a staple for a large breed dog?


Edited by Martin Espericueta (03/24/2007 06:52 PM)
Edit reason: grammer

 Quote: martin espericueta

 Quote: connie sutherland

... About the weight-bearing bones thing...Cindy responds that commercial leg quarters are young and soft and that: "A 9 week old malinois or GSD can chow down a leg or thigh bone without a problem. A yorkie may not be able to."

So, chicken thigh/leg ratio of meat/bone is okay, and the only
question was the weight-bearing bone being too hard to chew & digest?

So, then they can be included as a staple for a large breed dog?

Cindy (who has a ton of experience with many dogs, obviously) says yes.

Well, good. So the bone to meat ratio in thighs and legs is okay. Darn it, I already chopped off some extra meat on the thighs (we bbq'd it!).

Oh well, live and learn.

Just as an update, I fed Carbon 2 chicken wings and the Corgi one chicken wing last night and both had no problems. Still waiting on the supplements, but I figure they'll be fine until I get them.

And I'm sorry, if you feed backs then you need to add some extra meat, to balance it out?

Connie--if you were stranded on an island with a pack of hungry dogs...tons of meat and other foods...but no idea how to properly feed your dogs...what's the ONE book on Raw feeding you would buy? I need a raw bible to refer to. So many conflicting opinions.

In the poultry category, I feed my GSD pup:
1)chicken wings - crunch, crunch, a little chewing, gulp
2)chicken legs - 3 crunches, a little chewing, gulp
3)chicken thighs - 3 crunches, a little chewing, gulp
4)chicken leg quarters - lays down, a little chewing, 5-6 crunches, gulp
5)chicken necks - no crunches, no chewing, gulp
6)turkey necks - lays down, several crunches and chews, gulp
7)cornish game hens - 3-5 minutes of crunching and chewing and gulping
8)frozen cornish game hen, fed cause wanted a few minutes to relax, 7 minutes of crunching and chewing and gulping. No relaxing for me!

I got over my fear of the couple of crunches and down the hatch style of my pup....it was either get over the fear (and it was unwarranted in his case, never any problems with undigested bones), or feed kibble, and ain't no way I was going to do that

I figure some dogs are slow and methodical (my last GSD), some eat quickly, some eat voraciously like there's no tomorrow. Lear is probably the latter so I learned to just let him eat like he wants to.

Probably won't give a frozen game hen again, simply cause it didn't buy me any time

Frozen turkey necks buy me a little more time, but I still prefer to give thawed. I'm just a little leary of frozen long single piece bones, like in a drumstick or thigh so I don't feed frozen drumsticks or thighs or quarters.

Hi Sandy,

I like the chart

Have you tried venison necks yet? True just got his first one and it took him a good long while to finish it. There was ample meat on it and the bone in it was soft enough to crunch with a little bit of work but just a little harder than a chicken bone. No way he could have gulped it like chicken. I was pleased to finally find something he won't inhale.

Amber.

I know your question was directed towards Connie, but if you don't mind I'll give you my opinion on two of your points.

Regarding the chicken backs: I recently gave my pup a chicken neck + a chicken back for a meal. He ate about 3/4 of the back and I took it away. Next meal I gave him a more meaty part of the animal. I did this because his stools were a bit runny, and it was back to normal after that meal.

I can't buy backs where I live, so I have to buy whole chickens. I cut it up in half, and since I was going to eat half of it, I cut "my" back and gave it to him.

Regarding the book: well I'm going to cheat and will recommend two books. They are by the same author, a vet called Tom Lonsdale. He's one of the pioneers of raw feeding. They are called "Work Wonders" and "Raw Meaty Bones". Not only are they great books, but they are free! Not sure if I should be posting this since I think they sell those books here, but the author has a website and he himself hosts the books for people to download them in pdf format. I will refrain from putting up the link to avoid any trouble

Hope this helps.

Sarah, haven't tried venison necks, will have to research where I can get them around here. Aren't they huge though? I imagine too big for one meal or one day's feeding? How did you manage the size for your dog?

Mine was cut down into large pieces (smaller in size than a 1/2 chicken and bigger than a chicken breast) with one piece being a meal.

Oh good I'll look into it, it sounds great actually. Hopefully I can find a source. I'm sure Lear would LOVE it!

 Quote: amber morgan

--if you were stranded on an island with a pack of hungry dogs...tons of meat and other foods...but no idea how to properly feed your dogs...what's the ONE book on Raw feeding you would buy? I need a raw bible to refer to. So many conflicting opinions.

I'm assuming you already want to feed raw and are looking for nuts 'n bolts. These are great:

http://www.leerburg.com/935.htm

http://www.leerburg.com/970.htm

But I also buy every good new book that comes out, because the body of research changes all the time. There was a time when there was really one author (and thank heaven for him). Then as each book came out, there was new stuff.

Here's a prime example: It wasn't until the last few years that it was known that dogs were unable to convert short-chain Omega 3s (from flax, etc.) into the very beneficial long-chain EFAs (which humans can do at a rate of about 10%) and needed marine sources to supplement modern diets.

P.S. I too really like Tom Lonsdale's books, and of course Billinghurst's, of which the newest is probably the most "nuts 'n bolts."