I have a 6 month old, 80 lb bullmastiff puppy, who I have been grinding up her meat for her. (She's a gulper). We feed Orijen grain free kibble in the mornings, but raw in the evenings. According to the raw food diet calculations (someone posted an excel caluculation chart here before that I use) Star should be getting about 3 lbs of food a day. (She's a bit on the heavy side, so we stick to 4% of her body weight instead of the recommeneded 5-8% for puppies.) Since she's eating both kibble and raw, we cut the daily recommended kibble amount in half and daily meat amount in half. So she should be getting 1.5 lbs of meat every day.

Well, at the grocery store today I found little 2 lb chickens on sale for $1.69 (great price for Europe), and thawed one out and gave it to her for dinner. I had been told if I give her a whole chicken she would chew it better, and then I could just pick up what she didn't eat. I didn't want to chop it up, thus defeating the purpose of buying her a whole chicken (no organs inside, just the chicken with meat on it).

She did awesome! It took her about 20 minutes, and plopped herself right down on the matt and chewed up every bone, and ate the entire thing! Not a bone, drop of chicken or anything, left! I was very proud of her and she looked like she was enjoying herself.

But... that was 1/2 lb more food than she should have gotten (at the 4%). She played for a bit after that and seemed to have a lot of energy, but then napped almost all evening, and now at midnight she's crashed out on her bed for the night. I didn't know if she was extra tired with her body digesting the extra food (more bones, also, than normal), or what. I thought she would stop when she was full but she didn't seem to get to that point. Was I wrong in giving her the whole thing?

Should I just feed her a bit less tomorrow? I loved the convenience of just giving her the whole thing and not having to grind - so I'd like to give her another one sometime, I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing.

And how long does it take a puppy (a big one at that) to digest an entire chicken full of bones?

thanks for your help, Brenda

She is probably tired and contented from chewing all those bones, I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. Just cut down on her kibble on the bigger meat days.
I have noticed that most of my dogs will gorge themselves if they have a chance.
I'm going to guess that it takes about 12 hours to digest bones and all, based on my car sick puppies regurgitation.
I am also feeding my adults about 1/2 to 1/3 less meat and they are maintaining a nice weight compared to when I first started feeding them raw (about a month ago). A few are fat on what seems to me like a morsel of meat. I base my feeding amounts on the condition of the dogs rather than a formula.

Thanks, Debbie, I guess I just needed some reassurance that I was doing the right thing for my puppy.