Quote: tracy collins

... I think your dog would get more benefit from a fish body oil .... And I would add vitamin E to your recipe too. That helps the fish oil do its job better. Those two things--fish oil and vitamin E are, in my opinion, the most important supplements of all. They greatly reduce inflammation, reduce symptoms often associated with "allergies," and produce awesome skin and haircoat.

Ditto.


Fish liver oil, if given in the amounts that I give fish body oil, supplies a lot of fat-soluble vitamin A, which can accumulate to toxic levels.

 Quote: Tim Curtis

What's wotking well these days for Brodie (65lbs) is:

- Packaged cut up whole chicken, large and bone-in
- Whole chicken that I butcher myself.
- Ground chuck
- Ground dark turkey
- Mackerel or other white fish
- Chicken backs and necks
- Leerburg nutritional cocktail (kelp, alfalfa, super-c, vita-e, salmon oil )
- Occasional raw egg w/shell, beef or chik livers, gizzards, toes, unsalted green beens, raw pumpkin

Typical meal is about 1 to 1.5 lbs:

- giant bone-in chicken breast --or-- wing+thigh+drumstick
- 1/4 to 1/3 lb ground chuck or dark turkey or fish
- Salmon oil, 2 or 3 pumps
- periodically egg, livers, gizzards, necks, backs, veggies...
- Leerburg nutritional cocktail

Giant bone-in chicken breasts are good for scraping action on front teeth. It takes Brodie a bit to gnaw and grind through one of these.

Planning to rotate in pork and other type of muscle meat at some point.

Forgot to mention that I also add Salmon Oil to each meal.

Looks like a very good diet to me!

I feed three GSDs (7 months, 63 lbs; 4 years, 63 lbs; 8 years, 68 lbs) raw.

I do a big bulk order through a few raw suppliers and supplement with grocery store finds.

From the suppliers, I buy:

Whole ground chicken (lower bone to meat ratio)
Whole ground turkey (lower bone to meat ratio)
Ground chicken with bone and organ meat (higher bone to meat ratio)
Ground turkey with bone and organ meat (higher bone to meat ratio)
Beef heart
Beef trim
Green tripe
Beef organ meat (liver, kidney, spleen mix)
Chicken backs

Grocery store finds include:
Beef ribs
Chicken hearts
Chicken gizzards
Chicken liver
Canned salmon
Canned jack mackeral
And just about anything thats on sale

Supplements include:
Fish Oil
Vitamin E
B-Naturals Immune Blend (Vitamins, minerals, etc).
B-Naturals Green Blend (Kelp and other green goodies)

When I switched my pup to raw, we started with chicken. Waited for firm stools, added turkey...and so on.

Side note: I don't feed many whole raw meaty bones because my GSD Grace doesn't digest them well due to having EPI.

Oh! I will discontinue the cod liver oil and get fish oil. And, I can see how I could give them egg shells only some days (and eat the eggs myself!).

Thanks! We do get beef bones from the butcher, that they scrape away at. I think those bone scrapings contribute to pellet-poop, too.

Pellet-poop? I missed something. Wasn't the issue poop that was softer than desired when eggshells were not given?

Hi Connie, Sorry to be unclear. Back before we were giving them bones to chew as part of their diet, I was still experimenting with my raw recipe. I noticed when I left out the eggs the stools were much softer. In the meantime, we added the bones, and I have noticed the combination of bones and eggs is resulting in a very firm and well shaped stool, and predictable doggie evacuations. I'm going to try giving eggshells only to cut down on the amount of raw egg white and yolk they are eating. I would still like to know what symptoms show up from eating too many eggs - am I over concerned here? On the whole, they appear to be doing well on their diet.