Raw Food for my older, spinally compromised corgi
I wasn't sure how to title this. I wanted to first crow about how amazingly fantastic raw is. We tried some for two days, just to see how they liked it before we go about it in earnest, and they loved it AND for the first time since we got him Ragnar had consistently solid poops!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For anyone housebreaking, you know this is a major victory/help.
We get the raw food from an organic free-range farm and it's a mix of "leftovers" from turkey, chicken and beef. We also have a place we can get it that has chicken, beef and pork, also all organic and free-range.
Aber is 10 and he had back surgery about 4 months ago. He isn't walking, but he's not paralyzed. He can stand if you help him, but he's had some blockage problems since he just can't push as well as he used to. For the record, he blocked up from eating smoked bones. He never used to devour the whole thing, but he's feeling rather competitive about food since Mr. Puppy arrived.
I know with raw you have to make sure there's enough bone matter and such in the food.
So these are my questions;
1) Should I be worried that the bag of mixed raw food, since it's just leftover skin, organs, meat, etc., might not meet all of their needs and should I then supplement with canned or kibble some days just to make sure?
2) With Aber's problems in mind, and the lack of crushed bones in the food, should I add bone meal or something to the raw?
Ideally I would like to have them on straight raw food. I'm a true believer in it, and it would be significantly cheaper (which is always a plus---better food, lower cost, what's not to love?). I know this stuff is good quality--we get our own meat there. But I want to make sure they don't become malnourished in the meantime, or I give Aber another horrible blockage. Any advice?
We get the raw food from an organic free-range farm and it's a mix of "leftovers" from turkey, chicken and beef. We also have a place we can get it that has chicken, beef and pork, also all organic and free-range.
Aber is 10 and he had back surgery about 4 months ago. He isn't walking, but he's not paralyzed. He can stand if you help him, but he's had some blockage problems since he just can't push as well as he used to. For the record, he blocked up from eating smoked bones. He never used to devour the whole thing, but he's feeling rather competitive about food since Mr. Puppy arrived.
I know with raw you have to make sure there's enough bone matter and such in the food.
So these are my questions;
1) Should I be worried that the bag of mixed raw food, since it's just leftover skin, organs, meat, etc., might not meet all of their needs and should I then supplement with canned or kibble some days just to make sure?
2) With Aber's problems in mind, and the lack of crushed bones in the food, should I add bone meal or something to the raw?
Ideally I would like to have them on straight raw food. I'm a true believer in it, and it would be significantly cheaper (which is always a plus---better food, lower cost, what's not to love?). I know this stuff is good quality--we get our own meat there. But I want to make sure they don't become malnourished in the meantime, or I give Aber another horrible blockage. Any advice?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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I don't feed raw, but I'd just be concerned about minerals and trace elements and the like. Keep in mind that before they started putting iodine in salt, b-vitamins in bread, D in milk, etc etc there were LOTS of humans (even well-fed ones) with vitamin or mineral deficiencies.
As I said, I don't feed raw but I've learned enough to know there are lots of competing (and sometimes contradictory) pieces of info out there. Keep in mind wild critters also have access to blood and lymph fluid and all sorts of things that packaged meat does not contain, and of course game has a very different nutrient profile from farm-raised meat (even organic). I asked someone here about sodium requirements for dogs, for example, and I did a little googling and found that 85% of sodium in the body is found in the blood--- something that wild carnivores would have access to but animals fed a home-made raw diet would not, so not sure what the answer is there.
I think there are some supplements out there for people feeding raw, to get the necessary minerals and stuff. I'm not too up on it, but I've gone on enough websites to see that there is more than one school of thought on what should or should not be included! Some supplement and some don't. :-)
Good luck with your pups.
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Permalink Reply by Sky and Lyla on
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Beth, I happened to come across a sodium thread on a raw discussion group the other day and wanted to let you know what I found. Since most of us feeding meet are buying it from restaurant supply companies, grocery stores, etc (packaged for human consumption), much of those products have a "sodium" solution added to them already. The thread I was reading talked about making sure there was not TOO much sodium in them. Once I read that I kind of had a "doh" moment because I knew sodium solutions were added to poultry products, I just don't even think about it.
One thing to remember if you are concerned about vitamin deficiencies on a raw or homemade diet is to do yearly bloodwork. Many people how make their own menus at home (raw or cooked) do yearly or twice yearly blood screen to make sure everything is functioning properly and where it should be!
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Ooh, thanks! I am intellectually curious about it even if I don't intend to do it, and I know from horses that certain things are always supplemented, whether with a feed that is already supplemented, or with a mineral lick of some sort. Free-ranging animals will travel long distances to satisfy "cravings" and we deprive our captive critters of that opportunity, and the advice about bloodwork is superb because some things have obvious signs, but others don't show themselves until things have gone very far south. What comes immediately to mind is the recent discovery that most women living in the northern half of the country are vitamin D deficient; there are no outward signs but the health effects can be very real.
Thank you for that info. I spent an unreasonable amount of time yesterday googling how wild carnivores meet their sodium requirements. :-)
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Permalink Reply by Joanna Kimball on
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If you're feeding trimmings, does it strike you as pretty meaty or does it look like mostly skin or what?
I've been feeding raw for over a decade now, to three successive generations of Danes and now to two generations of Cardigans, and I know many breeders who have been feeding it for twice as long. There's no need to worry about deficiencies as long as you are following a sensible balance.
If what they're selling you is a mixture that is mostly muscle meat and organs and a little skin, you should alternate it with something that is heavier in bone, like pork neck bones or beef ribs or turkey backs or chicken thigh quarters.
If what they have is mostly skin, you'll need to find a source of muscle meat or feed meatier bones (chicken thighs would qualify, as would lamb necks and a few other cuts).
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Permalink Reply by Aber, Ragnar and Kelso on
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It looks quite meaty with some darker stuff that I think would be organs. Didn't really look like a great deal of skin. But there's definitely no bone in it.
Would Aber be okay eating raw bones? Is it just the smoked bones that would clog him? I can't really ask the vet--I don't think he would be in favor of raw. He might surprise me, but he's pretty old school. I have no problem throwing in some bones if that's the case.
Also, I know this is somewhere else, but what is the lb of dog to oz of raw breakdown? He's 44 lbs and Ragnar is about 12 and growing (4 mths old).
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Raw bones are easily digested and passed. Cooked bones (which is what smoked bones are) make a very dry, hard stool that can be almost like cement and extremely difficult to pass. I have sometimes seen them get a dryer stool if I fed a LOT of bone (like if I fed them a chicken "frame," which is mostly bone), but it crumbles. It doesn't hold together so it's super hard to pass.
You should add enough bone that it makes up 10%-25% of the diet. The amount you feed depends on the dog's metabolism, but a good starting point is around 3% of the correct body weight for the adult dog. If Aber is overweight, you feed him as though he's not. Since Ragnar is a puppy, you'd estimate his adult weight and feed for that. Then you watch the dog and cut back if they get pudgy or increase if they get too thin.
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Okay, so by my math they should both be getting around a pound of food per day if ideal weight is around 35lbs. Aber is overweight, but he's actually lost some in the last year and his entire family runs large. We can feel his ribs now and he looks trim, but obviously he's very sedentary, so I'm trying to feed him less to keep him from gaining anything.
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Meant to say thank you for all of that very useful information. I really appreciate it.
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Permalink Reply by John Wolff on
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We get ours from a local Seattle company. I usually add just a little kibble (6-12 pellets), with a lot of water, to each meal of just over 1/2 cup of ground raw meat, to soften the stool. Too much kibble makes it gooey and smelly. I can modulate the consistency. It has come to this. I am a connoisseur of dog sh!t.
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Haha---I understand completely. Since we got Ragnar (and actually since all of Aber's medical problems), I've become a bit of a connoisseur myself. It's sad in a way, but how many people can make the claim? :)
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