Diet, weight, food type
There certainly is a great deal of information on the "raw" diet out there on the net. For some people it is a religion.
I figure I can split the difference Dipper gets raw meat on the bone two or three times a week.
One problem I have with "raw" is figuring out kibble caloric equivalents. Dipper really only needs maybe 1/4 cup of kibble 2x a day to keep going. Every now and then I mix in an egg yolk when my son doesn't finish it for breakfast.
He was gaining weight but now is around 28 lbs 2-3 ounces I weigh him every couple of weeks. The vet would like him skinnier. Vets like to see ribs. Breed standard is 27 lbs.
When I feed him raw I never know whether I'm giving him one day's worth of food or several in relation to the kibble--I just know there is a lot of fat on a chicken thigh for example.
It is astounding what he can eat. Pork hocks (not ham hocks, those are cooked) and split pig feet, for example.
He definitely loves raw but I think without getting into some difficult serving propositions like cutting a pig foot or a chicken thigh in half he would be eating at most once a day, maybe even every other day, on a raw diet.
This is generally a question about type of diet and how you keep your Corgi from getting fat.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nina & Nellie on
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I think most (raw feeding) people don't make their own raw or give their dogs just raw hunks of meat or bone because of convenience and the fact that most people have no idea how to put together the right nutrients, much less count the calories of everything. Thus there are a lot of packaged raw foods on the market for people who want the peace of mind and healthiness as well as the convenience.
If you're giving him raw human food, as in you buy your bones from the grocery store or the butcher, there are calorie counts online that will give you an estimate of how many calories are in something. Human and dog calories are no different from each other (and you probably know this) so it's just a matter of looking online, weighing and calculating. As a guesstimate, a 3oz piece of fatty chicken with skin has around 200-300 calories.
As just a friendly suggestion I wouldn't give a dog random raw stuff willy nilly without making sure of the composition of the thing and making sure he's getting the right nutrients (not just calories) from other things. Dogs/wolves in the wild tend to eat organs first and then muscle meat, if at all, because of the nutrient density. Frozen raw food manufacturers often put in liver, kidney, and/or blood with their meat as well. The nutrients in the organs help the dog's body process all of the protein and fat, which is why it's important that they do get those vitamins and minerals, just like humans. Hence why most people don't bother making their own raw because you have to really try and get those ratios right.
Btw, I feed my 16 week old puppy half kibble and half Honest Kitchen. She gets 1 cup of food a day and will probably stay at about 1 cup, maybe a bit less, at adulthood.
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Permalink Reply by Melissa and Franklin! on
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I do the same as Nina and Nellie and feed 1/2 kibble and 1/2 Honest Kitchen. I rehydrate a few days of Honest Kitchen then feed 1/4 cup of it and 1/8 cup of kibble and he has maintained his weight on that. He was previously eating around 1/4 cup kibble am and pm. As for bones, I just buy soup bones (the knuckle bones not marrow bones) and let him chew those. They have a bit of meat but not much. I am REALLY careful with the pieces I give him though bc in the past I have him a piece that had more femur/compact bone and he broke a tooth on it. The knuckle portion is much softer and he can scrape it off and eat it where the marrow/femur portion is REALLY hard. Any bone you pose a risk of broken teeth so just be aware of that too.
I agree that I wouldn't feed raw alone unless you really know what you are doing because you can do more harm than good. If you really want to feed raw it may be a good idea to buy a premade diet so you know all the required nutrients are there.
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Permalink Reply by Ludi on
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Ace used to be on prey model raw and I kept him right at the 2% adult body weight mark for his portion sizes (so that was roughly 220g). What that generally meant was that if he was being given something like a chicken leg quarter, which is around 20-25% bone (a bit on the higher side), his next meal would be organ + muscle meat + a wing, for instance. With prey model raw (and BARF), if you're doing it on your own, you absolutely have to keep track religiously of the portion size, bone:muscle:secreting organ ratio, and overall nutrition panel of what's going in to his system. It can be pretty time-consuming and so I don't blame people for going with pre-made raw.
As soon as I moved him up into the 2.5% body weight portion size (he was looking a little skinny at one point), he started to balloon up. It's very easy to tell when your dog is no longer "slim" - the waist grows harder to define, the ribs feel like they've got thicker padding. I absolutely needed to keep Ace on a 220g per day diet, or else he'd just explode into a sausage.
I plan on putting him and his sister back on once-weekly raw "treats" once my order of chicken necks comes through. I view the use of frozen necks as a good, natural toothbrush and bad breath deterrent. They take a while to get through, even for my voracious corgi, when frozen and the bones (neck vertebrae) are definitely not the classic "tooth breaker" types you'll see in the supermarket. That'll be the most I do with mixing raw and kibble, though. I believe anything more and you start getting into iffy territory with calcium:phosphorus ratios.
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So with the chicken necks, do you have to get them from a dog food specific supplier? And how do you deal with raw stuff on your floors/carpet? I can imagine that if I gave Nellie a bone or a neck she'd drag that thing along the ground and carpet and get meat juice everywhere.
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I've got hardwood floors, but I have almost always fed my Cardi his raw meaty bones outside, either on the grass or on our balcony's cement. I get the necks from the butcher's - I call to ask if they can hold 3-4 kilos worth and then pick them up when they're ready. I store them in neat little rows in the freezer so it's easy to pry them apart for serving sizes. :-)
Oh and I never let my dogs alone with them. They can be choking hazards (like any recreational chew) so I simply hold one end of the neck while the dog gnaws their way in from the other. It also teaches them to be polite when taking the neck, so win-win!
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Permalink Reply by GPN on
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A chicken neck is a chicken neck is a chicken neck. Just make sure it's not cooked. Dipper just says "Excuse me I need to have some quiet time with this," and takes it over to his rug which is fine by me. No dragging. I also have hardwood floors. I admit that I am not as thorough as some of the other people here. A fox in the hen house is not very fussy he grabs a chicken and goes. So far Dipper has polished off pork hocks (not ham hocks, those are cooked), split pig's feet, chicken drum sticks, and a t-bone from which i had cut off most of the steak (he ate only a small part of the bone but enjoyed chewing on it). I only feed him raw meat-on-bone twice a week; have not made a full diet conversion. I can see why some people do 100% raw though I think the dog has more fun with raw meals.
He will also eat a frozen chicken thigh but as a rule I tend to thaw everything first. I thaw in the fridge as I worry that the microwave would cook the bone.
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Permalink Reply by alynne on
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Neeks is on a raw diet, we make all her food from organic wild meat and vegetables. She also gets yogurt, eggs, fish and I always add fish oil and missing link vitamins. I have an electronic scale and she gets approx. 2% of her body weight in raw food per day. She is a perfect 27 pounds (she is a bigger corgi too). In the summer she sometimes loses to much weigh and we have to up her food by .25-.5%
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Your 2% rule is pretty close to where I am with the Purina Pro Plan which is 1/2 cup twice a day, a cup being 8 ounces, and if you work the math the 8 ounces is 2% of a 27 lb corgi's weight. It gets a bit harder when I feed him other stuff like chicken legs or hearts etc but as a general rule I aim at about 1/2 cup per meal.
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