My concern with anyone feeding “Balance”, or other raw commercially prepared diets is that you always check the ingredients b/c some of the Bravo’s products, and others brands, do not contain the added vitamins, minerals, and oils.
I really worry about dogs, especially the pups that just get a diet of “meaty bones” only. I am not an authority on the subject by any means but I have been feeding totally raw for 17 years, have researched raw feeding and gained knowledge from my vet Dr. Karen Becker who specializes in canine/feline nutrition. Raw diets need mostly very lean muscle meat, some organs, some bone (if your dog can handle it) a small amount of vegetables/fruit plus added iron, zinc, copper, manganese, iodine, E, and fatty acids to make a complete diet. This is b/c we do not feed them a whole, fresh, prey animal with all of the “inners” and the blood that are rich in glandulars and contain the vitamins and minerals. Of course, a digestive enzyme and probiotics are a major plus too!
Your own freshly prepared diet should also include the previous items. Dr. Becker says that she is seeing a lot of raw fed dogs with major problems b/c they were not supplemented properly. She said that other popular raw diets that she has analyzed, cannot possibly provide “basic nutrition” and some of those recipes (quote from Dr. Becker) “will ultimately do damage to the health of your animals and irreversible damage will show up somewhere down the road”. Choosing a raw diet (or even cooking the fresh food) is the best thing you can do for your dogs!
From coaching people over the years in raw feeding I found that not everyone could make a total commitment to it. My suggestion is to choose a “human grade” kibble and feed two to three raw meals per week to allow your dog the healthful advantage of real, fresh, raw food. I hope this helps anyone who may be considering raw feeding. Quote from Dr. Becker: “A fresh food diet is the best for all livings beings. A fresh, species-appropriate diet provides support for the body to maintain a vibrant state of being for many years”.
My best to you and your furry babies! Karen 🙂
Karen, as always, you are a wealth of great information. You’ve brought up some very good points to consider. Thank you!
You are very welcome ladies! Anything for the health of our furry ones! 🙂
Thank you Karen!
This is what I do: I feed mostly whole pieces of meat with bone, i.e., chicken leg quarters, big chucks of mutton with bone in it, or beef, rabbit, goat, pork, etc. the only bones I avoid are venison bones because they are so sharp and dense. I try to give organ meat once a week and tripe. I also give kibble 1 – 3 times a week, because it is just hard to keep my freezer stocked all the time. Also if I feed raw meat and bones for more then a week the dogs get constipated. I feed kibble because it is bulky and full of fiber it helps them empty their bowels. The dogs never have loose stools on a raw meat and bone diet and they always look fabulous and are extremely robust. I also notice when I feed kibble the dogs look bloated. Also when I feed kibble I add a lot of supplements to it: fish oil, vit C, vit E, MSM, chondroitin , glucosamine, acidophilus, and a general supplement such as Nupro.
You have a great plan going Julie! I would encourage you to add the vitamins,
minerals and oil to your raw rotation also. According to Dr. Becker, “feeding only
parts of animals leaves out vital “other” parts such as spleen, pancreas, blood,
brains, etc. so we need to make substitutions for the parts we are unable to find at the grocery store. We are all for the “prey model” but that diet still needs to include all of the
components that provuide essential balance, and we just don’t have some of them
available, so we need to substitute, not just omit.” I make my own vitamins from the
recipe that Dr. Becker provides in her book “Real Food For Healthy Dogs & Cats”
and then add the other necessary components such as oil, chond/glucos, msm,
probiotics, etc. You just buy the amounts and brand names she lines out for you
from the internet (it’s cheaper than purchasing from the health food store) put the
capsules in a coffee grinder, and you have enough vitamins for 190 pounds of food!
If you already feed raw and want to tweek your diet and make sure you are feeding cor
correctly (according to a vet) or are just considering it, this book will be the best
$15 you ever spend for the health of your animals! She developed this vitamin
recipe and all of the meat recipes in her book from AAFO standards, the National Research Council’s standards, and anthropological studies done by zoo’s, so she is not just
dreaming this up! Go to http://www.naturalpetproductions.com if interested. She also has
MANY video’s and script on http://www.mercolahealthypets.com about feeding and other subjects.
It is hard when you have as many mouths to feed as you do, so I understand the
kibble rotation. You can also add ground psyllium for fiber to raw if you need it
at a rate of 1/2 tsp./25#, 3/4 tsp./40#, 1 1/4 tsp./75# and so on.
GOOD JOB Julie!!!!
At the risk of grossing everyone out….if I haven’t already…I like to buy skinned rabbit heads and give these as a treat. They love them they are eating the eyeballs and the brains. The tripe I buy includes the spleen. I have also purchased whole pig heads…the dogs ate every single bit, even that one grossed me out. I haven’t bought any more.
Talk about timing. My March issue of whole dog journal is highly recommending has Dr. Beckers Book
WoooooHoooo! I wrote to Whole Dog Journal several months ago asking them to
review Dr. Becker’s book. Nancy Kerns (editor of WDJ) said “Reading through them has made me look more carefully at the diet I feed my own dog and the dietary guidelines that I give
others, particularly regarding supplements. When I’m done with the book reviews, I
plan to write about the changes I’m making based on what I’ve learned from these
books.” Just goes to show ya that you can NEVER stop learning and changing!
Thanks Karen! Very helpful and I appreciate your thoughtful insight on raw feeding.
I’ve fed my dog Zeus raw for 9 years, and I totally agree with supplementing with vitamins and minerals. When he was diagnosed with hemangiosarcoma, we went to a number of Vets and every single one of them gave Zeus a 5/5 on his physical exam. They can’t believe he was almost 9, he looked like a 3 year old gsd, his coat and teeth were excellent. I am a firm believer in feeding Raw- done the right way.
The funny thing was, I bought only organic everything for Zeus, then I buy whatever was on sale for us humans, yep we’re crazy. 😀
Awesome Josie!
You are SO right! “CRAZY” is the perfect word! We feed our dogs healthier stuff than we eat!
Are you feeding the adult dogs 1 or 2 x per day? I guess I’m a bit paranoid about the bone issue after watching the vet I used to work for pull them out of various dogs over the years. I have fed my dogs human grade kibble and wet once I learned that grocery store brands were garbage. I also agree that I buy what’s on sale for the humans in the house and the dogs get the good stuff!! To think my childhood dog lived on Dad’s dog food for her 14 years-although come to think of it she did frequently supplement w/raw quite often (Woodchuck, rabbit, deer legs, squirrel, the occasional chicken from the farm down the road)
God bless an animal that knows what he needs AND goes out to get it! 🙂
You will find an occasional dog who eats junk food and survives until an old age, but personally, I
would not take that chance! I feed 2xdaily. I use mostly ground lean meats without bones prepared according to Becker’s diet and add calcium to it. Then several times per week my dogs get a large knuckle bone or large shank bone. They can chew down the knuckle to almost nothing, but the have to work on it!
I’ve been seeing chicken feet available at a local grocery store. are they safe to feed dogs (raw, of course)? I don’t mean as a staple of the diet, but just occassionally. I feed kibble but like to supplement it with raw stuff when I can afford it.
I would like to know that too. I know these are a favorite of some Asian cultures.
Julie, are you REALLY feeding the head of Bambi’s friend to your dogs!!! eeeewwwwweee! Poor little Thumper! 🙂 I’m betting they devour them!!!
I’ve never seen any fresh chicken feet in my area (only smoked) so I’ve never fed them. They are rich in glucosamine and some say the dogs like them crunchy from the freezer! The issue may be the toenails. You may want to give them a “pedi-chick” 🙂 and cut them off for the first couple of times until you see how your dog handles them. IF your dog eats bones it should not be a problem. Of course, if any of them came with painted toenails, I’d cut those off! :-))
someone please pick my jaw off of the floor, eeewwww indeed! I thought I was bad with feeding the greentripe xcaliber! Julie- my hats off to you!
Julie’s dog’s think the little Thumpers are the greatest treat in the world. It actually didn’t groos me out feeding those, but I’d have to think twice about Porky Pig heads.
Oooops! Correction to one of my blogs today. It was Mary Straus (the author of the WDJ article on homemade diets) not Nancy Kerns that was going to re-asses her own raw diet after reading the books. Sorry! :-/
On another note, Steve Brown, who wrote a more in-depth homemade diet book (Unlocking The Canine Ancestral Diet) wrote a book with my friend Beth Taylor, called “See Spot Live Longer”. If you ever doubted feeding a raw or even cooked homemade diet for your dog b/c your vet told you that your dog should ONLY eat dry kibble, AND only one kind, this book will change your mind! I also saw that he is making See Spot Live Longer™ Homemade Dinner Mixes for about $1.75 per package. This is a a package of vitamins, minerals, oils, etc. that you mix with 1 pound of lean meat. BUT expensive! Since my 2 GSD’s eat 3 1/2#’s of meat each day, it would cost me approximately $15 per day!!!! WHOA!!!