[Shandula]

Hey!

So with all the struggles that both my dogs seems to be having in the poop department, I've decided to just go back to feeding raw. Levi has been having serious diarrhea for a week, and the fecal result last week was negative. We've submitted a second one, and should hopefully get the results today.

In lieu of the horrible Hills Science Diet, and much to the chagrin of my vet, we've decided to just put them back on raw. Levi LOVES raw but this will be Heidi's first go around.

We've started with chicken, specifically chicken drumsticks because there was a huge club pack on sale for like 10 bucks. Levi is a good chewer, he picks them up and crunches them. We were cutting the meat off Heidi's, because we aren't sure if she should be crunching bones at her age yet (4 months). She ran over to Levi's dish and tried to steal one, and it definitely looked like she was trying to swallow it whole, which concerns me. After we cut the meat off, we did let her crunch on the bone while I was holding it, so she couldn't swallow it, and she does crunch it and take off smaller pieces.

So I guess my questions are:

1. Should we just use larger cuts so she can't swallow?
2. Are bones okay to be included at her age (4 months, Border Collie)

We are going with Prey Model Raw instead of BARF, simply because I'm not sold on fruits/veggies being required.

I'm hoping @naturalfeddogs has some advice?

 

[DriveDog]

If you have concerns over the raw bones being swallowed by the pup, buy a cheap meat grinder such as this one Kitchener #12 Electric Meat Grinder — 1/2 HP | Electric Meat Grinders| Northern Tool + Equipment


It grinds the raw chicken bones and meat without a problem.

I would also make sure the raw diet you feed your pup is properly balanced between meat, bone and organ. I assume you are doing this already.

 

[Shandula]

@DriveDog - Thank you for your reply! We are trying to follow Prey Model, so we haven't added any organ meat yet, as per their recommendations, but we will be adding organs once they have become more accustomed to a few protein sources.

I'm not a huge fan of ground meat, mainly because I love the dental benefits of crunching bones.

 

[Gnostic Dog]

Go big, and yes, bones are fine for a 4-month-old puppy. My boy started on raw as a 9 1/2 week old puppy with chicken quarters. Granted he is a Mastiff, but what he didn't finish I just put in the fridge and brought out later. The only issue you might have with bones right now is teething, and your pup is around teething age, so you might want to see how that goes and see if you need to grind them for a while.

I will add, I didn't bother to grind the bones during teething.

 

[DriveDog]

@DriveDog - Thank you for your reply! We are trying to follow Prey Model, so we haven't added any organ meat yet, as per their recommendations, but we will be adding organs once they have become more accustomed to a few protein sources.

I'm not a huge fan of ground meat, mainly because I love the dental benefits of crunching bones.

Agreed on most all points. I'm curious about the lack of any organ meat but might assume the concern is organ meat might not help the runny stool BUT a pup really needs a balanced diet at that stage. So, bone and organ in proper percentages are crucial especially for the growing pup. Hopefully, the absence of all necessary ingredients is but a very short time period.

The dental benefits of raw bone is appreciated but the overall dietary benefit of the raw bone component is more important hence my suggestion of grinding. Since I have a larger breed dog, I never was overly concerned about the dog's crunching and ingestion of larger chunks of meat and bone even at an early age but was still somewhat amazed at the size of chunks the dog could swallow.