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by yellowrose of Texas on 03 January 2012 - 06:01
Never feed cooked bones ever
YR
YR
by AmbiiGSD on 03 January 2012 - 09:01
I have a scar on my finger from trying to grab the chicken drumstick my then 8 week old bitch was attempting to swallow whole. She objected to my intervention down to the bone!!!
After that i gave legs/drumsticks a good few whacks with a meat mallet to smash them up a bit, until she learnt to chew rather than inhale food!
After that i gave legs/drumsticks a good few whacks with a meat mallet to smash them up a bit, until she learnt to chew rather than inhale food!
by darylehret on 03 January 2012 - 13:01
I've fed dozens upon DOZENS of 5 week old pups chicken thighs and drumsticks, and NEVER had an issue. Usually, I'd start them on thighs before legs, gizzards and livers before thighs.
by Jenni78 on 03 January 2012 - 14:01
Ambii, I have a scar just like that! Pretty bad bite; I actually passed out. I was handing food to a pup when she turned and saw her fat sister coming toward her. LOL Right on my righthand, index finger knuckles, of course. Awesome place to have an immobilizing bite. LOL
I don't ever grind for pups. They start right out with whatever their mom is eating as soon as they have the teeth. I don't feed tiny things like wings and wingettes though, because those could easily block a windpipe if broken in a tug-o-war, but beyond that, I have a laissez-faire policy on pup feeding. They figure it out every time.
This pup will be fine! Gulping is natural to dogs.
I don't ever grind for pups. They start right out with whatever their mom is eating as soon as they have the teeth. I don't feed tiny things like wings and wingettes though, because those could easily block a windpipe if broken in a tug-o-war, but beyond that, I have a laissez-faire policy on pup feeding. They figure it out every time.
This pup will be fine! Gulping is natural to dogs.
by DeesWolf on 03 January 2012 - 14:01
In the 10+ years I have been feeding raw to puppies and adult dogs, I have only had two incidents. 1) 5 week old pups chewing on deer ribs. I was there watching, as one of the pups took the rib the long way down the throat. I was able to retrieve it and no longer give ribs to puppies. 2) at the time the adult dog was 5 years old. I came home at lunch time to let all my dogs out, as I did every day. Before I left to return to work, I gave all the dogs a treat from the raw bin in the fridge, as I did every day. I did not notice that my male did not chew the chicken drum I gave him. For some unknown reason, instead of heading out the door as usual, I stopped to look at my email, which I had never done on a lunch break. Glad I did! I heard a noise from the livingroom like a cow mooing. None of my dogs had ever made that sound before. I ran to see what was up. I noticed my male acting strange, so I took him outside, where I saw his sides expand ! I knew he was bloating. I rushed him to the nearest vet, where I informed them that my dog was bloating. Xrays showed there was an unchewed chicken drumstick stuck at the entrance to the stomach. They tried unsuccessfully to tube him and push the drum into the stomach. They tapped his stomach to let out the gas. Off to surgery he went to remove the drumstick. When the chicken was removed, there wasn't even a tooth mark on it. We were lucky that day, and my male survived a lodged chicken part, and the bloat from the blockage as well. Did I stop feeding drumsticks? no. Now I hit them with hammer a few times.
I do feed raw to the pups, but I stick with wingettes, backs and muscle meat. Yes, dogs in the wild eat all kinds of things and we don't really have any statistics as to how many choke and die on a bone of a carcus. My dogs are not wild, they are my pets and it is my responsibility to feed them what is good for them as well as to protect them from harm. This just means I use caution, I watch young pups, I observe my dogs after meals, and I try to avoid items be they food or inedible that could cause harm.
Most dogs will never experience an incident of blockage with certain bones, but why take the chance?
I do feed raw to the pups, but I stick with wingettes, backs and muscle meat. Yes, dogs in the wild eat all kinds of things and we don't really have any statistics as to how many choke and die on a bone of a carcus. My dogs are not wild, they are my pets and it is my responsibility to feed them what is good for them as well as to protect them from harm. This just means I use caution, I watch young pups, I observe my dogs after meals, and I try to avoid items be they food or inedible that could cause harm.
Most dogs will never experience an incident of blockage with certain bones, but why take the chance?
by jcmann01 on 09 January 2012 - 08:01
With the price of dog food soaring higher each month and what it costs to feed your hungry canines, I have come up with a solution that works pretty well, atleast for my dogs.
Okay, we all look at that inexpensive bag of dog food and even though the mfgr brags about how healthy it may be, we look at the ingredients to see if ground corn is the primary ingredient. Some may check to see if it is even 3rd or 4th on the list. Somewhere down the list, it's probably going to show up unless your spending a fortune on super premium dog foods, which maybe as high as $50+ per 35lb bag. Of course you want your dog to eat well, and of course you want them to eat food that has meat in it and good ingredients that your vet would approve of.
For a while, I too was buying those expensive bags of dog food that my dogs didn't always like either. For some reason, they tend to like the cheap dog foods better, even though meat wasn't the first two ingredients on the list? Okay, so I have this $38 bag of dog food that has meat as the 1st two ingredients, but it smelled like crap and the dogs would just eat enough of it so they wouldn't starve to death. By the way, you have to be careful about what the mfgr calls meat too. I don't call ground up bone meal alone anything near adaquate, if this is the primary ingredient, but people buy it because they are told its a good source of calcium and protein. So we started adding stuff like beef broth or some tuna to get them interested in eating it. Then they would pick out the good stuff with their teeth and leave the rest behind; a very clever trick I must say.
Okay, now to the point of this message, which is how to simply enhance your dog food, make it higher in protein, and give them REAL meat off YOUR butcher block that they will do back flips for. You can turn a bag of dog food that may cost under $20 into a bag that may cost over $50. This is how:
1-Buy yourself a heavy duty meat grinder. I bought a nice one online made by Nesco for under a $100, including S&H.
2- When you are cutting up chicken, pork, or turkey, take out the neck & organs, wings, meaty bones, and whatever meat you can spare for your dogs. Throw them in a pot of water to boil for 20 minutes or so. Add a teaspoon of salt to the water also, which helps preserve this bone meal later. I always throw away the skin and excess fat. This is very bad for your pets and can lead to artery plaquing and excess weight gain. Let it boil on low for about 30-40 minutes while you finish cutting up the turkey. After getting all the prime cuts off the turkey or chicken for yourself, cut up the carcus into pieces and boil it too. This will soften up the bone and help tenderize the meats. Yes, I did say carcus.
3- Put the boiling hot pieces of dog meat & bone, using thongs, into the meat grinder and press down, using your plunger tool that came with the grinder. Use the plate with the widest holes. Feed them in one by one until they get ground up. Don't over stuff the grinder with too much boney meat at once or it will jam up. Once you feed everything through, slowly pour the meat liquid into the grinder too. This will clear out the excess debris inside the auger tube. Once you finish doing this, turn off grinder and change out the plate with the widest holes to the plate with smaller holes, about 1/8" thick. Put everthing through the grinder again slowly until it all clears the auger. Then add some water to clean out the grinder. You now have rich mixture of ground up meat and bone meal.
4- Take soupy mixture and reboil it. You may want to add some seasonings that your dogs like, such as a little garlic, onion powder, etc., but no more salt as you already added this and nothing spicey or hot. Keep it fairy bland. Let it boil about 10-15 minutes, while your cleaning up the grinder.
5- Now, let is cool for about an hour. Then put most of it in gallon sized bags to freeze. Keep about a quart of it for the refrigerator. Be sure to use a thoroughly clean and dry jar.
6- Add a couple of tablespoons per bowl of dog food and thoroughly mix it in. You have just added about 15-25% protein to the dog food and made it the primary ingredient. Your dogs will never again argue with you about eating the dog food, even the most finicky dogs.
Notes- The bonemeal will last up to a couple of weeks in the frig. If it starts to smell tainted, take it out and reboil it for 20 minutes to kill any bacterias in the bone meal. Be sure to thoroughly sterilize the jar too with bleach, water, and a thorough rinsing. I have done this myself a few times and believe me, your dogs will be fine. Just be sure that you boil it long enough and use a clean jar. It will last a couple more weeks.
You can also add other ingredients that your dogs will like, such as vegetables, supplements, and herbs. Be sure to add these during your 1st grinding.
FAQs:
Question- How does Adding meat and other ingredients to cheap dog food make it premium dog food? I thought the idea was to eliminate the corn meal?
Answer- Mfgs biggest expense is the cost of the meat they add. That is why the cheaper brands tend to skimp and give people soy bean and bone meal products with little protein. The rest is ground corn meal, rice, or some other grain and vitamins. Even some of the so called premium brands don't put a lot of protein into the dog food. Your basically adding 15-25% more protein to their food and dogs should have at least 30-35% protein in their food, if they are very active, like mines. Less active dogs should get less protein added. Your dog will also need carbohydrates added to their diet- kind of like meat and potatoes for us. If your concerned about weight issues, just use less dry dog food and more protein. Other than that, they may add a few extra vitamins and minerals for condition enhancements.
Question- All this trouble you go through and the expense of a grinder, how much are you really saving here?
Answer- Like I said, the best bags of dog food these days can cost $50+ per bag as opposed to a bag of the same weight that maybe cheaper at $25-30. Just for argument sake, lets say you save $20 per bag. So lets do the math here:
$30.00 1 Bag of Dog Food x12 (assuming a bag last 1 month)= $360
$50.00 x12 (the premium stuff) =$600
Difference =$240
Meat Grinder =$100
1st Year Savings=$140
2nd Year Savings=$240
I think an hour of my time per month is worth $240 a year. I can put the savings towards yearly shots.
Question- My dog has special medical needs. Should I do this?
Answer- Of course, consult with your vet and follow their advice first, if you have any doubts. This is just an idea to help save pet owners money for their active dogs.
Question- Will ground up bone and carcus hurt my dogs?
Answer- That is why I suggested you do two grindings. The first is to chunk up the bones, but the second grinding, using the plate with smaller holes will finely grind the bone down into tiny bits that will easily pass through your dogs intestines. The bone marrow is full of protein and nutrients and is great for them.
Question- How long have you been doing this? How has it worked for your dogs?
Answer- A few months now and my dogs look better than ever and are more active. My German Shepherd puppy, who is now 7 months old looks like an adult and is very healthy and active. Previous to this, they all acted kind of sluggish and my oldest lab never had any energy. Now I take them out on the turnpike bike trail and the two younger ones leave me in the dust for miles. The two older ones are starting to loose weight too because they are getting the exercise they need and more protein. Absolutely no adverse effects.
Final Note
Again folks, if you have any doubts, consult with your vet about your particular situation and follow their advice. I am not a veteranian or a qualified animal specialist. I just know what has worked successfully for my dogs and they love it and it has helped them.
Okay, we all look at that inexpensive bag of dog food and even though the mfgr brags about how healthy it may be, we look at the ingredients to see if ground corn is the primary ingredient. Some may check to see if it is even 3rd or 4th on the list. Somewhere down the list, it's probably going to show up unless your spending a fortune on super premium dog foods, which maybe as high as $50+ per 35lb bag. Of course you want your dog to eat well, and of course you want them to eat food that has meat in it and good ingredients that your vet would approve of.
For a while, I too was buying those expensive bags of dog food that my dogs didn't always like either. For some reason, they tend to like the cheap dog foods better, even though meat wasn't the first two ingredients on the list? Okay, so I have this $38 bag of dog food that has meat as the 1st two ingredients, but it smelled like crap and the dogs would just eat enough of it so they wouldn't starve to death. By the way, you have to be careful about what the mfgr calls meat too. I don't call ground up bone meal alone anything near adaquate, if this is the primary ingredient, but people buy it because they are told its a good source of calcium and protein. So we started adding stuff like beef broth or some tuna to get them interested in eating it. Then they would pick out the good stuff with their teeth and leave the rest behind; a very clever trick I must say.
Okay, now to the point of this message, which is how to simply enhance your dog food, make it higher in protein, and give them REAL meat off YOUR butcher block that they will do back flips for. You can turn a bag of dog food that may cost under $20 into a bag that may cost over $50. This is how:
1-Buy yourself a heavy duty meat grinder. I bought a nice one online made by Nesco for under a $100, including S&H.
2- When you are cutting up chicken, pork, or turkey, take out the neck & organs, wings, meaty bones, and whatever meat you can spare for your dogs. Throw them in a pot of water to boil for 20 minutes or so. Add a teaspoon of salt to the water also, which helps preserve this bone meal later. I always throw away the skin and excess fat. This is very bad for your pets and can lead to artery plaquing and excess weight gain. Let it boil on low for about 30-40 minutes while you finish cutting up the turkey. After getting all the prime cuts off the turkey or chicken for yourself, cut up the carcus into pieces and boil it too. This will soften up the bone and help tenderize the meats. Yes, I did say carcus.
3- Put the boiling hot pieces of dog meat & bone, using thongs, into the meat grinder and press down, using your plunger tool that came with the grinder. Use the plate with the widest holes. Feed them in one by one until they get ground up. Don't over stuff the grinder with too much boney meat at once or it will jam up. Once you feed everything through, slowly pour the meat liquid into the grinder too. This will clear out the excess debris inside the auger tube. Once you finish doing this, turn off grinder and change out the plate with the widest holes to the plate with smaller holes, about 1/8" thick. Put everthing through the grinder again slowly until it all clears the auger. Then add some water to clean out the grinder. You now have rich mixture of ground up meat and bone meal.
4- Take soupy mixture and reboil it. You may want to add some seasonings that your dogs like, such as a little garlic, onion powder, etc., but no more salt as you already added this and nothing spicey or hot. Keep it fairy bland. Let it boil about 10-15 minutes, while your cleaning up the grinder.
5- Now, let is cool for about an hour. Then put most of it in gallon sized bags to freeze. Keep about a quart of it for the refrigerator. Be sure to use a thoroughly clean and dry jar.
6- Add a couple of tablespoons per bowl of dog food and thoroughly mix it in. You have just added about 15-25% protein to the dog food and made it the primary ingredient. Your dogs will never again argue with you about eating the dog food, even the most finicky dogs.
Notes- The bonemeal will last up to a couple of weeks in the frig. If it starts to smell tainted, take it out and reboil it for 20 minutes to kill any bacterias in the bone meal. Be sure to thoroughly sterilize the jar too with bleach, water, and a thorough rinsing. I have done this myself a few times and believe me, your dogs will be fine. Just be sure that you boil it long enough and use a clean jar. It will last a couple more weeks.
You can also add other ingredients that your dogs will like, such as vegetables, supplements, and herbs. Be sure to add these during your 1st grinding.
FAQs:
Question- How does Adding meat and other ingredients to cheap dog food make it premium dog food? I thought the idea was to eliminate the corn meal?
Answer- Mfgs biggest expense is the cost of the meat they add. That is why the cheaper brands tend to skimp and give people soy bean and bone meal products with little protein. The rest is ground corn meal, rice, or some other grain and vitamins. Even some of the so called premium brands don't put a lot of protein into the dog food. Your basically adding 15-25% more protein to their food and dogs should have at least 30-35% protein in their food, if they are very active, like mines. Less active dogs should get less protein added. Your dog will also need carbohydrates added to their diet- kind of like meat and potatoes for us. If your concerned about weight issues, just use less dry dog food and more protein. Other than that, they may add a few extra vitamins and minerals for condition enhancements.
Question- All this trouble you go through and the expense of a grinder, how much are you really saving here?
Answer- Like I said, the best bags of dog food these days can cost $50+ per bag as opposed to a bag of the same weight that maybe cheaper at $25-30. Just for argument sake, lets say you save $20 per bag. So lets do the math here:
$30.00 1 Bag of Dog Food x12 (assuming a bag last 1 month)= $360
$50.00 x12 (the premium stuff) =$600
Difference =$240
Meat Grinder =$100
1st Year Savings=$140
2nd Year Savings=$240
I think an hour of my time per month is worth $240 a year. I can put the savings towards yearly shots.
Question- My dog has special medical needs. Should I do this?
Answer- Of course, consult with your vet and follow their advice first, if you have any doubts. This is just an idea to help save pet owners money for their active dogs.
Question- Will ground up bone and carcus hurt my dogs?
Answer- That is why I suggested you do two grindings. The first is to chunk up the bones, but the second grinding, using the plate with smaller holes will finely grind the bone down into tiny bits that will easily pass through your dogs intestines. The bone marrow is full of protein and nutrients and is great for them.
Question- How long have you been doing this? How has it worked for your dogs?
Answer- A few months now and my dogs look better than ever and are more active. My German Shepherd puppy, who is now 7 months old looks like an adult and is very healthy and active. Previous to this, they all acted kind of sluggish and my oldest lab never had any energy. Now I take them out on the turnpike bike trail and the two younger ones leave me in the dust for miles. The two older ones are starting to loose weight too because they are getting the exercise they need and more protein. Absolutely no adverse effects.
Final Note
Again folks, if you have any doubts, consult with your vet about your particular situation and follow their advice. I am not a veteranian or a qualified animal specialist. I just know what has worked successfully for my dogs and they love it and it has helped them.
by Slamdunc on 09 January 2012 - 12:01
Deeswolf,
I had a dog bloat on dry dog food. I would venture to say that more dogs bloat after eating kibble than raw. I do not feed my dogs drumsticks, I feed whole raw leg quarters. That solves the problem for me. My dog was on wings at 4 weeks.
Jcmann,
It is easier to feed raw than all of the prep that you do. But, your method is probably better than feeding just dry food.
Jim
I had a dog bloat on dry dog food. I would venture to say that more dogs bloat after eating kibble than raw. I do not feed my dogs drumsticks, I feed whole raw leg quarters. That solves the problem for me. My dog was on wings at 4 weeks.
Jcmann,
It is easier to feed raw than all of the prep that you do. But, your method is probably better than feeding just dry food.
Jim
by DeesWolf on 09 January 2012 - 13:01
Jim,
What happened with my dog wasn't a typical bloat. This happened because he didn't chew the drumstick I gave him, just swallowed it whole. This caused a blockage, which in turn caused the bloat.
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