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Location: Yorkshire, UK
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 877
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Originally Posted by
lore
This is a fantastic guide and I'm considering moving Dougal onto this as it will be healthier for him than the biscuits I guess.
I do have a question though, you state that you feed chicken carcasses, I have always been told not to give dogs bird carcasses cause of the small bones. Can you tell me if this is correct or does the fact that you are using the main bit of the carcass make any difference?
Chicken bones are not a problem at all, as long as your dog chews them.
Just a quick warning for anyone who does want to change over, the best bones/meat by far to swap onto are chicken/turkey, they contain a much better balance of vitamins and minerals, and are not as rich as lamb, pork or beef, so less likely to cause a stomach upset.
The best way by far to give your dog the first few bones, is to bash up with a rolling pin so they can't swallow large pieces whole, and try and hold on to one end of the piece you're feeding, chicken wings are good for this type of introduction. This teaches your dog to chew, rather than just gulp the bones down. You will be surprised how quickly they get the idea, but caution is better than letting them swallow a large bone accidentally. Do this a few times a week to begin with, see how they go, and once they're used to the bones I have found it is easy enough to swap them straight over.
Try and keep to feeding the softer, more manageable bones, so chicken, turkey and lamb, as the large weight bearing bones like beef marrow/knuckle bones, can be prone to splintering and causing a problem. For this reason, never leave a dog unsupervised with these large bones, mine get them as a very occasional treat, they are taken off them after half an hour and popped back in the freezer. These larger bones from older animals are also more dense, and more wearing on the teeth, lamb ribs and chicken carcasses/wings still have the cleaning effect on teeth, help keep anal glands clear, and don't have as hard wearing effect.
That's how I've swapped oldies on to barf who were turning their nose up at other foods, they both did very well on raw, and quickly gained condition, quite surprising giving their age and the poor condition they were in when I got them.
Other barfers may disagree about the beef bones, and may also give pork bones - one of the reasons I don't give pork is that unless it's labelled as from the UK, it may be from a source where tapeworm can still be present, our farming practices mean this isn't the case, so if you're buying from a butchers, ask where it's from.