Help please re RAW.

I've been feeding a RAW diet for 3 years or so and all was going well until last December.
One of my dogs (9 year old PRT) suffered a bowel blockage.
The 'blockage' was bone......not a chunk of bone......it was ground up bone that had reconstituted into a solid mass.

The vet knew I fed RAW but has now told me I must NEVER give Doug bones again as the same thing, will more than likely, happen again.

I admit it really frightened me! I had hoped once Dougs gut had recovered I would be able to offer bones again, but since this incident all 3 dogs have been 'boneless'.

Is it still feasible to feed a RAW diet without bones? Should he have some sort of supplement....calcium?

I feed....
tripe, chicken and beef minces
Lamb and beef chunks
Liver, heart, kidney and lites
White fish, tinned sardines and pilchards
Small amount of steamed veg daily and an occasional raw egg with the shell.

Thanks in advance.

It will be difficult without bones
The tinned fish do have bones so that will help a bit

What bones were you feeding before? possibly if you moved onto softer bones like chicken it would be OK? I really dont know

I guess you would have to look into what exactly is in bones to suppliment, I know its calcium and phosphourus you have to balance - but there will be other things

What about adding a good mixer as well?? its not ideal but better than no bones

It was mostly lamb bones they had, although sometimes pork and beef too. They won't eat chicken bones, I've tried all ways to tempt them but they refuse.

I was always a bit wary of giving beef knuckle bones as they are soooo hard. The lamb bones got crunched up and easily eaten........maybe a knuckle bone would be better as they couldn't actually crunch it all up and eat it?

Sorry I forgot to mention they do have a small amount of mixer biscuits with their meals and a daily bonio.

Iv been under the impression beef bones were too hard, so I choose not to feed them to my dogs. I feed chicken carcasses/ wings also duck wings, do you think yours would eat duck wings? I know most minces contain bone so maybe feeding more mince instead if chunks (which have no bone content) would be a better option then at least they are getting some bone in their diet?

I could try duck! tho' it's not that readily available round here. I'll check out the RAW suppliers and see if I can get some.
Yes there is a small percentage of bone in the minces, but not enough is there?
The dogs do miss their bones......and I miss the satisfaction of watching them gnawing away at them.

Your problem might be the minces?? that is really finly ground up bone
I have heard that sometimes is a problem with a BARF diet when they grind up the bone
With mine they dont grind bone into tiny bits - especially softer bones go down in bigger chunks (with no problems)
what about rabbit bones?? or fish?

I've never tried them with rabbit, but they do get fish bones.
Are you saying that the ground bone in the mince could have caused the problem with Doug.....rather that the bones he was eating?

I dont know - worth talking to the vet cos I am totaly not an expert
But
when I was looking at switching to raw it was one reason I didnt go with the ground bones like BARF and went for whole bones like pary model because I had read there was a small chance of that happening

But really I dont know - just something that I remembered just then

Ah right, I'll have to do more reading I think and see what I can find out about that.....thanks.
I don't know if the vet is the right one to ask tho'......he didn't seem totally against RAW, but did stress no bones again EVER.

Yeah the problem is most vets dont know that much about it either just hoped you were one of the lucky ones with one who was clued up