JennKBM wrote:I was going to do the raw/kibble thing to start off as suggested, and thought that would be great for me. Then I read that alternating between the two can cause problems, due to the kibble taking longer to digest? GF Turtle have you ever found this to be a problem? That site also said, that wings and necks were a choking hazard?
Is it necessary to feed twice daily? Currently I only feed them in the evenings, will that be something I'll need to change?
I bought some bones at the grocery store yesterday, and now I'm worried about what they are? They are beef bones, and the package just said "BEEF" and it was 50 cents so I grabbed them up. How can I be sure they aren't a bone that splinters?
No, I've never had a problem with feeding raw and kibble but I do not feed them together. I feed 2 meals a day, she gets the raw in the morning (fed outside) and the kibble meal at night. No digestive upsets, nothing bad at all. The raw & kibble digest at different rates so you don't want to feed them together.
I think dogs do better being fed twice a day. Their food digests better and only one meal every 24 hours, well, that's a long time between eating. Or if you want to stay with feeding once a day, just alternate feeding raw and kibble like Debby suggested.
And there are a lot of sites out there with worrisome info. Take some of them with a grain of salt. If your dogs chew well, they should have no problem with eating raw chicken wings, necks and quarters. Mine crunches them up well, but I did find she does better if I cut the chicken quarters in half and give her just a leg or a thigh for her meal. You can break up the bigger bones a bit by using a hammer or hatchet to pound them with.
I do keep an eye on her while she eats her raw but I have not seen her choke nor have any problems with eating it. She chews well and the raw meal is usually gone in minutes. You might need to teach your dogs to eat and chew slower and not gulp their food.
The beef bones you got, are they "soup bones? Often you can get beef soup bones or knuckle bones and they are good for dogs' chewing and enjoyment but not really a meal. For feeding, you want smaller bones and a ratio of more meat than bones. I don't feed beef ribs at all since I know of some dogs who had problems with them and they did splinter, but yet I feed deer ribs and she is fine with those, crunches them up like candy. Lamb and veal tend to be smaller easier bones for them to eat but both are a bit rich so don't feed a lot of them and not every day.