brookcove
Posted : 8/22/2006 8:01:12 AM
I have been assured by a nutritionist and two PhDs in biology who all researched this point independently for their own dogs, that the closer you get to the "whole critter", the less you have to supplement.
Brain is highly nutritious, for instance, and something like a couple of bull brains is like three or four months worth of "brain". Think of an entire pack of dogs dividing a kill. Not that they'd literally divide it, the toughest dog would get his fill of the choicest parts, but a dog will self-regulate on brain, it's VERY rich. A sheep brain could be fed over the course of a month to an average sized dog.
The problem with beef is that the bones are very resistant to consumption, so you have to be careful of the calcium to phosphorus ratio. What I usually do is feed beef parts with something like pork neck bones or chicken necks which are low in meat. As with the brain, the great thing about beef is that the organs are HUGE, so grab whatever you can and divide in single portions and save for a rainy day. Whatever organs you can get are fine. The nutrient profile on each organ is slightly different, so over time you'll be providing very complete diet.
Pork is a little bit the same way. I don't have a lot of personal experience with off the farm pork but I know the slaughter size is much bigger than my sheep and goats! But with pork a lot more of the bones are edible - they are typically slaughtered when they quite immature. So I'd grab any bones and organs availble and again, save them for a rainy day. You can use these to balance the beef, as mentioned above.
Normal dogs can consume almost all of a sheep or goat. Get ANY parts you can off these small ruminants, including hooves and all bones. Spinal bones, the pelvis, the jaw, horns, the scapula, and maybe some of the femur from a large mature animal are all I've seen turn into recreational bones from small ruminants. It's worth investing in a whole animal, in fact, whenever you can get a deal. Dogs are highly adapated to eat small ruminants, rodents, and fowl so the more they get of these, the better.
A whole chicken or other fowl is about two or three feedings for the average dog (leave the feathers on). Ditto a small rabbit (fur, ears, and all). If I had ready access to all that you descirbe (I don't since moving, boo hoo), I'd rotate between a fowl and a rabbit weekly, with whatever larger animals supplying the rest of your dog's diet.