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What do the people who give raw bones think of this?

Posted : 10/12/2006 11:12:36 AM

[linkhttp://www.thepetcenter.com/xra/bonecomp.html]http://www.thepetcenter.com/xra/bonecomp.html[/link]

I was looking for information on how much calcium is in a bone, and came across this. It didn't answer my question, but I found it interesting anyway. Any comments? I'm not so much worried about the safety of raw bones, I'm just wondering if there's room for debate there. Are the things said in the article true? Bones don't have much nutrition besides calcium and phosphorous? So technically raw meat with a calcium supplement would be just as balanced as a raw meaty bone? [8|]

Also, I'm still wondering about the amount of calcium in bones... How does a chicken leg quarter, which is really quite meaty, contain the ideal calcium to phosphorous ratio? Does bone really have enough calcium? How much? Anyone know? I'm still looking, but figured I'd ask here in case anyone knows a good source for that information off hand.

Thanks.

Edit: Actually, that last paragraph came out wrong. I can see how a leg quarter would have enough calcium to balance its meat, what I'm wondering is how it has enough to balance a bunch of extra meat off the bone as well. Like, Lauri's site suggests a diet of 60% RMBs, 35% muscle meat, and 5% organ meat. Do the bones really have enough calcium to balance out 40% of the diet being boneless meat? I'm not saying they don't, I'm actually asking, because I have no idea.

jessies_mom

Posted : 10/12/2006 12:28:29 PM

I've brought up this site before and so have a few others; it's a hotly debated subject. I can tell you that bones are the most frequent cause of esophageal obstruction in dogs. I do give Jessie bones occasionally but she's a very careful chewer and not a gulper and I'm careful about which bones she gets. I also watch her while she's chewing them.

brookcove

Posted : 10/12/2006 12:59:17 PM

The following things are why I believe raw MEATY bones have made a difference in my feeding program. Your mileage may vary.

Bones aren't just bones, they are meat, connective tissue, and marrow. The article misses this point when they focus on just the bone. No one, to my knowlege, feeds bones stripped of everything else.
Bones provide vital mental stimulation, exercise for the jaws, and teeth cleaning (remember we are talking about MEATY bones). I have a ten week old puppy here - he's the wildest puppy I've had since the Maggie dog was little. Ted's teething like crazy, too. I've simply been feeding him his 8 oz of chicken wings one at a time, about every two hours. He goes potty, he plays a bit or goes for a walk with me, he gets his bone (frozen for his sore gums), he goes potty again, then he crashes and sleeps for about an hour. It's great.
The heterogenous nature of what goes down the hatch, is, I believe, more healthy for the dog's digestive system than homogenous kibble alone
I don't believe processed food can replicate exactly every single nutrient present in a raw meaty bone. How could it? We are still learning what is important for dogs' health - otherwise dog food companies wouldn't keep huge staffs of PhD research and development teams - they'd just have a recipe locked in a vault overseen by Pedro the Quality Control Guy.

Now, do I beleive the benefits here outweigh the risk of choking or other accident or illness associated with feeding bones? OF course I do, or I wouldn't be writing this. There's risk no matter how you feed - though managing risk is one reason I'm considering moving to cooked home prepared for my older dogs (one immune compromised). That's probably the safest way to feed a dog, but now you are talking about a big time commitment.

It's a big balancing act, and everyone has to do what works best for them, without, we hope, unkind comments from the peanut gallery.

jessies_mom

Posted : 10/12/2006 1:30:41 PM

I agree with brookcove about the benefits outweighing the risks; you need to know your dog's chewing habits though in order to decide which types of bones to give them. Jessie is allergic to chicken so that rules out the type of bones most dogs get. She does great with beef rib bones, soup (knuckle) bones, and short ( one inch) marrow bones. I don't give her the longer ( 4 to 6 inch) marrow bones anymore because after she ate all the marrow she could easily reach, she scraped pieces of bone from the inside wall trying to get the marrow deeper inside and it caused some discomfort when she

assed bone chips in a bowel movement the next day. I let her eat the rib bones but take away the soup and marrow bones after she's eaten all the meat, marrow and cartilage. Oh, and she loves oxtails too.

corvus

Posted : 10/12/2006 5:47:05 PM

I always thought the chief benfit of bones came from the jaw exercise and teeth cleaning properties. For a long time my dog got just one bone a week, but every time I took her to the vet he would say "Oh, you can always tell a bone eater. Her teeth are beautiful and clean.". My housemate's dog, on the otherhand, didn't get bones until he came to live with me and Penny, so the same vet was showing my housemate how to clean his teeth and advising her how often to do it.

This is the site I use for most of my nutritional information and the link is to the minerals section, which covers calcium and phosphorous requirements. [linkhttp://b-naturals.com/Feb2006.php]http://b-naturals.com/Feb2006.php[/link]

Edie

Posted : 10/12/2006 7:48:28 PM

Monica segals book,the truth behind the hype has a chapter on the nutrients of rmb's.

But she only lists chicken necks,wings,turkey necks,chicken backs,rabbit and calf and pig bones.No leg quarters.

A chicken back has1.81 calcium to .97 phos.

A chicken wing is1.15 calcium to .66 phos

She also lists all the other nutrients they contain,which is alot more than just the calcium and phosphorus,but unlike that site this includes the attached meat,not just the bare bone [

]

shorthair

Posted : 10/12/2006 8:12:17 PM

She's been sending more to the lab for her new book (coming out next yr I think ), I believe chicken quarters is one of them. She had a poll going on her yahoo list and another trying to figure out what additional ones she wanted to send to the lab, pork neck, pork ribs and turkey wings were the high votes so they are some possibilities that she may have in there.

This page [linkhttp://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=requirements]http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=requirements[/link] shows the calcium and phosphorus requirements needed for the weight of your dog.

Lauri S.

Posted : 10/12/2006 8:28:24 PM

ORIGINAL: Edie

A chicken back has1.81 calcium to .97 phos.

A chicken wing is1.15 calcium to .66 phos

That's like saying a brownie contains 100 calories. What SIZE borwnie?? I've seen chicken wings that were HUGE and some that were tiny. You can't generalize like that.

As far as giving calcium with muscle meat - yes, you can. You give roughly 1 teaspoon of ground egg shells per 1 pound of meat (no bone). That would give you a proper balance.

Extra calcium is excreted in the stools and, for the most part, you don't have to worry about too much. The exception to that is growing puppies. They need a better balance than adults do.

Edie

Posted : 10/12/2006 8:49:04 PM

That's like saying a brownie contains 100 calories. What SIZE borwnie?? I've seen chicken wings that were HUGE and some that were tiny. You can't generalize like that.

Yeah you're right [

] These are the levels of the wings and backs she happened to source on the day,i suppose.But wouldnt those levels be round abouts right?Would the calcium levels sky rocket if the wing was twice the size,and wouldnt the meat content also be higher adjusting the phos amount.

shorthair

Posted : 10/12/2006 8:52:38 PM

Those amounts are per 100 grams of wings or backs. Too much calcium in the diet binds zinc, so its better to not go overboard on it.

sandra_slayton

Posted : 10/12/2006 8:55:30 PM

I wish i could bring myself to feed bones to my dogs, and I have even picked them up, but put them back. I can't get the picture of that lab puppy dying because of a punctured stomach. And the thing is. when I was a kid, our dogs ate all the left over bones (except fish)--quial, dove, duck, chicken, rabbit, squirrel, beef, pork--and never had a problem at all and these wore cooked bones. But every time I pick up bones at the store, the picture of that little choclate lab puppy pops into my mind and i can't do--and I suspect it was cooked pork bone he ate, but do not know for sure. Maybe one day.........

sandra_slayton

Posted : 10/12/2006 8:57:18 PM

That's like saying a brownie contains 100 calories. What SIZE borwnie?? I've seen chicken wings that were HUGE and some that were tiny.

I have to laugh at this because it is so true. In our house there is the "hubby size brownie" and the "Sandra size" brownie. Same with slices of pie or cake. His is nearly always double the size of mine.

Edie

Posted : 10/12/2006 9:00:18 PM

Those amounts are per 100 grams of wings or backs.

Oops you're right.One VERY important piece of info i left out [sm=blush.gif]

mudpuppy

Posted : 10/13/2006 9:09:21 AM

don't the bigger wings have more meat on them? the small ones seem awfully bony.

I think the benefits of bones far outweigh any risk. The sparkling teeth. The robust digestive system. The happy dogs finally eating things they are designed to eat. And they come chock-full of natural joint supplement ingredients, so you're preventing arthritis too.

chelsea_b

Posted : 10/13/2006 1:14:15 PM

Like I said, I wasn't wondering about the safety or benefits of raw bones, I do believe they're safe and beneficial and don't need convincing of that. I was just curious about the nutrients found in them. I thought the bones themselves would be pretty nutritious and was surprised by that article saying they didn't have much of anything besides calcium and phosphorous.

A chicken back has1.81 calcium to .97 phos.

A chicken wing is1.15 calcium to .66 phos

Those amounts are per 100 grams of wings or backs.

But what are the amounts? If it's the ratio, then it doesn't matter what amount of food it is, and I would think it would be converted so phosphorous is 1, like the first one would be 1.86:1, and the second would be 1.74:1. So I would think it must be an amount, right? But is it milligrams, grams, ounces, what? Or am I totally not understanding? Math makes my head hurt. [&o]