feeding mini dakkies

Is a dakkie a dashhound?    Hate to sound stupid so early in the day, but I'm hoping this is just a function of living in different countries.....

The chicken and rice?  This is home cooked?  Are you adding a calcium supplement and making sure that 5% of their daily diet is organ meat?  Chicken is about seventy percent water so once you take out the bones and the water, you don't really have a whole lot of meat left.  I don't know what percentage meat to rice you are using, but you might want to consider upping the meat and lowering the rice.  When I use a grain in my homecooked, which is very rare, I use whole grains, such as whole grain brown rice.  There are good things in all three parts of the rice, the germ, the bran and the ecosperm that are beneficial to all of us.  I prefer for my homecooked to be grain free though and use sweet potatoes as a carb source.

Unlike people, dogs don't really get energy from carbs.  They get energy from fat.  So they don't really need a lot of carbs.  When you say table scraps, I'm assuming that you mean leftovers that YOU would eat, and not the stuff tha belongs in the trash?

Since she is getting older, you might want to adjust her diet so that she's getting a little bit less good quality protein and a lot less carbs.  Just a thought.

 whats a dakkie?

Hi..sorry, lost in translation.

Miniature dachshunds. I roast a full chicken and use the fat and skin and meat and mix it roughly 50/50 with rice or sometimes cooked pasta...sometimes I boil rice and usually use white...this chicken mix will last for  2 meals..I haven't used a calcium supplement and the 5 younger ones are fit and firm...but obviously they will get older and I don't want to run into problems with them..the elder one is a bit square shaped and she does eat too much.she plays hard and is fit and very active.just a bit too big....don't want to get into grief with her back later.

If they look like they got a bit skinny, I just give them an extra meal....and they can drop weight in a few hours sometimes.

Table scraps are our left overs....and we eat loads of garlic....so, anything left over.and there is usually plenty.is given to them as a meal.we also eat lots of tomatoes and green vegetables.and they eat anything apart from mushrooms.....and they love cheese.....and, I have never given a dog milk cos I always thought it was bad for them.but the dakkies love milk aswell.

I am not overly happy about using a bought in kibble....but was just a bit bothered about making sure they get enough of what they need.....and not giving them too much of what they don't need.

They need a little less grain as Glenda said, and probably brown rice would be better for them (more vitamins and minerals - white rice has basically nothing).

Plain meat must be balanced with calcium - especially with dogs with the potential for structure issues like dachshunds.  You might want to consider cutting back this part of the diet (the chicken and rice) and adding one raw meaty bone a day. Take the skin off a chicken wing, or a small lean lamb shank (just a couple ounces per dog), or anything else with bone - what you want is to increase their calcium.  You can also throw an egg per two dogs in the blender or food processor (complete with shell) and give half of this per day to each dog. 

They also need a little more lean meat than you are describing.  There is a lot of fat in chicken skin - but they need some of the vitamins and minerals in the skin, so you don't want to eliminate that entirely.  Offer a bit of variety - other meats are great and they'll love it. 

Tripe is excellent, especially if you are getting fresh.  I'd give as much as possible and reduce the grains if you are finding it's making your dogs fatten up. Really, if you have a good source of tripe, they don't need rice unless you are simply including it for economy's sake.

Finally, as Glenda said, you need to provide offal meats.  They need very small amounts - 5% to 10% of the diet - of kidney, liver, sweetmeats (pnacreas), lung, brain, etc.  Give all these raw, as you would the tripe.  Heart is a meat, not offal, though it is an organ, of course.  You can use raw heart in the meat part of your diet -  it's great for aging pets especially.

Hi.thanx so much for this. I give the rice etc cos I thought they needed some roughage in their diet and not just all meat....and they don't eat that much cos of their size so I did think that they would have to have as much good food as possible in such a small amount.

They love fresh tripe..didn't think there was enough in that for them....and they regularly steal eggs plus shells from our hens...thanx very much, much appreciated.

 You may want to use white or sweet potatoes in place of the rice. Many home made diets don't have enough potassium, and potatoes are a good source for it.

My biggest concern is that you aren't balancing the phosperous/calcium by using a calcium supplement.  But also, is it always chicken?  I rotate the protein source in my homecooked.  My carb source pretty much stays the same...always sweet potatoes, but, I change up the veggies and everything else.  I do this not because I think they get bored so much as I think any living being needs variety to meet all their nutritional needs.

I am owned by two Dachshunds and I can say it doesn't take much for them to gain weight. How much of this are you feeding? One cup of cooked regular long grain white rice has about fourtyfive grams of carbs, four grams of protein, eleven percent of iron, two precent of calcium, and fifteen mg of potassium. It contains vitamin B-6, a little of vitamin E, copper, folate, magnesium, manganese, niacin, pantothenic acid, phosphorus, riboflayin, selenium, thiamin, and zinc. One cup of roasted chicken meat has about five grams of fat, one hundred and four mg of cholesterol, fourtythree grams of protein, one precent of vitamin A, two precent of calcium, eight precent of iron.

Hi. They get all sorts of meat.from venison to chicken to pheasant and sometimes lamb or beef but chicken is the easiest to give them. The venison they eat raw.we live near a shooting/hunting estate highlands of scotland..they don't get this very often though.usually only in winter and only occasionally...They often get wild rabbit.and they eat this raw aswell.

We live on a farm and they are outside with me whenever I am outside....they are well covered with a good shiny coat but their bodies are quite taught..they don't have a tendency to gain weight but then they are very active.apart from the oldest 1.who eats and runs like the rest of them but is a square shape.

If I make them chicken, they get a 3lb bird that I roast in the oven then strip it and mix everything.fat, skin and meat and all liquids.and mix it with boiled rice( so far only used white rice but will get brown for them from now on) Its roughly half meat to half rice in size.and they eat this over 2 meals.

I feed all table scraps.anything we leave.and we don't eat junk food of any kind...try to keep free range fresh and if possible organic.

Because they are so small and only have tiny stomachs, I wanted to feed them something which would give them everything they needed without overfilling them on bulky stuff.

I don't like the idea of feeding them  commercial foods...would rather feed them myself.

I went to the local supermarket and asked for sweet potatoes.and I was met with a blank stare and asked what they were...

They occasionaly eat raw egg...shell and all cos we have chickens here and they go looking for eggs.

so, no doubt I am doing everything wrong here.which is why I asked in the first place to see if their diets were going to cause any later years problems.

The oldest is around6 to 7 now...we had her from a young puppy..but before this we only ever had giant breeds of dog which are totally different to what we have now with diet.

there is nobody around here where I could go to ask....nobody else with this breed.all dogs around here are sporting/hunting dogs...or terriers.

Well, I wouldn't say you are doing everything wrong, definitely not.  But, one of the advantages of not feeding commercial is being able to feed a diet rich in meat, and there's a lot of rice/pasta in what you describe!

I'd halve the rice again (so 3/4 chicken, 1/4 rice) - or pasta - and make the raw egg more of a formal thing to ensure that you are including a sufficient amount of calcium.  They need about 1/4 teaspoon of eggshell for every pound of meat, which is about 1/4 a large egg more or less.

I'm envious of your location.  I have Border Collies (in case you hadn't noticed!) and have many friends in Scotland or from there.  I'd love to go some day, though I'd probably spend more time down around the Borders or mid where both my dogs are from, and my family is from! 

Hi.thanx for the reply. I think my main reasoning just now is the oldest is very definitely square and I love her to bits!! she is very active but just  too big....and as she is a pedigree too, I didn't want to go into health problems cos I was feeding the wrong stuff.

I will cut down on the rice.pasta and increase the meat..thank you.

I am alos worried about all sorts of stuff you here on commercial feeds....thats another reason why I feed home stuff.

The location here is fabulous....border collies love it!! but its a bit isolated from the rest of civilisation and we only moved here 4 years ago from england.....where there wasn't much information availabe but it wasn't quite so isolated. We are 4 miles from the North Sea....the dogs love the water and the sand..and anything dead or decaying fish or crab etc they can find to munch on or roll in!lol.

Not to sound like a broken record, but.......calcium supplement.  Calcium/phosperous ratio is critical.

Glenda, she already has eggshell in the diet. That's probably why everything has been fine, though you'll notice I encouraged her to make the inclusion of the eggs a more formal thing so she is keeping track of the calcium to Ph.