Feeding My Dog A Raw Diet. Still Having Issues With Loose Stools
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Dec 6th, 2009 |
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So I’ve recently switched my 14 month old German Shepherd to the raw diet. He absolutely loves the food and eats with real gusto. His stools, on the other hand, haven’t been doing so great. I knew going into this it would take his system some getting use to, so I wasn’t alarmed when I saw he had loose stools. Yesterday they were fine. But today, a puddle of diarrhea.
If anyone has any experience with feeding a raw diet, I’d appreciate any help. It’s been about a week since the switch and his meals usually make up of either ground beef and a chicken breast with the ribs or a chicken thigh with a raw egg and yogurt. I was urged to introduce supplements later on. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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when I switched my dogs i gave high bone percent. it’s recommended because the more bone, the firmer the stools. Also, only give 1 new protein source at a time for 2 weeks before introducing another. I would start with chicken because the bones are easy to chew. Give 20% bone to start. I was giving 20-30% for 4 weeks and gradually gave less until it’s now the 10% bone.
The yogurt provides probiotics (good bacteria) but you might be giving too much, try only a dollop.
when you give a new protein (like beef) only give that protein for 2 weeks. this way you can isolate which meats cause loose stools and which don’t.
Liver needs to make up 50% of the organ you give. Tripe is not an organ, it’s the intestinal linings, but dogs love it:)
Secreting organs are important because they provide the main vitamins for the diet. generally they must make up 10% of the overall diet. but introduce that liver VERY SLOWLY!!!
i found beef liver to be cheaper than chicken liver. i don’t know why..
but i didn’t start giving organs until 3 weeks into it. i might have just taken longer than others to get the raw diet all balanced..
good chicken bones to start with are:
thighs
necks
backs
wings
It may be not enough time yet for his system to adjust to the raw diet. Just make sure you’re giving him the correct amount of food for his weight, and in the right ratio of organ meat, muscle meat and bone.
There are yahoo groups for raw feeding, you might find some suggestions there, good luck!http://pets.dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Sci…
Bump up the bone content. Add some chicken wings or whatever you like to use. High bone content will harden up stools. Then, gradually begin to reduce it to your idea 10%.
Get rid of the yogurt. Forget the supplements (unless you’re just doing salmon oil). Neither is necessary. Also, no veggies (which it doesn’t sound like you’re using anyway)
Forget about ground if you can – you’re much better off giving whole pieces of meat.
You’ve jumped too fast with the different kinds of meat. Just do chicken for a bit until you get good stools, then slowly add other meats small amounts at a time.
The egg doesn’t have to be an every day affair, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the problem.
Once you start getting nice stools, you also want to start including organ meat (don’t wanna forget that). Just make it a gradual addition so you don’t get soft stools again.
Here’s a great raw feeding group I like.http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfe…
Yes, Lori, we are giving our dog chicken bones. Look into it.
Am I missing something? Never heard of the “raw diet.” What is the reasoning behind this? I hope you’re not actually giving your dog chicken bones.
You might have to take him to the vet. Or try putting some vegetables in his food! He needs them.