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Hi everyone! :D

 

So as the title says, I have a question reguarding raw and maybe I'm just not looking hard enough, but cannot for the life of me find the answer. We have Ziggy now, who is just about 8 weeks old, and are wanting to start feeding him raw a couple times a week until he runs out of the Canidae he's eating now. When he does run out of the Canidae, he will go to strictly raw. I have read that chicken is the best to start him off on, but now my question is this, what part of the chicken do I feed him? I bought a whole fryer chicken from our co-op and am going to cut it up tonight. I just have no clue which part to give him first. He's about 8 pounds right now (don't know if that matters a whole lot). Any help from those of you more knowledgeable about this than me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all! :D

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The parts with the smaller bones will be easier for his puppy teeth to manage: wings, back, and similar. I would save the larger bones for when he's a bit older, though ISTM I was offering Lark thighs, etc., when she was still pretty small. (You can always grind parts with larger bones and then feed the ground to a pup).

 

J.

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Any part is fine honestly. Maybe he won't be able to chew through the leg bones but it should be ok.

 

Just make sure you stick to chicken (at least 2-4 weeks before adding new meat sources) for a while and balance out the bone and meat. You don't want to just feed the pup chicken wings for every meal because it's too bony and doesn't have much meat. If you want to feed wings, then perhaps add a chicken breast or something along those lines.

 

You can grind when he starts teething. I've seen a few puppies that don't want to chew the bones when they're teething because of sore gums.

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Make sure you are giving more than just chicken (with bone), if you switch completely to raw. He will not be getting enough protein and other nutritional components that he needs. When we were raising a litter of puppies, we would mix up a big batch of ground beef with a little bit of liver, and egg with shell, tripe, and a little yogurt and pumpkin. That would be given as "breakfast" and "lunch." Then, the last meal was a chicken wing or back (when they were around 6-7 weeks old), or a drumstick (when they got to be about 8 weeks old).

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I find they eat most things without a problem, in Kenzie`s case it was " I`ll have what he`s having,in fact I`ll just have his thanks.What do you mean my eyes are bigger than belly?"

 

DSC00341.jpg

 

 

 

 

The little bandit had eaten her own piece and then snaffled this of her big brother who luckily for her is a total wuss.It`s green tripe btw.

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Thank you all so much for your help! I just gave him a wing and he devoured it! Now the problem is that he is whining and howling to go back outside for more. I don't want to give him too much at once, but he really wants more. Is one wing at a time ok, or should I be giving him more? Earlier today he ate a cup of Canidae ALS, so I guess he could still be hungry. Any ideas?

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I did end up just giving him the neck as well after which he settled down and is now sound asleep at my feet. Feeding this little guy has been an adventure everyday since we brought him home. Usually he gets a cup of kibble in the morning that he never finishes, then will finish the leftovers at lunch. In the afternoon I give him kefir, pumpkin, and diatomaceous earth mixed together. And in the evening I offer him another 1/2 cup to cup of kibble which he also never finishes. He seems to be growing and thriving, but I've been rather concerned because he just doesn't seem that interested in consuming large amounts of food at once... haha, that is until tonight with the raw. He was like a ravenous wolf! I'll quite honestly be very glad when he finishes the Canidae bag off so we can just fully switch to raw, but in the meantime we are planning on giving him raw for an evening meal a couple times a week. I greatly appreciate all of you guys' expertise and experience! It's very exciting to me to learn as much as I can about the raw feeding topic. Thank you all so much! :D

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Lindsaloo, why the diatomaceous earth?

I have not heard of feeding that to puppies or dogs.

D'Elle

 

Yes, I wonder too, since that is essentially small sharp pieces of glass...what is it supposed to do?

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Yes, diatomaceous earth is a natural dewormer. In my experience it's been both very effective and cost friendly in treating all of our pets as well as ourselves. It works by cutting the exoskeleton of parasites causing them to dehydrate and die. I noticed a 100% difference in Ziggy within a week of starting him on it. Because it also cleans out the intestinal tract it makes food consumed more easily absorbed.

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It works by cutting the exoskeleton of parasites causing them to dehydrate and die.

I find this highly unlikely; endoparasites live in a very moist environment, dehydration is difficult there.

The stuff is used as an insecticide, with dehydration as the working mechanism, and I quote:

Diatomite is also used as an insecticide, due to its physico-sorptive properties. The fine powder absorbs lipids from the waxy outer layer of insects' exoskeletons, causing them to dehydrate.

Maybe that´s where some misunderstanding comes from.

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The main point is that they DO die. Therefore making diatomaceous earth a great natural dewormer, eliminating the need to pump poisons (that parasites can develop immunity to) into animals or humans.

 

I use DE in my carpets to kill fleas. Works great. Tried using it for a de-wormer, daily for weeks. Didn't make any difference at all. I had to get meds from the vet.

 

Ruth

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The main point is that they DO die. Therefore making diatomaceous earth a great natural dewormer, eliminating the need to pump poisons (that parasites can develop immunity to) into animals or humans.

 

I believe DE is a good organic insect/parasite controller in the external environment (i.e. on carpets, on the dog's fur, spread on the ground, etc.), but am not so sure about internal effectiveness. I have heard many positive anecdotal stories about DE's effectiveness for parasite control when fed to various species (dogs, livestock), and I would like to believe that DE works, but have not seen any scientific proof. Have you done before and after fecals to show the efficacy of DE? Or do you know of any research or experiments that have proven that DE can reduce/kill internal parasites? If so, please pass this info on as I would love to read and learn. (Since I would also like to reduce chemical use, I would use DE internally if I was sure it had the desired effect.)

 

As one vet said when asked whether DE could kill internal parasites (paraphrasing here) "I think DE can control internal parasites as long as you give (insert name of chemical wormer here) at the same time." :)

 

Jovi

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I will look and try to find some "scientific" evidence of the effectiveness as an internal parasite killer. I actually would be interested to see if there's any out there as well. :D We did do before and after fecal checks on Ziggy as well as our cat Gidget and both were parasite and larva free within a little over a week. I'm by no means saying it's a perfect fix for all living creatures that have parasite issues, but I do know that it works for us in more ways than one so we're gonna keep buying it.

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I think the point Smalahundur was trying to make is that the intestinal tract is an inherently moist environment. It's unlikely that the DE would be able to cause dehyration in an environment where the parasites are essentially surrounded by moisture.

 

I have also heard of plenty of success using it as an environmental pest control (e.g., for fleas), for the reasons stated, and I have used it successfully that way myself. I have it here to help control fleas, as well as mites in the chicken coop. In livestock circles, I have never heard of anyone having any real success with it, and although I have used it in the same way others have mentioned, I would not rely on it as an efficacious means of eliminating internal parasites in my dogs or my livestock.

 

J.

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Alrighty, so after some fairly disappointing research into the DE topic I was not able to really find any conclusive research on it. Although disappointed, it's effectiveness has been proven to me multiple times on horses (my friend's), goats, cats, and dogs so it's my chosen method. I also convinced a couple close friends to test it out on their cattle, so we'll see if it works on them as well. I'm sorry I wasn't able to find any clinical studies for you, but maybe someday in the near future they will come up with some.

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