CARROTS? Fresh raw or cooked? Is there a difference? - Page 1

Carrots?

Here's a question I've asked many times in the last years of knowledgeable breeders and most GSD people I come across that a discussion on diet and nutrition is started. Still, I have never gotten an answer with a solid, factual reasoning behind it that has influenced me either way.

I'm a believer in feeding all my dogs fresh carrots once daily for the Vit A, antioxidants and the fiber. Personally I buy 15 lbs. of fresh at a time, grate them, stew them gently and then package and freeze them to last a couple weeks. I feed 1/3 cup per dog with their oil with their morning warm meal for balanced stool.

My question is....Does it make a difference in Dog digestion and nutriment absorption weather the carrots are left raw or do they need to be stewed or blanched for the specific digestion of the GSD for the most benefit?

I've been told it doesn't matter.        I've been told they must be raw for full nutritional benefit.     I've been told they must be fully cooked for absorption for full benefit.

I've come to my own conclusion that they MUST be grated or I do see them passed in the stool BUT, I still see no difference in my own dogs when I don't stew them or when I do stew them.

Opinions Please?

Thanks in advance,

SBS

If you've fed them raw you will have noticed that carrots come out in pretty much the same condition as they went in :) Dogs don't have the  digestive enzymes required to break down the type of fibre in carrots. Ditto for corn. Steaming them breaks the fibre linkages and allows the dog to digest carrots. Yes, you'll lose some of the nutrients but you still retain a lot of the benefits.

We grind carrots in the blender with a litle bit of orange juice until we get a mushy mix which seems to get fully digested.

I would suggest doing as Aqua said,raw and ABSOLUTLY in a juicer  or blender or it will pass right through him.

Most of ours chew up the carrots and we see no large portion coming through.  One would swallow his raw baby carrots whole and that's how we would find them...  For the ones that chew and crunch away we feed the baby carrots whole and raw.  The other guy gets his cut up when he does get any.  One of our girls get cut up raw carrots as her training treat.  She'll do most anything for her carrot.

A carrot a day keeps the vet away? for us it is an apple a day.. are apple seeds really poisousness?

Apple seeds:

http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/apples.asp

Here is some information that I have found about carrots for dogs. I use to use olewo carrots for my dogs and they did very good on them.

https://www.wellpet.com/secure.htm

https://www.wellpet.com/secure.htm

Thanks animules  I forget about Snopes....apricot and peach and cherry pits also poisonous but you can swallow then as easily HAHA  I had a detective tell me one time he heard apple seeds were poisonous and a women in Pittsburg  tried to kill her husband by grinding them up and putting them in his coffee everyday and finaly it brings on a cardiac arrest and very hard to trace....all she had to do was say he ate apples and ate the whole thing....strange but heard stranger........He evidently did not die, and she revealed what she did.........??Dont get any ideas folks?

Many plants are more poisonous.  Unspeakable names 18-year old neighbor brat threw rhodedendron branches over their backyard fence onto our property. Right to where our sheep and goats could reach them.  Killed two and almost another, these were pets.  Be very careful what your dogs can get to chew on, it could just as easliy been one of the dogs thinking it was playing fetch with a stick getting eoungh in their system to kill it.

I have a question regarding Olewo Carrots.  I have a dark sable (not black & no saddle) dog.  Would Olewo Carrots make his undercoat more red?  Would it effect his black topcoat?  If I were to use fresh carrots & perpare them as outlined by Aqua, how many carrots would I need to feed per day to see results?