dog food - Page 1

Got into major problems with dogs. I feed quality nograin dog food. As dressing i started feeding cooked chicken. Boiled deboned and with chicken broth added. I was feeding about 16 oz cooked meat with my dry dog food in two feedings for 9 dogs. The chicken these days has odor..same with eggs..frozen..10 lb bags bought reasonable price thighs and legs. 3 months later... i lost one dog quickly due to kidney failure. Suddenly i had 4 out of 9 suffering from kidney issues. Why? Only thing i could figure out is that chickens are being fed large quanities of sulfa based anti biotics...thats why they stink..on top of that.they are being fed also vitamine D3. Both sulfa and D3 are dangerous to dogs and cause kidney failure. Who would hsve thought 2 oz of chicken meat as top dressing combined with quality dry dogfood would result in death? So i post this to caution ...feed only chicken you know is raised without large quantities of anti biotics. If this is what its doing to my dogs..what is it doing to our children.

Really sorry about your loss, but I do understand your concerns that I why I changed to fish kibble for my guys along with some raw ground turkey meat.  Not sure if the turkey is any better but supposed to be without crap in it.  "All natural"...  We'll see though, I do have some health issues with my 8 l/2 year old Samoyed boy.  Am trying my darndest to keep him healthy.  Thank you for the heads up.  Would  you share  what chicken you were buying.  I used to feed leg quarters from Wal Mart but the bone was showing up in large pieces so quit that.  Have fed some type chicken kibble for years and quit that now.  So will see how the fish kibble/raw turkey diet goes.  Am starting to get really hinky about chicken myself as it used to be a main source for our diets also and cannot find anything good enough to buy for us.??   Really a true health concern for all that eats it.  Thx again,  Nan

 

PS:  Samoyeds cannot take any type of Sulfa based antibiotics, they drop dead in a very short period of time like only a few days after the begin a prescription, so very very serious problem.  Nan

If you are feeding human grade cooked chicken with dry kibble I would expect the kibble was the culprit and not the chicken.  No company will sell human grade food that is known to be adulterated or dangerous as the liability for the death of a human is limitless in terms of costs.  Dry dog food is limited to dogs and the death of a dog only will cost the dog food company the replacement cost of the dog.  Your post did not mention the breed or size of the dog but two ounces of cooked chicken does not sound like the cause of the problem to me.  Many antibiotics are not stable at high temperatures so depending on how you cooked the chicken I am pretty sure the Vitamin D3 was cooked out of it.  I have fed a lot of raw chicken quarters from WalMart and other human grade food store raw chicken food quarters with no problems thus far for my GSD and they get 2-3 lbs of raw chicken per dog per day.  This sounds more like the problems caused by adulterated Chinese wheat gluten in dry dog kibble than a raw or cooked chicken problem.

very unlikely that it's the chicken. have the kibble checked for the presence of melamine and cyanuric acid. the combination is well known to cause kidney failure. also, the contamination can come from any protein source including but not limited to wheat, rice, pea, or soy gluten. just because you didn't switch brands doesn't mean the manufacturer, or one of its upstream suppliers, didn't change inputs.

I don't know what country you're in/from, but it's illegal to put antibiotics in poultry in the US. 

I have fed who knows how many pounds of regular grocery store chicken to dozens of dogs over the years and no issues. What kibble were you feeding? 

Pretty sure the OP is in he USA (10 lb bags .. most of the world is metric) and no it is not illegal to put antibiotics in chicken or most other meat animals we eat in the USA.  Eighty percent of all antibiotics used in the USA are for animals (only 20% for human use) and the animal use may even be higher than reported as many human targeted antibiotics are prescribed for animal ( doxycycline, cephalexin and ciprofloxacin as examples ) even though they are not labeled for use in animals such as dogs.  Tons of antibiotics literally are fed to animals to prevent diseases in confinement feeding operations (factory farms) and are promoted to hobby farmers as medicated feeds.  The leading cause of antibiotic resistance in the USA is feeding antibiotics to livestock which is done to promote faster weight gain in the animals and to suppress disease organisms which flourish when animals are overcrowded and live in filth and ammonia filled air.  The most overcrowded of all are chickens in broiler houses and layer operations which are given antibiotics and antfungals to prevet respitory diseases caused by the air in chicken houses being high in ammonia and the birds are pretty much walking around in chicken poop all the time.  What is allowed under federal and state guidelines is pretty rough and if some meat slips into the food chain with higher than ACCEPTABLE levels of antibiotic residues then exactly who is watching and how often???

I made a typo on my above post. Very tired and on puppy watch. I meant to write "it is illegal to use HORMONES, but not antibiotics in poultry in the US." 

Regardless, as much grocery store meat is fed to dogs (and humans), I would think if the chicken were to blame for short term problems (I totally believe we will eventuallly pay the price for the way we raise our livestock), we'd be hearing a lot more of these stories. What type kidney issues are you seeing? Are they all really sick or do they just have elevated BUNs? You do know raw-fed dogs typically have higher BUNs, correct?

As I said, I have fed chicken as a staple for many years. I don't like that they're treated w/antibiotics, but I cannot afford to feed 5-6 dogs all locally, organically raised fresh chicken. I have not had kidney problems in any of my dogs. If you or your vet are inexperienced in interpreting bloodwork, you may be jumping to scary but incorrect conclusions. 

Were all your dogs vaccinated at the same time or with the same batch of vaccines? I know a breeder who had kidney issues go through a kennel and it was traced to a bad batch of vaccines. Another suspect at the time was lepto from rodents getting into the kennel. Lepto can sneak up and trash kidneys before you know it. Lyme can do the same. 

My point is that I'm afraid you're blaming the wrong thing and therefore putting other dogs at risk by not finding the true culprit, if you have that many dogs suffering serious kidney damage. Please clarify what is going on. 

 

I had a dog who was killed by vaccines wrecking her kidneys so I would also wonder if vaccines were involved especially if there was a group of puppies and littermates vaccinated together involved.  My dog died at age two years from kidney failure because vaccines killed her kidneys and her litter mates had the same symptoms ( it was just a matter of how bad ).  I think they were stressed when the vaccination was given by the breeder and the vaccine caused an immune reaction that destroyed my puppy's kidneys.  I would suspect adulterated dry dog food as the culprit or access to another environmental toxin such as anti-freeze or something the dogs could have all eaten or drunk.  Prescription human meds that the dogs got from the garbage would also be possible culprits as would toxic plants or pesticides the dogs might have been exposed to.  Two ounces of cooked chicken per dog per day seems to be an unlikely source for the problem.  What happened to cause the kidney damage would seem to be environmental in nature be it food, air, water, pesticides, or vaccinations.  

Never say never when money and human greed are involved.  Chinese meat and food has found it's way into our markets and our dog food.  Chicken produced in China does have growth hormones as does that Tilapia frozen and sitting in the frozen food section at your WalMart and other food stores.  Some of the growth hormones used in fish and chicken in China are based on waste and by-products of birth control pills and contraceptive pills manufactured there.  There was a report of a young girl age 7 who got her first period because she lived in an area where fish farming was highly concentrated.  It is also well known in China that the fish farmers won't let their families eat the fish products which they produce because they fear the antibiotics and growth hormones used in such production will harm their loved ones.  So if the dog food produced sources the fish meal in your dog food from China to save a few cents per bag you can expect the worst.  Likewise with chicken meal and beef meal produced in China.  Fresh chicken from USA suppliers is infinitely better than dog food without all US sourced ingredients.

I fed chicken for years with no issues. Sometimes, the chicken would have a bit of an odor the older it got, especially out of the 10 lb bags with added water solution. Check the kibble! What are you feeding, kibble wise?