What bones are good bones? - Page 1

Hi from my past posts you will note that I am new to raw feeding. I have a 11month GSD mix and she seems to love raw food that I started feeding her in the morning a week ago. She eats Orijen kibble at night and is doing fine with the raw/kibble combo. My question is I started her on chicken backs with little/no skin on them and she started eating grass and her paws the first few days. Now she eats grass everytime we go out but its not the grazing she was doing at first. I want to switch her to another type of meat but I dont know what comes after chicken backs. Should I try turkey necks? Cow necks? Pork necks? also can they eat the bone from the cow neck? Thanks

 I was told that for beef, to use femur and knuckle bones.

I'm intrigued that you are having good luck with a mixture of raw and kibble.  I'd like to hear more about this, from you or others' comments.

Well I give 1/2 lb of raw in the morning and then about 12hrs later she gets 1/2 of her recommended daily kibble. Orijen kibble is grain free and has really good quality products and so far so good. fyi my pup is 50lbs if that helps

My dogs love pork necks and I'm sure cow neks would be fine too. If it isn't a weight baring (leg) bones your dog can eat it. Legs and knuckles aren't for eating thos are recreational (chewy) bones for keeping a bored dog busy or cleaning teeth.

 Oh, right, I stand corrected!  Thanks 4pack, I'm still a newbie.    

It sounds to me like you're feeding a bit too much bone. Necks & backs don't have very much meat on them. You should be aiming for 80%meat-10%bone-10%organs (with liver being 5% of that).

The only bones you should avoid are the weight bearing bones of large ungulates (cows, deer, moose, etc.). These bones are dense and can cause chips or breaks in the dog's teeth. Many people will tell you they have never had a problem feeding marrow bones, but why take the chance? Other than that, your dog should be able to handle anything. My guy was eating racks of pork ribs (bone and all) at 10 weeks. Now he burns through lamb & pig legs like butter.

As for adding another meat. It doesn't really matter what. The idea of introducing new proteins slowly is to give the dog's digestive system a chance to adjust. Or to put it another way, to lessen the chance of loose stools. Still, every dog is different. My guy had no problem with new proteins so I added new ones quite rapidly.

Bison (buffalo) is a good muscle meat too. And raw bison bones are much denser than beef and less likely to splinter than beef bones, so they are good for chewers to work on to keep busy or clean teeth. My young dog loves bison.

All my dogs get a medium quality commercial dog food with about one sixth portion by weight of best quality raw beef mince as their main source of food and a raw beef knuckle bone (about half the size of a fist) once a day which they completely consume and helps keep their teeth clean and healthy. They thoroughly enjoy the bone and are crazy about it and demand it. They also get five tablespoons of yogurt mixed with their dog food and seem to thrive on the combination I have worked out.
 
Here is a picture of three of them
 

You have some beautiful dogs Shezam.

I am getting confuse........

- Avoid giving the dog weight bearing bones like knuckle joints with likely risk of chipping their teeth.

- But is acceptable as a recreational chewy bones to clean their teeth.

Does size matters here?