Raw Bones...
So I got some raw meaty bones from a local organic farm a couple days ago. I gave one each to Solomon and to Kayla's pit-mutt, Darcy.
Solomon broke a molar while chewing one. We aren't talking chipped. He split the tooth clean in half. This isn't the first time he's broken a tooth on a bone, but last time it was a femur bone and the upper fourth premolar, and I figured it was a freak incident/the result of chewing a bone that was too big.
I'll take him to the vet for extraction tomorrow. I can think of five thousand things I'd rather drop that money on...grrr. Anyone else had a problem feeding raw meaty bones?
Solomon broke a molar while chewing one. We aren't talking chipped. He split the tooth clean in half. This isn't the first time he's broken a tooth on a bone, but last time it was a femur bone and the upper fourth premolar, and I figured it was a freak incident/the result of chewing a bone that was too big.
I'll take him to the vet for extraction tomorrow. I can think of five thousand things I'd rather drop that money on...grrr. Anyone else had a problem feeding raw meaty bones?
Comments
I stopped feeding bones for the purpose of eating the bones, now I only feed marrowbones(?) and take the bone away as soon as he has eaten the flesh and the marrow. Wolves (and dogs) normally don't eat bones. They only chew on them to get to the marrow and they eat birdbones because they are too small to separate flesh from bones. They can't really digest bones...
And I don't see the point in buying and feeding stuff my dog can't stomach...
Because Etsus teeth were a bit yellow, I gave him some raw meaty bones I fed many times before to chew on and two days later the vet had to get some pieces of bone out of his a**...
It was real luck, that the pieces didn't get stuck somewhere on the way or hurt the stomach too much, so there was no operation in need, but man, that really was enough horror. I won't ever feed raw bones again. Some marrowbones, yes. Maybe even some chicken or rabbit with bones, but not bones on purpose.
Etsu is fed on the "5 elements"-diet (dogs need five parts of the animal to get all vitamines and nutrients needed: muscle, fat, organs, chondral and paunch) and a little extra vegetables, rice or dairy. Especially chondral is a good alternative to bones.
Raw meaty bones can be a great danger to a dog's health, but due to prejudices(?) so many people go on feeding them (me as well) risking their dogs life...
When you have a cow's leg for example and the bone is hollow and has this stuff inside... Is that marrow?
I sometimes buy bit slices(?) of cow's legs. It's meat and the bone with the marrow in the middle. Etsu may eat the meat and lick and chew the marrow out of the bone and when he has finished, I take the pure bone away. (Normally, when the bone is not broken he leaves it anyways...)
first, I have to respectfully disagree about how bones are not healthy. It depends on types of bones, so perhaps that is the sticking point? Because poultry bones are fine. Small mammal bones are fine (my dogs crunch up chicken bones, turkey bones, rabbit bones, and bones of any unfortunate smaller mammals within their reach: rats/mice/squirrels/rabbits, etc.) They can eat these just fine, and they don't do any damage to the dog. I've fed all my dogs rmbs for the entire time I've had them (so for my GSD it was nearly 11 years!) and they've never had a problem, and certainly plenty BARF feeders do the same. And wild animals do eat bones....
that said, a couple of people have mentioned in the raw feeding threads that the weight bearing bones of larger mammals are problematic (cattle, sheep etc?) I don't know know much about this, and my dogs haven't been hurt by chewing on larger bones, but I can see why this could be a problem.
What I will say is that my GSD did have some problems with his teeth, but his problems, I believe, had more to do with underlying health issues than with the bones. When he died at 11 (poor boy, just a few days ago) most of his teeth were ground down or broken. But he broke them as a puppy as well as an adult chewing on all sorts of things....rocks, bones....wood...etc. He also was malnourished as a pup and had parvo (he was a rescue), and I believe his health problems as a very small pup made his teeth and probably bones weaker, though granted I can't point to anything that actually confirms this view.
My shibas have chewed on many of the same things (not rocks--Shibas aren't that undiscerning) and all their teeth are still strong and unchipped. So while it could well be that big bones are problematic, could there also be something that might have made the dog's teeth weaker?
She tears at the meat and work on it which takes her about 20 or 30 minutes of working on it she's a shiba inu and I usually get a good size shank for her and once she gets to the bone she'll gnaw on it for a bit I watch her when she does this and she gnaws on it lightly and she usually stops after a bit or I take it away from her.
I'm still new to raw, but Saya is able to crunch chicken bones, lamb ribs, and rabbit with no issue I always make sure the RMB has lots of meat covering the bone.
Sorry this has happened.
I totally agree with you, that dogs CAN (and do) eat bones of poultry and small mammals (also fed that before I stopped feeding bones). But that was not my point. As far as I am informed the stomach cannot really deal with the bones, so only a few of the nutrients can actually be used and bones remain rather useless. But scientists always disagree completely with what others say, so it might of course be true, that they CAN deal with it... I don't know. That was only the opinion I decided to believe...
What came into my mind when reading your post about malnutrition as a puppy was that some breeds (Shiba for example) have inherited problems with their teeth, so even puppies that have been fed "right" might have problems with chewing bones...