[Konnie Hein]

I have a lot of issues with this article:
http://www.5stardog.com/dog-food.asp

Here are a few choice quotes:
"Dr. George Collings, an expert in pet nutrition at Sunshine Mills, addressed the issue of using bones as a source of nutrients, pointing out that "nutritionally, the extra calcium and phosphorus to the diet is an issue." Dr. Collings reports that excess calcium impedes digestion and interferes with the absorption of some nutrients. Extra phosphorous can cause kidney disease."

AND

"Although some experts recommend bones, others are just as adamant that bones - raw or cooked - are not healthy for your pet. T J Dunn, Jr. DVM of ThePetCenter.com posed the question of the benefits of bones to several experts in the field, including veterinarians, researchers, and biologists. The responses overwhelmingly vetoed bones as a regular source of nutrition. One of the main concerns of feeding bones is splintering. Many of the responses that Dr. Dunn received mentioned that in the wild, canids eat the hide with the hair along with the bones. It is the hair that protects the animal's systems from the bones that they devour. Debra Davidson, a wildlife biologist who helped raise captive wolves at the International Wolf Center, states that when the animals defecate after eating a whole carcass, "hair can be seen in the feces actually wrapped tightly around any bones that are passed through. This seems to protect
the organs/passageways as the bones are eliminated." Dunn performed research of his own by placing a large, raw, meaty beef bone in a vice and tightening it until the bone cracked open. The result was bone fragments, large and small - many of them with sharp points. Dunn recommends finely ground bone, if you must feed bones for nutritional content. He believes that the nutrients that raw bone proponents are seeking are "mostly derived from the meat, fat and connective tissues attached to those raw bones more so than from the actual bone itself."

Thoughts?

 

[Jeff Oehlsen]

Yes, within twenty years, your dogs will be dead regardless of the calcium phosphorus ratio. :roll:

It is all a huge conspiracy on the part of the dog food companies. They are sick of you raw people cutting in to their profits.

 

[Connie Sutherland]

I have no idea what their point is.

Bones without meat are not a diet staple.

The idea of raw feeding is to feed what the dog would eat in a prey-plentiful world, on his own: killed prey. Bones and meat and fat.

Phosphorous = meat
Calcium = bones

These are essential to a canid's diet.

 

[Connie Sutherland]

This is particularly interesting: "Dunn performed research of his own by placing a large, raw, meaty beef bone in a vice and tightening it until the bone cracked open."

As far as I know, the dog's intestines do not tighten like a vice until the bones crack open. As far as I know, dogs have enzyme-based systems, in which bones are dissolved (and digested) by enzymes.

 

[Konnie Hein]

I'm a scientist by education, and it is frustrating to see other science-minded people (the DVMs and Biologists quoted in the article) making such ridiculous statements. The conclusions they draw from their non-scientific summations/experiments are just plain dumb. Where did they go to school?? Their diplomas should be revoked. The means by which to conduct accurate scientific experiments certainly were included in their science-based educations, right?

In order to say that hair protects the intestines from the bones, they would have to provide evidence that intestines are punctured by bones if there's no hair present. The presence of hair in wolf poop does not prove anything other than that wolves eat animals with hair.

Just goes to show you can put anything on the web :roll:

 

[Jeff Oehlsen]

It also shows that if you have enough money you can buy an education

 

[Connie Sutherland]

It also shows that if you have enough money you can buy an education

No, it doesn't. It shows that if you have enough money you can buy a certificate or degree or other credential, as long as you don't care what entity issues it..... although why bother, when you don't even need that to become an expert for commercial dog food manufacturers and/or vaccine producers. :roll:

 

[Maren Bell Jones]

I'm not so sure what the vice thing proves either...most dogs (except Buck...who literally swallowed an entire raw pork chop whole last night without chewing...couldn't believe he's not been totally sick because of it) and wolves would have the good sense to actually chew the bones that are big enough to injure, though a small rodent or bird would likely be eaten pretty much whole. I almost (almost) wish I was a wolf biologist (tramping around in very cold weather in the American Northern Rockies, Minnesota, or Canada for field season isn't my idea of a good time) so I would know, but I didn't know that wolves ate all that much of the skin and fur of their larger prey like deer, bison, etc other than to get into the main part of the body cavity and whatnot.

Anyone feed their dogs with the whole prey model? When I tried feeding my ferret whole prey (the frozen/thawed mice that I also use for my snakes), I don't think he did that much eating of the fur. Of course, he didn't do much eating of the carcass either and like mostly playing with the guts and whatnot. :roll: :lol: Doesn't he realize he's supposed to be even more of an obligate carnivore than cats?

You can however see the mouse hair in the poop of the snakes sometimes. However, their stomach acid, like ours, is very strong. Some very large snakes who can eat deer and antelope actually don't start digesting the animal right away and let the stomach acid break down the horn, hooves, and antlers so it won't injure the snake.

 

[Konnie Hein]

I almost (almost) wish I was a wolf biologist (tramping around in very cold weather in the American Northern Rockies, Minnesota, or Canada for field season isn't my idea of a good time) so I would know, but I didn't know that wolves ate all that much of the skin and fur of their larger prey like deer, bison, etc other than to get into the main part of the body cavity and whatnot.

I almost was a wolf biologist, until I realized you'd have to pretty much divulge yourself of all belongings (including dogs!!!) in order to participate in researching them. However, I did spend a good deal of time volunteering at a place called Wolf Park while I was in college. We had a few "packs" of captive wolves and several individuals that we studied. The skin/fur of the large carcasses (such as deer) was partially eaten eventually. It wasn't exactly the preferred part of the carcass. They seemed to like the internal organs best. Their stool definitely had hair in it, but there weren't too many bones. I don't think they ingested too many bones from the large carcasses we gave them. They did eat smaller carcasses (rodents/rabbits) nearly whole.

If you look around in the woods here, you can find coyote and fox stool. It is almost totally composed of hair with some small bone pieces. This is because they are hunting smaller animals that they usually eat whole with a few brief crunches as it goes down. It appears to me (hey, I'm a biologist - I can't help but to look) that there are relatively few bones in the stool compared to what they would take in while ingesting an entire mouse/vole/rabbit/squirrel/etc. To me, that suggests some of those bones are digested - although that's only based on a few observations.

 

[Lynn Cheffins]

I've fed lots of whole carcasses (beavers, chickens, rabbits, deer, sheep) and while they will leave the bigger chunks of fur they do take in a fair bit especially on the smaller stuff like rabbits and beaver. With the chickens they usually stand on the wings and pluck at the birds a bit which takes off some of the feathers and they always leave the wings which have the heavy feathers, but do ingest the smaller stuff. They do manage to remove alot of feathers as you need a fan rake for clean up and it looks like somone bombed a pillow in your yard . On deer parts they will leave the bigger, furrier bits of hide but eat the shorter stuff that is attached to the head and legs and ears and stuff. Any identifiable bits of bone I have seen in stool have usually been pretty rubbery in texture and I think anything that they can swallow doesn't seem to cause any problems. Eventually the only things that are left are long bones. I can feed a whole beaver cut into 12 and all that is left are the teeth and a few patches of hair. On large "game"(well, cows :roll: ) there are the long bones and the skull and more vertebrae left as they are too big. Sheep and deer eventually all you have is wool and leg bones. The last thing to be eaten on larger stuff is the hide. The one thing I would like to comment on that bugs me is the statements on some of the raw sites that state that carnivores always eat the stomach and contents first. I have always found that on on beaver and sheep and deer that is the one thing that they leave. Eventually they will eat the stomach itself but usually leave the contents. I think wolves might do the same as my farmer neighbour reported one of his sheep killed by wolves to the ministry(they can claim them as a loss) and by the time the ministry guy got out there there was nothing but the stomach sitting in a red stain. A couple of hours later there was nothing but a pile of chewed up grass. Once that grass has passed thru the herbivore it's a different story and the effluent is considered a delicacy :-&
I can't comment about whether the fur or feathers serves a purpose in the digestive tract but any of the wolf poop I saw while I was working usually had a fair bit of moose hair in it and some of the old "home remedy" recipes for deworming dogs that I was told were used pre commercial wormers often contained moosehair (and gunpowder as another ingedient! ) so hair/feathers/fibre might possibly play some roll in digestive/intestinal health. Kind of unrelated but funny is what some dogs that are used to eating whole chickens will do if you feed them a big chunk of something else is go thru all the motions of "plucking" whatever it is they are eating.
The articles links that Konnie posted for comment seem to use some really bizarre logic in some of their arguments(the vise?) that don't make much sense in realtion to what I have seen in observation of my own animals.
Just for fun I include a picture link to show that dogs can eat end enjoy just about anything - this is "Poppy" one my alaskan husky eating a very large zuchinni! http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b385/sewtech/100_5888.jpg

 

[Woody Taylor]

Just for fun I include a picture link to show that dogs can eat end enjoy just about anything

Can't remember if I mentioned this to you before, Lynn...my wife's friend's brother (?) raises sled dogs in Duluth...he had what I thought was a pretty smart way of feeding raw to his team. Hooked up with a local furrier and got the carcasses, fed those. Said it was a bit like that scene from Alien where the thing pops out of the guy's stomach...apparently minks aren't as cute when they are dead and have no skin...but cost-effective.

 

[Lynn Cheffins]

My girlfriend had a "furrier connection" and pretty much fed exclusively ground mink in the racing season and whole minks on the off season. The dogs did really well on them. The only drawback to mink is they smell like mink! She brought a truckload of them to my place one weekend and we ground them in the big grinder and we packaged it all up and by the end of the day we were pretty splattered with gore. No way was our clothes going to go in my washer so we stripped off showered and bagged up all the clothing and took it to the laundromat. Everthything seemed fairly well de-scented until it hit the heat of the dryer - and then it became pretty evident that we were only partially succesful in removing mink stink.....We thought we might be able to wait it out and make a clean getaway until two ladies came in with their laundry, took one wiff and screamed "OMG, what is that SMELL???!!!!" We told her the drains had backed up and the ladies left real fast. We beat a hasty retreat home once the dry cycle was done :lol:

Back on topic - the whole of any animal ground-up is supposed to pretty much balanced so I don't understand some of the statements in the link posted that there is too much calcium and phosphorus.

 

[Woody Taylor]

The only drawback to mink is they smell like mink! She brought a truckload of them to my place one weekend and we ground them in the big grinder and we packaged it all up and by the end of the day we were pretty splattered with gore. No way was our clothes going to go in my washer so we stripped off showered and bagged up all the clothing and took it to the laundromat. Everthything seemed fairly well de-scented until it hit the heat of the dryer - and then it became pretty evident that we were only partially succesful in removing mink stink.....We thought we might be able to wait it out and make a clean getaway until two ladies came in with their laundry, took one wiff and screamed "OMG, what is that SMELL???!!!!" We told her the drains had backed up and the ladies left real fast. We beat a hasty retreat home once the dry cycle was done :lol:

Reason(s) #1,256,322 why I will never feed raw. :wink:

 

[Konnie Hein]

I've fed lots of whole carcasses (beavers, chickens, rabbits, deer, sheep) and while they will leave the bigger chunks of fur they do take in a fair bit especially on the smaller stuff like rabbits and beaver.

See, I'd rather believe Lynn's advice and comments on this type of stuff because she's actually doing it. Darn "scientists" and "veterinarians" in that article don't know what the heck they're talking about. Perhaps they should consult Lynn for information!

Thanks for your observations and information, Lynn!

 

[Konnie Hein]

Here's another great article I found while researching a raw diet.

http://www.life.ca/nl/83/pets.html

Note that the good Dr. is also president of Azmira Holistic Animal Care. She's also president of the International Natural Pet Care Association. I'd love to see her study. Wonder if it was published or peer-reviewed.

Not trying to get everybody riled up, I'm just trying to find decent information (based on scientific study) on the pros-cons of the BARF diet. I'm not having much luck.

 

[ann schnerre]

konnie--would that be Wolf Park in W. Laf., In??? b/c i took a behavioral course under the prof that started that.....

 

[Connie Sutherland]

I would like very much to see her source research.

Especially the part about whole grains and daily high-sugar vegetables.

I wonder where wild canids get the cooked food that keeps them from having that pesky IBS,

 

[Konnie Hein]

konnie--would that be Wolf Park in W. Laf., In??? b/c i took a behavioral course under the prof that started that.....

Yep, that's the one! When were you at Purdue????! I graduated in 1996. I took a few of Dr. Klinghammer's courses too. Human ethology is the only one I can remember the name of off the top of my head. I'd have to look at my transcripts to see what else I took.

 

[Konnie Hein]

I would like very much to see her source research.

Especially the part about whole grains and daily high-sugar vegetables.

I wonder where wild canids get the cooked food that keeps them from having that pesky IBS,

Here's her "study." As I suspected its poorly done.
http://www.azmira.com/StudyRawFoodDiets.htm
No scientific conclusions (other than that the Dr. can't properly set up a research study)can be drawn from the way its set up. She would need to take away some of the variables. A better way would be for either none of the pets get Azmira supplements or for all of them to get it. They also don't specify the specific ingredients of the raw diet.

I also found this statement to be quite telling:
" Even when symptoms reappeared after disregarding the home cooking or commercial food protocol, wellness and a reversal of symptoms would be quickly accomplished (regardless the length of time passed back onto raw foods or other diets) by returning to the Mega Pet Daily and Azmira Animal Nutrition. "

Well, that pretty much says it. You won't have any trouble with a raw diet as long as you use their supplements :roll: