buckwheat and quinoa

becca114

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It says on a holistic vet website that buckwheat and quinoa are good fillers for a dogs raw food diet.
Are they nutritious at all or simply just to bulk it out. where do I buy them from?
 

pocomoto

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Have fed raw since 1998 and have never found the need to "fill" a true raw food diet nor have I ever fed anything like these.

The only reason I can see for feeding any of these is if it’s not a true raw meaty bone diet. As a purist to me the dog on a true species appropriate diet gets all it’s bulk and fibre requirement from bone (and in some faithful diets fur). There are many variations of the “raw” diet that have sprung up, a lot of which have attempted to bypass or decrease the bone content and replace it with this type of food, but however high the protein content, this type of feedstuff is alien to the dog and there has been no research into how available the protein from this source is to a carnivore.

I have come across many Holistic Veterinary diets and to be honest I am often disappointed with the incorrect empahsis being placed on the vegatable content of the diet as opposed to the use of raw meaty bones. One was recommended by a vet who themselves did not feed raw!

My dogs play hard and have a large amount of exercise and a friend has working dogs who work really hard and neither have lost condition nor failed to be satisfied on raw meaty bones, the only veg content to the diet is a once weekly addition of liquidised veg (2tbs) to a soft meat meal. Similar to the amount and consistency a wild dog would eat. So bones form a large part of the diet at about 80% plus.

The only thing about these two ingredients are that they are a substitute for grains, which I never feed. They are alternative for Humans championed by the healthy living drive. Buckwheat is a relative of the Dock and can be served like rice and used in baking in gluten free diets and Quinoa contains all the amino acids needed for humans to build protein, useful for vegitarians and vegans. It is also noted for it’s fibre which makes it useful for cleansing the intestines, again in Humans.

The dog has a very different digestive system designed for a diet of meat and bones and not large quantities of plants, which can slow the digestive system of the dog and cause problems. So they are better than grains but far from ideal.
 

becca114

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excellent advice thank you. I have just started my dog on the BARF diet. I am introducing it VERY slowly because she can easily get stomach upsets. Can you advise as to which bones are suitable for a small dog (lhasa apso) and which meats are less likely to cause upset when introducing the new diet?
 

pocomoto

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Be VERY careful that you don't feed a raw feed anywhere near the old diet, they have different digestion times and it can cause serious problems. keep them well apart and get onto raw as fast as you can.

Heres a direct lift from the Bad food for dogs thread, obviously you need much smaller portions for smaller dogs and an axe from a diy store is great for breaking up bigger/ harder bones for small dogs. Chicken wings would be an excellent starter for the bones part of the diet and they are in most supermarkets and from young birds so the bones are quite soft. Reduced lamb chops or pork chops would be great too. I go hunting on Tues and stock up the freezer from the reduced section!

Here is my diet

Basically For a medium sized dog of mine that plays quite hard!

1 x Chicken Carcass with a bit of meat on it or 4-5 Chicken wings form the basis of the diet and I would feed probably on average 4 days a week. Sometimes I buy a chicken for me, remove and roast the crown and they get the rest.

1 day I will feed mince of some kind a large packet between 2, to this I ad a couple of heaped tablespoons of blended veg, I like to use spinach quite a lot plus carrots and anything left in the fridge, fruit as well but in small quantities and blended so as to break down the cellulose and make it available to the dog, like in a prey animals stomach. I usually use an egg as liquid. I will also bung in a handful of pumpkin seeds to help remove worms, it irritates them, and a kelp tablet, my only supplement.

I get lamb bones, the big ribs 1 each if they don’t have a lot of meat on them, and they will have those once or twice a week and one meal of offal, mine are not very keen on liver and kidneys but love hearts. Sometimes I will lightly brown liver so that they at least get some. The only concession I make to non human grade is here they have frozen raw tripe from the pet store and I rotate that as part of the offal meal.

Then I will feed whatever comes my way from the butcher, pork trotters (only occasionally makes them fart!) Rabbit, sometimes road kill that is not too smashed, and deer bones from a local game butcher, but they are very hard and I need to select them, the odd pheasant / partridge. The only cooked they get is a tin of pilchards in tomato sauce, sometimes they get a raw fish mixed in from the reduced counter! They will eat salmon heads as well.

They sometimes have eggs as a treat or bits of fruit and veg and the odd biscuit as a treat or freeze dried meat treats are much better. They also get lamb spine bones as a treat to keep them quiet and occasionally a beef knuckle, but as they are inclined to squabble I have to take them away when I’m not about.

All the food I feed is of human grade and organic where possible, especially fruit and veg, which is probably why I have never had problems with grapes, plus I get seedless. Mine will scoff horse feed if given the chance, but I feed that as naturally as possible to so they have a mouth full of alalfa! Basically you don’t need to balance the diet on a daily basis and probably mine are balanced over a week or even two. I don’t stress out if I am running low on something and they get Chicken for a week as wild canines would do that, I.e. ground nesting birds for a month followed by a glut of baby rabbits.


I tend to think along the lines of what they would eat in the wild and will watch natural history progs to get ideas, I don’t feed a lot of veg having observed that the alpha animals don’t eat intestines or stomach and it’s content, that is usually left to subordinates.

What you should always bear in mind is not to mix the diets and never feed kibble with bones as the kibble moves very slowly through the dogs system and natural diet moves quickly so it can seriously impair the digestion and progress of bones and lead to bloat and blockages, it’s all or nothing for safety sake!

There are some good websites and books Billingshurst’s Give Your Dog a Bone is a good start although I don’t agree with all his suggestions and here is a couple for the purist http://home.earthlink.net/~affenbar/bookpage.html
http://members.aol.com/Brushbow/src/speciesmenu.htm
 
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