over feeding?

[kaz4t]

I am wondering if we can over feed the pups as they are crashed out at the moment and Steve thinks thier tummys look very round! they do look full but not distended. They do have gas though!! very stinky.

Today they had

Each 1 portion barf, weighs 170g

8am - 1.5 portion of barf, 1 large tablespoon puppy mince, bought from the pet shop and a table spoon of cooked, mashed, pumpkin, carrot and sweet potatoe.

1:30pm - 1.5 portion of barf with a table spoon of puppy mince bought from the pet shop and a table spoon of cooked, mashed, pumpkin, carrot and sweet potatoe. plus a small piece of brisket bone.

7pm - 2 pieces of lamb flap (5in x 5in approx) plus a piece of brisket bone (6in x 6in approx) they finished this and seemed to be looking for more so they had one more piece of brisket bone which they did not finish. they were eating for about an hour probably longer.

I am adding probiotic to one meal a day.
so
I have stopped giving them chicken (today was the first chicken free day) for the time being in case they are sensitive to it because thier scratching has not got better.

They seem a bit constipated, at least thier poop is very solid!!! and quite a bit less which is good. Somebody, somewhere, mentioned giving them goats milk, I am wondering if this will fill them up a bit and help with the constipation?.

yesterday they had

1 portion barf, for breakfast and 1 for lunch - each the in the eve we gave them 2 x chicken wings and 2 x chicken necks they seemed to finish it very quickly and were looking for more.

I had read, on hear I think, that puppies need approx the size of thier head? so todays portions reflected that.

Love the idea of raw feeding but finding it hard to know if we are feeding them enough, not enough or too much

thanks for all your help

[Nettle]

It's so simple you don't believe me, do you?

I say once more - if they are fat they are getting too much, if they are thin they need more.

That really and truly is all there is to it!

[kaz4t]

yeh, but, no, but yeh, but no arrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggghhhhh why do I find it so hard LOL

they still seem to be looking for food no matter what I give them so I will try to go with the size of thier head (not including snout) per meal.

I thought they were looking a bit skinny and I thought maybe we had under fed them a bit the first few days.

thanks for your patience, I know it can be hard on these forums when you seem to answering the same bloomin question a million times.

[Nettle]

Ha Ha, it's okay We want you to be happy with what you are doing. You know, we get intimidated by all these scientists and vets banging on about balanced diets that we lose our nerve - yet we feed our families and ourselves with no problems!

Most dogs always seem hungry. It's in the design, because they are animals, and animals eat whenever they can because they have to survive times when there is no food available. Most pet dogs are never in that position, but the programming remains.

[***Melissa***]

If it makes you feel any better, my Striker is 'on a diet', b/c he is a little overweight. Nettle also told me that if he's too fat, feed him less, and vice versa, as easy as that, but for some reason I was making it more complicated than it really is. And the first few days was tough, b/c all I could think about was 'what if he's still hungry...what if he's still hungry...'

But I am feeding him less & he is loosing weight (0.7kg so far), and he's def not suffering. And I'm sure if it was someone like Nettle who was feeding him he would be losing weight even faster, b/c I still sometimes spoil him a little...okay Nettle, you can hit me with the rolled up newspaper now

[Nettle]

Nothing wrong with spoiling dogs - just don't spoil their figures

[kaz4t]

I had the opposite problem they were looking a little thin, so I think I over compensated and fed them too much.

the person who supplies the barf said one 170g portion per meal, 3 meals a day, should be enough but it is only about half thier head size and gone in 30 sec !!

I think they are growing t and looking gangly, they have been putting on a min of .5 kg a week and they were looking thin before I put them on the raw

I think thier coats look a lot better, scratching sort of better but not gone completely, but it has not been a week yet so time will tell I am sure.

Hubby had a panic last night he thought one of the pups was choking on a piece of bone/lamb flap, he really is doubtful about the bone thing for the puppies.

One thing I am sure of is we are on the right road so we will keep on learning

huge thanks

[***Melissa***]

Striker get 2 meals a day, and let me assure you, his meals are smaller than his head (without nose). He gets about 3 veggie cubes, a TIIIINY bit (like a teaspoon) grounded meat for b/fast, and for dinner HALF a chickie wing OR red meat raw meaty bone the size of half a chickie wing.

When, for some reason, I think he's still hungry I'll give him a whole raw carrot - these don't let them put on weight, and it fills their tummy so they don't feel hungry. They CAN have a slightly runny tummy, but Striker don't. But I've found that many times I gave him a carrot when I thought he was still hungry he wouldn't eat it...and he does like carrots, so if he was still hungry he would have eaten it.

And he gets 1,5 hours exercise a day plus clicker training and games.

I do include 'unhealthy' or 'fattening' treats like cheese or hotdog sausages, etc for training, but really really tiny pieces - about the size of half a pea, so he doesn't end up eating buckets of unhealthy thingies.

And also, when I switched them to raw I was extremely worried about the amount of food I was feeding them - the portions are really much much much smaller that dog food portions. It's like Nettle said, it's b/c everything they are eating on the raw food diet, are healthy and has the 'correct' nutrients and everything they need, that's why it's much less. Dog food contains stuff like cereals or maize (or fillers), that doesn't help with doggy health in any way, it's only a filler so they need to eat more to actually get *some* nutrients in.

And don't worry, when I changed their diets I was also worried, and wondering the whole time if I'm 'missing' something, or understanding the people wrong, b/c it didn't 'look' right feeding them so little. And even then I was still feeding too much!! Only after a while (after I saw that neither of them are actually starving ), I relaxed.

Again, I'm not an expert, but the above are my understanding of advice I got on here too Nettle, if you disagree with anything I have said, please correct me.

[Nettle]

No disagreement here it's so easy once we get our confidence.

PS It doesn't hurt a dog to be hungry - they don't die of it. Always train a hungry dog - they pay attention better.

[Mattie]

I had forgotten this, my dogs are fed 3 times a day, Joe used to have low blood sugar problems and Merlin has had bloat, being fed so often means they don't get as hungry so using treats to train them can be hit and miss, so this is one of the reasons I don't use treats a lot, it depends on what I am teaching and the time of day.