[Lilmonster]

Hi all,

Lily has been on Dr. Becker’s boneless recipe for about a week now (slightly modified – I’m using the SSLL dinner mix in lieu of Dr. Becker’s vitamins and bone meal for now since I still had the SSLL) and she’s doing great. She has stopped scratching completely, her coat gets shinier by the day, and her stools are perfect. While I would love to keep her on this permanently since it’s working so well, it’s not affordable because I’m using antibiotic-free (I don’t really want to compromise on that) ground meats from the grocery store at the moment. I’ve been waiting for MPC’s next delivery date to my area, and it’s finally coming up soon.

So I’m about to place my first MPC order, but I have a question – if I get the bone-in grinds, can I substitute that one to one for the boneless ground meat in Dr. Becker’s recipes and just omit the bone meal addition? I was thinking it would be ok since the bone-in grinds are balanced, but then I noticed that for the same protein, the muscle meat:organ proportions for Dr. Becker’s bone-in recipes are different from that of her boneless recipes (about 1 lb more heart, liver, and gizzards in the boneless version, and less muscle meat). The reason for this is probably obvious to some of you so forgive me for my lack of knowledge, but if someone could let me know whether or not it would be ok to use the bone-in grinds in Dr. Becker’s boneless recipes I’d be super grateful.

Also – looking at the MPC grinds, if I get the Ground Chicken Supermix that has 1/3 additional hearts, liver, and gizzards, I would need to tweak the Dr. Becker’s recipes since that would be too much organ meat, right? Any advice on this?

And if I want to add green tripe to her Dr. Becker’s meals, how much should I be adding? Does the “you can change up to 20% of her diet without upsetting the balance” rule apply here? So, if she’s eating 1 lb of meat per day then I can add up to 3.2 oz of tripe per day? How often should I give her tripe?

Just when I think I’m getting a hang of this, I think of more questions and I start feeling confused again lol. As always, Lily and I thank you all in advance for your help!

[RescueDaneMom]

Unfortunately I don’t know the answer to your question but I am very interested in what the answer is.

[pugmomsandy]

I’m not familiar with MPC grinds, but if you get the ones with bone and organs included, I wouldn’t add anything to it besides the vitamin supplements if you like. The heart and gizzard and tripe count as “muscle meat” in a recipe just like chicken breast. You can feed tripe daily if you like. You might consider getting a meat grinder that has at least 1 hp if you plan on feeding raw grinds long term. 1hp (and even .75 hp) is sufficient to grind chicken bones. You can cut costs by buying bulk chicken legs and necks and organs by the case. Grind up 50 lbs of food at a time and save on time!

• This reply was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by pugmomsandy.

[pugmomsandy]

Basically, I would use the bone-in grinds in place of the Dr B bone-in recipe.

[Lilmonster]

Glad to know I’m not the only one RescueDaneMom 🙂

Thanks for replying pugmomsandy!

Dr. Becker’s bone-in recipe uses chicken necks and boneless chicken thigh – if I use MPC’s bone-in grinds instead, do I substitute that for BOTH the necks and the boneless thigh?

Also, one of the main reasons I was wondering whether I can just substitute the MPC grinds in Dr. B’s boneless recipes is because she doesn’t provide a bone-in recipe for beef, just chicken and turkey.

[Lilmonster]

Unfortunately, I don’t have the space or budget for a grinder right now, so I have to stick with buying pre-ground. Trying to figure out how to use bone-in grinds with Dr. Becker’s recipes because it’s so much more affordable than boneless grinds. I guess a more simplified version of my question would be, if I use MPC’s bone-in grinds for the meat staple, add Dr. Becker’s veggie mix and her vitamins & minerals supplements, would that be balanced?

[pugmomsandy]

Again, without seeing the actual product your looking at…

If you’re going to use a bone-in red meat grind with organs and liver, then it looking at the book, I would do this:

bone-in red meat grind
vit/min supplement
fatty acid supplement
veggie mash
enzymes, glandulars, probiotics…

So yes, you can use the grind in the boneless beef recipe and leave out the bone meal supplementation.

For a bone-in chicken grind, it replaces the necks and thighs (and hopefully the grind will have organs as well so it would be replacing the whole recipe to where you wouldn’t be adding any heart/gizzard/liver yourself).

Can you post the product links?

[Lilmonster]

Thank you again pugmomsandy! Here are the product links:

Ground Whole Young Beef (w/bone & organs): https://www.mypetcarnivore.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=36&virtuemart_category_id=1&lang=en

There are a few different options for chicken, adding to my uncertainty. Would you recommend the Ground Chicken Supermix or the Ground Whole Chicken if I were to use it to replace Dr. Becker’s entire meat recipe? I was thinking of getting the Ground Chicken without Giblets then adding the heart/gizzard/liver separately as specified in the recipe, but if one of the other grounds has the correct proportions then I might just go with that to make things a little easier.

Ground Chicken Supermix (2/3 whole ground chicken, 1/3 additional hearts, liver, and gizzards): https://www.mypetcarnivore.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=50&virtuemart_category_id=2&lang=en

Fine Ground Whole Chicken: https://www.mypetcarnivore.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=49&virtuemart_category_id=2&lang=en

Ground Chicken without Giblets: https://www.mypetcarnivore.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=51&virtuemart_category_id=2&lang=en

[pugmomsandy]

I prefer the Ground Chicken Supermix to replace the whole meat recipe. Since whole birds are approximately 30% bone, the added hearts/liver/gizzard will bring the total bone content down a little. Also, FYI, it’s high in fat. Didn’t know if you noticed. 15% protein, 16% fat. My dogs don’t have an issue with that (I leave skin on) but if you’re currently using lean meat, you might want to up the fat a little to transition your dog to this product. Or serve a lean breakfast and then chicken supermix for dinner. I just clicked on the ground beef and chicken-no-gizzards and the products were not available. Maybe sold out now? They were there earlier this morning.

[Lilmonster]

Hi again Pugmomsandy –

No, I didn’t notice the fat content, thanks a ton for pointing that out. I have indeed been feeding very lean so far so I’ll make sure to transition slowly to the chicken. I had to place my order before your last response so I ended up getting the Ground Chicken without Giblets and ordering the organ meats separately. Interesting, I thought whole prey grinds were supposed to be balanced on their own?

Started Lily on the Ground Whole Young Beef. Since she was already eating beef I figured it would be an easier transition, but I think I may have given her a little too much organ meat since I used the Ground Whole Young Beef in place of the ground boneless beef in Dr. B’s recipe and then also added the specified amounts of heart and liver (it somehow slipped my mind that the Ground Whole Young Beef already had organs in it – guess I was too focused on the chicken). She had a bit of diarrhea for one poop, but the next one was fine again. I’m supposed to keep liver under 5-10% of her meat intake right? Or is that liver and heart combined? How much additional organ meat can I safely add to a whole prey grind without going over that?

[pugmomsandy]

The 80/10/10 numbers for raw feeding is an “average”. But what’s included in the average? Small whole animals whose bones can be consumed and larger animals whose bones cannot! For instance, let’s say a wolf eats mostly muscle/organs from a bison and hardly any of it’s bones because they’re too dense. Just have to keep in mind the phrase “balance over time” when feeding raw. But since you are going by a recipe, your food should end up mostly balanced than not! Liver should ideally be not more than 5%. Sometimes I add more muscle meat and sometimes I don’t. So sometimes my batch is around 30% bone and sometimes near 10%. I’m not exact all the time. I add heart, gizzard, tripe or muscle meat like thighs as additional “muscle meat” and have to do some algebra to figure it all out! For 5 lbs of whole chicken that’s around 30% bone, I can add up to 9.5 lbs of muscle and half a pound of additional liver to make it around 10% bone and around 5% liver. I haven’t seen (or looked for) bone content numbers for whole calf. I use preymodelraw.com for some figures on bone content. This is just what I do. http://preymodelraw.com/page/articles.html/_/raw-chat/common-cuts-a-photographic-guide-to-raw-meaty-r15

[Paul B]

The problem with beef is not enough bone and then possible diarrhea. I only do this one time per week. You can find raw meat groups that will sell whole ground chicken but the fat is to high so I use turkey necks. The raw meat groups are popping up everywhere. Check out topqualitydogfood this is the type of place that come monthly and people get great deals on raw meat.
Take care
Paul

[Paul B]

Green tripe is excellent if it is sold in sections or even ground. It’s hard to find it but it has so much great fiber that is missing in most raw diets! Sounds like you know enough to do a great job.
Paul

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