[losul]

Hi again. Sorry for the tardy reply, all.

I’ve some preference for feeding a dog a majority of ruminant meats overall with a lesser amount of poultry overall in my dogs diet, provided the the beef (or other ruminant) is coming from a good, properly raised and fed source. I think the overall fats balance out better that way, and without using much vegetable fats. And as long as I can afford it!!

I wouldn’t necessarily say that beef heart is better, nothing against poultry
hearts, much depends on the source, and for just some supplemental or small batch
use, chicken hearts are handier to use than beef hearts!

I had kind of a bad experience the first time I bought beef hearts a few years ago.(from a different, conventionally raised source, feedlot) I thought never again! They were oversized and completely encased in a way overly tough and thick membrane and excessive suet.. the inside was as bad, and not at all cleaned-gristle, connective tissue,vessels, excessive suetetc., and frankly, they looked old, grayish, and tough. It took alot of effort to clean them enough to suit me, way too much effort, and ended up with alot of waste. It wasn’t worth it, and was a good while before I ever tried beef hearts again. In hindsight some of that gristle
and connective tissue, etc. , wouldn’t have hurt to include anyway!

Where I’ve been getting them the last few times, the outside only has a partial and thin membrane and little suet fat, are very fresh, and the butcher near completely cleans the insides for me, I have not much left to do except cut them up! And I get them for only $1.49/lb cleaned weight! I get good clean liver and kidneys 1.29/lb the same place. I guess not many people around here want to eat heart or organ meats! But the regular and lean cuts of beef are every bit as expensive as anywhere else! So when I make a beef batch I’ve been using the hearts for up to 1/2 of the total muscle meat amount. It equals a good savings vs using all lean human prefered cuts for all the muscle meat. In making a full balanced recipe, I can’t count the heart as organ meat, I still add the small amounts of liver and kidney, and I won’t press the heart amount any beyond 1/2 of the muscle meat count. They say too much heart can cause loose stools, never had that problem or with any any food, but the extra heart I’m using helps to keep some beef in the diet at more an affordable price for me! If one were to use all heart for the muscle meat though, there would very
likely be some deficit somewhere in the nutrition to look for and abundances of others, and I wouldn’t ever advise using overly excessive amounts. Also dogs handle cholesterol differently than humans, but heart, liver and some other organs do contain a disproportionately large amount of cholesterol, something to keep in mind. Don’t over do it!.

Faith, so your dog is about 60lbs. BTW, I believe my dog is 1/2 boston terrier and
1/2 bull terrier of some sort, probably staffy or pit, I’ve got a compact model though,
only about 40 lbs. That’s great that your feller found a loving home with you! I
would assume that his regular diet is around 1150 calories give or take? For your
purposes and for now as supplemental only, yeah I would limit the chicken hearts to
NO more than about 3 or 4 ounces. at least if and until until you are more prepared too see to it that the diet retains balance with your additions. Here, raw Chicken hearts show more calories and fat than the beef hearts, raw. (you might have to enter the serving size) but 100 grams chick hearts (about 3.5 ounces) has about 150 calories. add to that maybe a teaspoon of fish oil a day, an egg a couple times a week, and youre already pushing nearly 20% of unbalanced supplemental calories in his diet, and that then isn’t allowing for any unbalanced treats!

The more things you would add if you do so, or if you go with homemade meals, the more attention you are going to need pay to keeping nutritional balance. And you should really
balance out the extra phosphorus you are adding as it is, with calcium supplement.

If using finely ground eggshell, add 1/2 teaspoon to 2/3 t for each 1 lb of meat, organs, egg etc used. Calcium is very important in a dog’s diet, overall calcium in the diet should at least equal the amount of phosphorus, but also never going more than 2X the amount of phosphorus. a ratio of between 1:1 to 2:1. Most commercial diets I think fall between a ratio of 1.2:1 and 1.6:1, so there would likely be enough buffer already there in your commercial diet to cover your extra phosporus additions, but if me, I would still add at least a bit of calcium anyway.

raw chicken hearts

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/poultry-products/664/2

raw beef hearts

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/beef-products/3464/2

I hear ya on financial bias. dogaware.com is a great site with lots of useful info, some is a little outdated, as Mary Strauss is not so active anymore, but she has nothing to sell as far as I know. and has generously accumulated a ton of good info/articles there.

I prefer a pump bottle for fish oil, so I use Iceland Pure sardine/anchovy, I keep it in the fridge and get a fresh bottle every 3 months. This brand already has some mixed tocopherols in it (vit E), but I still add some additional E in my dog’s diet.

I use some veggies, fruits, and even some select grains, but never in abundance. I
don’t know if you’ve ever heard the old idiom “as fit as a butcher’s dog” I don’t
think the typical old time butcher fed his dog an abundance of starchy plant
material!!! I also still use 25% commercial kibble, haven’t ever been able to get away from it completely for various reasons.

Lastly, I might not be around here to write much anymore, but as you can see from the replies to your thread(and other threads) there are so many awesomely helpful people, good people, on site to help with questions you have, or even just support!! And even if they don’t have answers right away, they have also proven to be excellent researchers!!!

G’night everyone!

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