Hi Cyndi,
I’m glad you have made this decision. It will make a big difference–especially with dental health. All the raw feeders on here are giving great advice. 🙂
Here’s a little advice I will give from observing my own dogs. When they got ALL raw, which normally consisted of a boneless meal and a bone-in meal (a leg quarter, a leg, a thigh, wing) each day, and even 2 bony meals per day, they were fine. When I started experimenting w/using dog food for one meal, and a piece of bone-in chicken for the next, I would notice their poops were getting too hard/dry at times. I know dog foods include ingredients to help firm up stools. SO…since chicken backs are SO bony, I don’t think I would feed those every single day if I were you. They are GREAT to start with, but I really think once your dog gets used to them that first week, I personally would just buy leg quarters. My one dog is 50+ pounds and I still feed him drumsticks quite a bit. If you buy a package of quarters, you can just cut the legs off each quarter too. Sometimes THAT becomes my dogs’ entire meal for the day—the drumstick becomes the breakfast, the other part becomes the dinner. I feed whole leg quarters at times too–those are great for cleaning the teeth. I just prefer feeding 2x per day, so sometimes if that’s all I have thawed, it works best to split it up into 2 meals. Plus, I have to pay close attention to portion control for my dogs.
Just keep an eye on things when you start. If stools get too firm, lay off the chicken backs for a day or two. Don’t let this scare you, as once you get going with it, it becomes very natural. I would stick with feeding only chicken for a couple weeks. People on the forum can help you along when the time comes. It’s all about how YOUR individual dog responds to this diet. Two of my dogs have NO problem with more frequent bone-in meals or even a couple days of just boneless meals. My other dog gets looser stools easily, and does better with more bone in his diet.
Good luck! 🙂
