# PANIC - raw food please help



## So_many_chis (Sep 1, 2012)

I'm just starting with raw and my 5 have had their first raw chicken wings. The bones were splitting into shards are were really sharp. Is this normal? I'm worried I've harmed them and I'll have to take them all to the vets?


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## So_many_chis (Sep 1, 2012)

They sounded really crunchy and sharp too


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## 20887 (Mar 16, 2011)

Nope, that is normal! As long as the bones are raw, they can crunch them right up and digest them just fine.


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## So_many_chis (Sep 1, 2012)

Thank you so much. I really was worried. Plus my husband was dubious anyways and thought I'd messed up somehow! I really appreciate it, thanks!

They really had a good time and it was fascinating to watch


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## 20887 (Mar 16, 2011)

No problem! I don't feed my dogs raw at the moment, but when I did, it took a while to get used to the sound of crunching bone.


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## Onyx (Nov 28, 2011)

Totally normal! They have no problem eating raw bones. The crunching noise is a little freaky at first, but I eventually found it cute lol I'm weird like that. Onyx finishes her chicken wings in about 10 minutes, just mows right through them. Just watch their poop, my girl all of a sudden started to not digest bones all that well and I found a huge long whole bone piece in her poop. That turned me off of letting her eat wings and now she mainly gets things with ground bones. Most dogs do fine though, don't know why she had such a hard time digesting bone.


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## doginthedesert (Oct 10, 2011)

Onyx said:


> Totally normal! They have no problem eating raw bones. The crunching noise is a little freaky at first, but I eventually found it cute lol I'm weird like that. Onyx finishes her chicken wings in about 10 minutes, just mows right through them. Just watch their poop, my girl all of a sudden started to not digest bones all that well and I found a huge long whole bone piece in her poop. That turned me off of letting her eat wings and now she mainly gets things with ground bones. Most dogs do fine though, don't know why she had such a hard time digesting bone.


This was probably from getting too much bone. It is normal to see some bone bits in the poop in the first few weeks of starting raw- after that it usually is due to too much bone overall. Wings are very high in bone themselves so you want to make sure to balance them out with plenty of boneless meat. Also don't worry about the bits of bone, they will digest them just fine. In the first few days it would not be unusual for them to barf a few times and you see bone mixed with their vomit, that is just them getting used to digesting it. Like I said some bits of bone on the poop are normal too- but usually indicate they need more meat and less bone. In the beginning you want to err on the side of too much bone so the dogs don't get loose stools. After a while though back off to just 10%. To give you an idea a wing is about 45% bone.

So if a wing is the size of a whole meal you would only need one wing every 4 days to get their needed amount of bone. The rest would be boneless meals. Most dogs can't go that long without bone so people use different parts and break it up differently- that is just to give you an idea of how much bone you are feeding vs how much you want overall. Onyx- if you were feeding mostly wings that is probably why you saw bone in the stool after a while.


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## Onyx (Nov 28, 2011)

doginthedesert said:


> So if a wing is the size of a whole meal you would only need one wing every 4 days to get their needed amount of bone. The rest would be boneless meals. Most dogs can't go that long without bone so people use different parts and break it up differently- that is just to give you an idea of how much bone you are feeding vs how much you want overall. Onyx- if you were feeding mostly wings that is probably why you saw bone in the stool after a while.


Oh this is def. most likely what the problem was. I was giving a chicken wing about 3 times a week, oops 
Problem is there is no other source of edible bone in my area. The only available meat sources are chicken, beef, and pork, and a little turkey. The variety of cuts are very low too so the only bones small enough for her to safely eat are chicken wings. There aren't even any bone in chicken breasts to be found.

Onyx never really needed a lot of bone, not even in the beginning, so I imagine that was just too much. Even the Nature's Variety frozen raw constipates her. Her poop is perfect though on a mixture of Nature's Variety raw and Ziwipeak. The things I do for her perfect poops :laughing9:


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## 20887 (Mar 16, 2011)

Onyx said:


> Oh this is def. most likely what the problem was. I was giving a chicken wing about 3 times a week, oops
> Problem is there is no other source of edible bone in my area. The only available meat sources are chicken, beef, and pork, and a little turkey. The variety of cuts are very low too so the only bones small enough for her to safely eat are chicken wings. There aren't even any bone in chicken breasts to be found.
> 
> Onyx never really needed a lot of bone, not even in the beginning, so I imagine that was just too much. Even the Nature's Variety frozen raw constipates her. Her poop is perfect though on a mixture of Nature's Variety raw and Ziwipeak. The things I do for her perfect poops :laughing9:


You could try just giving a wing tip with a side of boneless meat for a meal. That way she gets to munch on a bone but still gets plenty of meat.


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## Onyx (Nov 28, 2011)

missy_r said:


> You could try just giving a wing tip with a side of boneless meat for a meal. That way she gets to munch on a bone but still gets plenty of meat.


Yea I tried that but they ended up being too small for her. She just attempts to swallow them whole.


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