 Barked: Sun May 6, '12 9:01am PST |
 | |  | | What is the ideal calcium:phosphorous ratio in a dog's raw diet?
Some of you know about Duke's bone digestion issues and how he just simply doesn't digest most bone. The only kind that doesn't come out looking like it went in is duck neck, so that's what I feed. But Duke is funny and often flat-out refuses to eat duck necks (I think he is just plain bored them).
So I've been supplementing lately with the Animal Essentials Seaweed Calcium at the rate of 1 tsp per pound of food dependent upon how much bone he has eaten in the week. One duck neck is ~1.5 oz of bone, which is roughly half of one day's bone if you use the 10% benchmark. I don't know how much ca or ph are in 1.5 oz of bone.
Duke eats ~32 oz of food per day. So when he eats a neck, that day he gets one tsp of Seaweed Calcium. No neck, and he gets 2 tsp. There is never a day when he eats two necks (he simply refuses to do so). Poop is fine on this regimen (although it's only been a week).
So my concern, of course, is balancing the ca:ph ratio. I'm guessing here...not sure if the above logic is correct or makes sense. Any thoughts?
For anyone who uses ND, here is how last week's diet analyzed out and this included 6.5 tsp of the Seaweed Calcium. (Note, there is a small amount of ground bone meal in this recipe. I don't use it anymore after Duke's holistic vet suggested that seaweed calcium is safer.)
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/recipe/2544092/2?nc=1 &autosave=form.info.autosave
It was a bad week last week...one day Duke completely refused to eat and I let it go, which I don't usually do. He has GERD/digestive issues and this happens sometimes. I might be catering to his pickiness, but Duke is a dog who has some issues and cannot be "starved out," so to speak, until he eats. He gets enough duck neck to keep teeth clean and his mental workout through other means (stuffed Kongs, meaty beef shanks, frozen chunks of meat). |  |  | |  |
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