New Member - Few Questions

[Bentley9999]

Hi

Proud owner of our 13 week old Bullmastiff boy Bentley, had him since 8 weeks and is doing fantastically! As you can see in my avatar his a stunner
We started him on raw almost immediately feeding him by the 80-10-10 rule and he has always been at an ideal weight and normal bowel movements.
He is currently 14.2kg's as of yesterday

Question 1:

i have been feeding him 1.0kg of meat (usually beef/lamb/chicken), a chicken frame (little meat with a bit of organ) and some varied organs (heart,kidney,liver) a day based on 2% of an ideal adult weight of ~60kg. (consists of 3 meals a day)

- Do I continue to feed him like this until he is at his ideal weight or will the amount consumed each day change as he gets older? (i know i should reduce the amount of times fed each day to two or possibly one)

Question 2:

I am wanting to add some supplements to this as he will be needing more Omega 3 etc to keep his coat in good nick.

- What dosages should I be giving him in form of fish oil? I hear salmon oil or cod liver is best..
- Aswell as this what dosage of Vitamin E would be appropriate?
- What brands/forms of these supplements are best suited? (his fine with tablets/capsules etc)
- What other supplements should I be getting to optimise my dog? (calcuim? Potassium? etc)


Sorry if these seem like rather simple questions etc.. I have read heaps on this but get confused by conflicting information and different requirements for different breeds/conditions etc?

I appreciate any replies and look forward to being a member to this community

 

[Mario]

Welcome! I love hearing of new/more bullmastiff owners here. I don't have advice for you about your questions though. But I adore our 1.5yr old bullmastiff Mario & think you made a great choice in the breed of dog you picked.

 

[DennasMom]

Welcome!
Love the avatar picture! Need more pictures of that cutey!

Q1 - The amount he'll need will probably vary over time, but it's totally dog-dependent. As he stops growing and slows down a bit, you'll probably lower the totals you feed. Or, you might find as he hits his 'teenager' years, he's still growing and more active... so he might need more. Just keep an eye on his body condition - you want to keep him lean as he grows. The last 3 ribs should be very easy to see when he's standing/walking around, but hips should be comfortably covered.

Q2 - First - since he's getting real bone, which comes with just the right proportions of calcium and phosphorus, no calcium supplements are needed (and not recommended, either... you want to avoid too much calcium for giant breeds, that leads to problems).

The fish oil is probably a good idea, unless you have all grass-fed meats. We give Denna (EM) a human-sized dose of salmon oil every day. And, right now, it's a bit dry around here, so we've upped it to a double-dose. I've read that basically a 2.5x human dose (for a 140lb dog) is a "maintenance" dose, and double that for a "therapudic" dose... I don't think you can over-do salmon oil - or if you do, you'd probably see loose stools because of too much fat in the diet. But that would probably take 1/4 cup or more. We get the "Pure Alaska" salmon oil capsules for humans, but there are lots of options. One option would be to actually feed fish... we do feed sardines quite often, and I can tell Denna doesn't need as much salmon oil those weeks (her skin gets a little itchy if we under-do the oil). Beware of pacific wild salmon poisoning with dogs, though...

The joy of the whole prey model diet (80/10/10) is that you don't need any supplements, really. The organ meats are the "vitamin pills".
That said... most of us (me included) can't help but add stuff, but we waited until Denna was over a year old due to most supplements having calcium in them...

I'm sure you'll get some more recommendations from others here, too.