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Raw or kibble

Grits2239

Member
I have a 11 week old cane corso female. I was feeding her victor high pro plus. She's a little underweight at 16lbs. Her breeder told me that he was feeding her raw chicken backs in the morning and kibble at night. I was hesitant to add the raw, but at the beginning of last week I did. I started with just adding a few chicken necks and gizzards to her raw every meal, to doing the raw am kibble pm. It was ok for a few days, but then the stool got loose. Last night I fed her a chicken back. This morning she had a tiny bit of diarrhea so I got nervous and decided to just do all kibble. I gave her just a little bit of kibble with canned pumpkin and probiotic for breakfast. 30 mins later she vomited all of it back up and had the worst case of the squirts that I've seen in a dog yet. All of the kibble came back up. It was on and off from 6am to 8am. Now she's on baked chicken breasts and sweet potatoes and she's kept it down. I'm going to do this for about a week then make a decision. It appears that as of now the kibble is the culprit, but she was doing just fine on it for two weeks before I added the raw. Since the chicken is baked, does that mean after a week if I choose to give her raw only that she'll have the runs again? Should I just put her back on kibble? I'm torn, please help.
 

PippatheMastiff

Well-Known Member
I tested my 10 week old EM on small amounts of raw chicken thigh meat and he got very loose. He also got loose on training treats. A week later I tried a small amount of chicken heart and gizzards. Loose again. I gave it up. No more loose stools. Lately, I've given a small amount of 85/15 ground beef. No problem, cooked chicken, no problem. Now he's 13 weeks and I tried raw chicken thighs again, no problem. [emoji23] I probably overdid it too early. I usually feed my almost 2-yo raw for am meal and Fromm Gold for pm meal. I guess it will just take some time to get baby up to that point. I'm surprised that your breeder didn't have any problems with loose stools, or maybe didn't notice it?


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DennasMom

Well-Known Member
How many chicken necks did you add?

My thought is that the high bone-content of the necks is what caused trouble. Chicken backs are also high in bone. Lots of bone can cause constipation. The kibble is already dry and "high-fiber" formulated, if you will... so adding lots of bone to a meal with kibble would not be anything I would recommend.

If you want to add raw foods to kibble, I'd recommend sticking with bone-less options.
If you want to feed bone-in cuts (like necks or backs) - do that as a separate meal, and only after you've had some nice, soft-ish (not rock-hard) poops.

Has she had some good poops since all of this upset? I'd worry a bit that she's still got a lump of hard stuff waiting to get pushed through, but if she's keeping some food down, that's a good sign!

Here's a site with recommendations for how to start a raw diet: http://rawfeddogs.org/rawguide.html

When I was doing raw "toppers" for our puppy, I added nature's variety "patties" to the kibble, and it went ok. The patties are balanced, so only 10% bone... versus necks or backs which can be 40-50% bone.

I'd also recommend you keep up with the probiotics. Get her back on kibble and 'stable' first (i.e. regular, well-formed poops), then start SLOW with adding some bone-less raw meats (just a few ounces), and build from there. Be sure to reduce the amount of kibble when adding other stuff to the meals. Too much food can cause diarrhea, too.

If you want to feed all raw, that's a different story... then you basically switch over night. There is a chance for some loose poops, but by making the first few meals 1/2 portions, you can minimize the upset.

One last thought - an "underweight" mastiff puppy is a GOOD thing. Don't try too hard to "fix" that. :)

Any chance you could share some pictures?? we LOVE puppy pictures around here! :)
 

kingmark

Well-Known Member
I have a 11 week old cane corso female. I was feeding her victor high pro plus. She's a little underweight at 16lbs. Her breeder told me that he was feeding her raw chicken backs in the morning and kibble at night. I was hesitant to add the raw, but at the beginning of last week I did. I started with just adding a few chicken necks and gizzards to her raw every meal, to doing the raw am kibble pm. It was ok for a few days, but then the stool got loose. Last night I fed her a chicken back. This morning she had a tiny bit of diarrhea so I got nervous and decided to just do all kibble. I gave her just a little bit of kibble with canned pumpkin and probiotic for breakfast. 30 mins later she vomited all of it back up and had the worst case of the squirts that I've seen in a dog yet. All of the kibble came back up. It was on and off from 6am to 8am. Now she's on baked chicken breasts and sweet potatoes and she's kept it down. I'm going to do this for about a week then make a decision. It appears that as of now the kibble is the culprit, but she was doing just fine on it for two weeks before I added the raw. Since the chicken is baked, does that mean after a week if I choose to give her raw only that she'll have the runs again? Should I just put her back on kibble? I'm torn, please help.
I would go with kibble because it suits me and you can decide what suits you and her better. If you go with dry food then choose quality one. As for her weight its almost all in genetics if you use quality food and its better that she is on thin side .you can look my 7 months boerboel female she is also on the thin side.