OT: older animals - how much protein?

[Guest guest]

> Re: OT: cost of raw pet food

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> RE: OT: cost of raw pet food

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>Nenah,

>

>You don't feed any muscle meat regularly? I've never heard of this before.

>Is there adequate protein in kidney and liver? just wondering if anything

>might be missing if only organ meats are fed. I'm sure heart is probably be

>adequate muscle tissue if fed regularly?

>

>Suze Fisher

>===========

>Thanks for asking. Heart is the muscle meat of choice. Sometimes they get

>leftover chicken, sometimes lamb scraps...and sometimes hamburger meat.

>

>I've been wondering about the protein issue, though, from another angle:

>they are older dogs. This summer Tali will be 15, and Zumi will be 13. I

>know that older dogs (and humans) need less protein as they get

>older.

Hmmmm...my understanding is that they need *more* protein as they age.

Especially high quality, easily digestible protein. Perhaps Christie might

care to comment on this?

Tali

>weighs 23 pounds and Zumi weighs 13-1/2 pounds. How much protein do you

>suggest for each?

Oh gosh, I honestly don't know! I just try to stick to the alpha model as

much as possible, feeding what the alpha pair would eat, since they are the

only ones with true choice. So, that would be quite a bit of organ meats and

fat, but quite a bit of meat too. My guys will both be 15 in Aug. and I do

feed them meat as well as organs and bone regularly. And they don't get any

veggies so their entire diet is meat/bones/organ/egg yolks/berries and

supplements. I'd guess that's a lot more protein than dogs who eat veggies

get, assuming the veggies displace some of the meat.

One food that I've been feeding for years is mOrigins (I get just the

meat/organ/bone - no added vits/minerals). And the protein content is 18%

protein. However I also feed some of the bravo products, mostly quail, and

they don't have macronutrient ratio breakdowns, so I don't know what the

protein percent is. But it's the *whole* bird, so I think it works out. Both

of my dogs also eat about a half of a beef stick per day (bull penis) which

is almost all protein. Both dogs have good musculature and are doing rather

well for their age. Well, my Chihuahua is actually remarkably youthful for

his age, so their daily protein rations don't seem to be problematic. I

haven't done a blood panel in a while, but I'd done them for years while

they were on almost the same diet and their creatinine was always in normal

range as well as their BUN, IIRC.

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg

Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine

http://www.westonaprice.org

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“The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause

heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times.” --

Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt

University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher.

The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics

<http://www.thincs.org>

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