[Bearjing]

I raw feed my dogs -- I started a few months back. I give them whole stuff, and a pretty good variety of (bones and all) chicken, turkey, beef and organ meat (you can find anything around here)... occasional fish and eggs. I'm pretty sure they're setup OK balance wise. They love it.

Anyway, they really like (raw) beef rib bones. I get the really long ones - they're probably about a foot in length. 2 of the 3 of them can take the meat off the bone in *maybe* 20 minutes, leaving just the bone. The older one only takes a bit longer.

They like to continue to chew on the remaining bones, and I usually let them. But yesterday, one of my girls had a little piece about 2 inches long that had just plain splintered off.

I took a quick look and it was kind of pointy - not as bad as a cooked bone or anything... but I need some reassurance.

Do I need to pick these things up as soon as they get the meat off or can I let them chew the ends for a while? Do they just have super strong jaws, or is this normal?

I am a worried mama I guess. Thanks for the help!

[briteday]

No one really knows for sure what wouls happen. But I'm guessing that your dogs would crunch and crush before they swallow. I've really not had that problem with my dogs and bones. There are often fragments alying about but I don't worry about it as they won't swallow what can't go down and tend to do a lot of crushing, even for small dogs.

[RawFedDogs]

Originally Posted by Bearjing

Do I need to pick these things up as soon as they get the meat off or can I let them chew the ends for a while? Do they just have super strong jaws, or is this normal?

I am a worried mama I guess. Thanks for the help!

Sometimes when my two eat things like ribs or pork roasts or deer there will be some bone fragments laying around. Usually they just leave them. Sometimes they will eat them. I don't worry about it either way. They are not as sharp as they appear and a dogs GI tract is a lot tougher physically than we somethimes think.

As far as whether you should let them chew the bones, its one of those "your choice" kind of things. I let them chew if they want.

[Bearjing]

Thanks for the feedback. I suspect that if I've found pieces, some have also been ingested. I've kept an eye on the girls, and they appear uneffected.

They sure like the chewing... I don't really like the idea of taking that away from them unless I have a good reason for it. I'm pretty sure *I'm* the one that needs to be eased into this. They seem to know *exactly* how all this works.