[Mieya]

I was lazing about the other day thinking of tweeks I could do to my dog food recipe and started wondering about Nuts and Seeds (Legumes, false fruit, drupes, ect.). Does anyone have any experience with this? I know Macadamia nuts are poisonous and that raw nuts/seeds have an enzyme inhibator and are high in phytic acid, but I wouldn't mind soaking or roasting them first.

Your thoughts please?

I usually use trial and error when it comes to the dogs food but this particular food group doesn't seem that forgiving.

 

[Abbylynn]

If you are not familiar with .... www.peteducation.com ... is a great site for lists of toxic foods and plants ... and many more subjects. I use it all the time. All their articles are also printable. I keep lists on my fridge of some of these things. Hope this may help you out a bit.

 

[Willowy]

I imagine legumes could be used, but I don't think dogs digest nuts and seeds well. Dogs are carnivores and don't really need plant-based foods. Why complicate things unnecessarily?

 

[kafkabeetle]

I imagine legumes could be used, but I don't think dogs digest nuts and seeds well. Dogs are carnivores and don't really need plant-based foods. Why complicate things unnecessarily?

This is basically how I feel about it. Some nuts are poisonous to dogs. Some probably are harmless, but probably don't have much of a benefit either, since dogs are optimized for processing animal products and aren't so good at getting the nutrients out of plant material. I pretty much give my dog exclusively meaty foods if I'm going to give her something beyond her normal kibble because my goal is to enhance her diet above and beyond her staple food. Since dogs are mainly carnivorous, to me it's the only thing that makes sense to feed them.

 

[Mieya]

Oh once upon a time my dogs were on an all meat diet, they got.... I don't want to say sluggish but they just seemed to lose interest in a lot of things they also started looking a little scruffy (The kind of scruffy you can't brush out), so we added rice to the mix, then slowly some veggies, and finally some Vita/Mineral powder, their apperance and attitudes about working went back up.

The only thing thats bothering me about their otherwise spunky selves is I can't grow Rice and I'd prefer to do away with the powder. I know Wolves and other assorted wild canines are pure carnivores, but my dogs (With the exception of our Collie) aren't built like wolves or foxes, they're built more like 100lb furry tanks that work HARD all day, everyday, rain or shine. They require the carbs from the hated non-meats and our various wounds require speed healing because that boar isn't going to voluntarily leave his ladies and the cows need to be rounded up to go on the mountain. I've also sat around and watched them eat enough herbivore turds to realise they aren't pure carnivores because they completely abandoned the pig manuer when one of my sweet sweet chickens fluttered her way into one of the pig pens and got eaten....

I'd love to go out hunting everyday and maim a few squirrels to throw in my front yard and have my dogs battle it out like a true wild dog but realistically I need my hooches in top shape because together we pay the mortgage. So I appreciate the input ... but my dogs aren't wild, they haven't been from the wild for thousands of years, I expect them to be smarter, work harder and live a longer, healthier life then some mangy coyote.

@Abbylynn: Love that website! Favorited it but I couldn't find what I was looking for this time.

 

[kafkabeetle]

I expect them to be smarter, work harder and live a longer, healthier life then some mangy coyote.

...and you expect to make that happen with some nuts and seeds? *confused*

Btw, I don't feed a raw diet myself, but some of your objections seem kind of nonsensical to me. I do agree that the appeal to nature argument can go a little overboard sometimes, but I mean, mange comes from a parasite that has nothing to do with diet. Carbs don't cause "speed healing" as far as I'm aware. And I don't think that a dog living as a pet and "not in the wild" is cause to alter their diet dramatically. The same things that were healthy for humans thousands of years ago are still healthy today because evolution dictated every detail of our bodily make-up.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I don't think it would be harmful per say to feed non-poisonous seeds. I just wanted to explain why it wouldn't be my first choice. By all means feed whatever keeps your particular dogs in the best condition.

 

[Mieya]

No, through proper nutrition, and I just started looking into little nuts and seeds. If I can incorperate it into my dogs diet in a beneficial way I think that would be fantastic! If not I'll abandon it. I was/am just curious if anyone else as tried it and if so how they prepared them.

Also, my husband has noted that I 'always' sound mad in text (Text messages, internet....) I really don't mean to come off as RAWR! but more as meow....

 

[kafkabeetle]

Also, my husband has noted that I 'always' sound mad in text (Text messages, internet....) I really don't mean to come off as RAWR! but more as meow....

Oh me either. ;p Btw, I added more that you may not have seen if you're interested in reading it.

 

[Mieya]

Oh No i'm not under the impression that carbs help with healing but certain vitamins and minerals do. I have found Calcium of all things helps the dogs a lot, especially with bruising wounds, like if they get kicked by an "Oooooh almost made it" cow. What I'm really interested in is the fatty acids nuts and seeds have but nut oil is damaging to my retirement fund expensive. I wonder how hard you have to squish a peanut to get the oil out...

 

[kafkabeetle]

Oh No i'm not under the impression that carbs help with healing but certain vitamins and minerals do. I have found Calcium of all things helps the dogs a lot, especially with bruising wounds, like if they get kicked by an "Oooooh almost made it" cow. What I'm really interested in is the fatty acids nuts and seeds have but nut oil is damaging to my retirement fund expensive. I wonder how hard you have to squish a peanut to get the oil out...

Now that you're mentioning calcium, I wonder how balanced your dogs' "all meat" diet was. A raw diet that includes bones should contain plenty of calcium. And if it wasn't balanced then that would easily explain why your dogs did poorly on it. Just a thought. Even the healthiest foods can be unhealthy if fed exclusively or in the wrong ratios, kwim?

Also, fish oil is relatively cheap and would probably be absorbed easier anyway. And my dog *loves* it. I actually give them to her occasionally as a treat. She lays down, bites it, licks at it for a while, then eats the "shell" of the pill. My understanding, though, is that if you give a lot of omega 3s that you have to start supplementing vitamin E as well, since a dog's body uses VE stores to process omega 3. I give fish oil infrequently enough though that I've never had to worry about it.

 

[Mieya]

I try to stay away from fish because all/most imported fish and some of our local fish is perserved with Ethoxyquin that most likely means it makes it into fish oils and assorted other things. If a perservative can double as a pesticide I'm just going to skip it altogether Lol.

 

[Kathyy]

MagicRe, a frequent poster here, has used a mixture of several nuts and seeds to supplement the raw diet as her dogs' fur seemed to be thinning. She reports it helped a lot.

I looked into it as Max's raw diet is less than 100% of his NRC requirements on vitamin E, magnesium, zinc and manganese. A small amount of sunflower seeds would fill the gap of all but the zinc quite nicely. They would be roasted and ground most likely. Perhaps I will try it once the current supply of mineral supplement is gone. Then if I bought those zinc rich oysters Max won't need any supplements on paper. I saw a distinct improvement when I did supplement to bring his diet up to NRC numbers, would be looking for a return to somewhat duller coat mostly if it isn't working. And I am quite sure he would prefer sunflower seeds, ground or not, to a pill!

She thinks it is the omega 6s in the nuts, I think it is the mineral content. Max's raw is just fine on the fatty acids I know about.

If you are feeding more beef, lamb, rabbit and wild meats then you may have enough omega 3 in the diet but if you are feeding more pork and chicken then the diet is high in omega 6. A ratio between the two ought to be less than 1:10 and if you feed lots of chicken and pork the ratio gets to be very omega 6 heavy. While nuts and such are high in omega 3 they also contain oodles of 6 which isn't needed in most dog home prepared diets.

I thought it was fish meal that was treated with that preservative, not fresh fish? I believe fresh/frozen/canned human grade fish is free of ethoxyguin.

If one of those looks like it fills a gap in nutrition in your recipe and research doesn't show any issues then try it. Add a little at a time, feed only one at a time and feed for a good long trial to evaluate each one.

Is your min/vit supplement meant to balance a home prepared diet or meant as a supplement for kibble? The ones meant for kibble are often useless for home prepared diets. If you add additional calcium to a good one like Nupro they can work well. Check the analysis, you ought to be adding 900 mg of calcium per pound of food.

 

[Willowy]

Ground eggshells are a good, cheap source of calcium, and it only takes half a teaspoon to provide 1000 mg.

I can see nuts and seeds being OK if ground/pulverized. I mean, lots of dogs get peanut butter in their Kongs every day. But I'm pretty sure that if you fed them whole you'd be seeing them again soon . Chickpeas are also very nutritious, at least for humans. But I'm not sure how dogs assimilate them. Although I think the vegan Indian dog who lived to be 27 ate a lot of chickpeas .

 

[Mieya]

Hehe That's exactly how my dogs get most of their calcium, most of the time I don't even have to grind it up they'll just eat the shells whole from my hand.

About the Ethoxyquin, Coast Guard regulations require all fish shipped in bulk must be preserved and Ethoxyquin is the most common preservative for Fish and Pears. Unless the receiver adds Ethoxyquin later in its processing it does not have to be listed as an ingrediant. It worries me because I can never be sure... It's not that I don't eat fish, I just go fishing. Course with the state of our water ways that probably isn't any healthier but at least I can do a visual inspection for extra fins and lesions...

 

[Kathyy]

I didn't know about pears! YUCK. I see no mention of it used in fresh fish meant for human comsumption in this paper. Do you have a reference?
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CF0QFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.epa.gov%2Foppsrrd1%2FREDs%2Ffactsheets%2F0003fact.pdf&ei=qx7uT-__L4Pm0QHxhM3ZDQ&usg=AFQjCNFJo0DiNo-ncYthabzAGpVtZcQisw&sig2=ucuZM8rf6wZu65h1PAD0sg

 

[Mieya]

I think Fresh fish is usually caught or farmed locally. So I don't think its included but I'm not entirely sure on the scope of the Coast Guards authority on domestic fisheries.

 

[Zookeep]

About the Ethoxyquin, Coast Guard regulations require all fish shipped in bulk must be preserved and Ethoxyquin is the most common preservative for Fish and Pears. Unless the receiver adds Ethoxyquin later in its processing it does not have to be listed as an ingrediant. It worries me because I can never be sure... It's not that I don't eat fish, I just go fishing. Course with the state of our water ways that probably isn't any healthier but at least I can do a visual inspection for extra fins and lesions...

The Coast Guard regulation applies to fish meal, not to whole fish.