# Raw diet help - dog vomits bone chips



## Bart Karmich

I had been feeding my dog a raw diet for over a year. Basically from about 12 weeks to 19 months old he ate a diet of whole chickens, pork neck bones, beef soup bones, trout, beef sweetbreads, tripe, beef kidneys, hearts, liver, canned ocean fish, etc. etc. The main component of his diet was the chickens, chicken backs, ribs, wings, thighs etc.

Then he started vomiting bone chips and fragments in the middle of the night or early in the morning. He's fed his daily portion in two meals, at sunrise and sunset. So in the middle of the night there's nothing left in his stomach but a few bone chips that he hacks up with some syrupy stomach fluids. It's not really like bile either, mostly just mucous. It's like he eats everything, then when everything has passed into the intestine but the few remaining bones that are a little bigger, he just vomits them. They're really not that big, maybe thumbnail size to the largest knob on the drumstick. This is a large dog who used to pass these and larger turkey bones.

Anyway, he sleeps in the house so I don't really want him hacking up bones on the floor (it's stone) all the time. I started feeding him Orijen and Evo for a while. He seems to do ok with chicken wings and ribs, but nothing bigger. I can't be bothered to grind.

I wonder what's advisable. Should I just keep feeding him kibble, or try to feed wings and ribs as well, or try to make a raw diet of only small meaty bones?


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## jamie lind

mine did that a few times so i gave it to her frozen so she had to chew it better


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## Maren Bell Jones

My female Malinois does this same thing occasionally (maybe once or twice every two months or so), but we don't feed that much raw (just some lamb bones mostly once or twice a week). They are often fed them frozen, so it's not a chewing issue per se. I am troubled that you say you can't be troubled to grind. Why not on the grinder? They are not difficult to use and you can do large batches at a time. They are on sale this time of the year because of hunting season.


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## Peter Cavallaro

grinding bones, never thought of that, sounds like eating a pill to get yr vitamin intake instead of eating food?? dogs enjoy chewing???


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## Edward Egan

My dog does the same thing, I just deal with it. I think that sometimes the bones are not broken up enough while chewing and the dog doesn't digest them so back up they come. It not that often maybe once a week or less.


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## Connie Sutherland

I have one dog (small, old) who hacks up pieces of the weight-bearing chicken bones.

So the small store where I buy most of my poultry for the dogs grinds the weight-bearing bones and leaves the rest as is. They don't charge anything for this (I just pay the whole-bird price). They will also grind in some chicken livers if I ask. I do give them notice by phone so they can do it when they're not busy with customers at the counter. (There's some kind of extra cleaning requirement for the grinder when they do poultry.) I just call the day before.

They also set aside Smart Chicken backs in a baggy in the freezer for me when they cut up birds into the 8-piece cut rather than halves or quarters.

All this is by way of saying that developing a friendly/loyalty relationship with a butcher can pay off!


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## Gina Pasieka

Large pieces of bone take a long time to be broken down by stomach acid. The larger bone fragments left in the empty stomach act as a mechanical irritant, so it's the natural response of the body to bring them up. I think that a grind is probably a better idea for some dogs.


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## Debbie Skinner

I feed raw to my 6 dogs plus to most of the boarding dogs, which are mainly pitbull and APBT-x for rescues and rescue malinois. All in all about 20 dogs each day. Also, about 15 siamese cats get raw (ground).

Maybe 1-2 dogs once per week there will be a little barfed bone chips. 

I grind for the dogs..but bear in mind a good meat grinder like what I use is $600 new. I got a deal on craigslist and bought my chefmate used when a restaurant closed. My first meat grinder was much smaller and I had to cut the meat into small cubes so it took quiet awhile to grind the amount of meat I go through daily. It was $50 used as my friend gave me a good deal on it. I think new it was $150 give or take. To replace a blade is about $20 for the big one so it's best to find a place that can sharpen the blades which isn't that easy I found out.

We grind so I can make big batches of balanced meals at a time and also it's easy to ad meds/wormers for the rescue dogs. Also, many dogs being switched over from kibble their who life seem to figure out that the ground is "food" vs throwing them a chunk of meat. Ground is necessary for feeding pups and cats and my senior dog. However, I always give raw bones as the dogs enjoy them and it's good for them physically (teeth, gums) and mentally imo. I haven't had a problem with a bone shard yet with all the dogs we feed, but I have heard "stories" from people saying 3rd hand about a dog getting injured. I think it's rare with raw bones. Right now we are feeding elk and venison and the deer bones are smaller and more are being eaten down by the dogs w/o problems. I couldn't see withholding bones from them as they really look forward to the bones. At night, it gives the boarding dogs something to do and keeps them happier and quieter too.

Even with my big meat grinder, a chip of bone will jam it up. I can run a fish head/tails (chowder) or probably chicken neck or rabbit parts through it. But, I know even a bone chip from deer, goat, etc. jams it right up. 

What meat grinder will grind bones?


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## Gina Pasieka

Very good question Debbie...so I had to do a little research. Fargo eats Primal...so the work is already done for me ;-), but I did find this link from a BARF online group. It's not going to do large mammal bone, but says it can handle chicken, turkey and rabbit. 

http://www.onestopjerkyshop.com/tasin-ts108-electric-meat-grinder-p-47.html


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## Debbie Skinner

Gina Pasieka said:


> Very good question Debbie...so I had to do a little research. Fargo eats Primal...so the work is already done for me ;-), but I did find this link from a BARF online group. It's not going to do large mammal bone, but says it can handle chicken, turkey and rabbit.
> 
> http://www.onestopjerkyshop.com/tasin-ts108-electric-meat-grinder-p-47.html


Oh, I have that one in storage..it's the one I bought for $50 used from a friend. I can tell you, it is not very strong. I'd be surprised that it could do the large chicken and turkey bones. You can tell that I'm not fond of this cheaper grinder from personal experience as I have to grind way too much meat and this one is weak and tempermental for my use.

My Chefmate is stainless steel and weighs about 50lbs and it's adequate for volume grinding...not bones though. I'd really go throw blades if I routinely ground even small animal bones (rabbit and fish). But I'd never grind rabbit, but feed it whole. The fish (chowder) I ground just to add to the mix for the omegas.


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## Maren Bell Jones

For anyone interested, my friend Dr. Lisa Pierson has a good website on how to use a grinder to make raw or cooked cat food (would be pretty much identical to a dog for the grinding part). It includes a video on the process. I would add a veggie/fruit mix for a dog and possibly some extra carbohydrates depending on which dog I was feeding for.

http://www.catinfo.org/?link=makingcatfood#Putting_the_Recipe_Together


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## Bob Scott

Just a thought about chicken and turkey bones in a grinder.
How hard would it be to beat the crap out of them with a two lb hammer before putting them in a grinder. I fed raw when I had three littler terriers. I just tossed them each a whole leg quarter and they had no problems.


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