Those who practiced Barf feeding once discovered that bones are food for dogs. An Australian who turned to alternatives, and briefly worked as a veterinarian, Ian Billinghurst, developed it into a business for himself and managed to create the modern dog-keeping culture’s worst and most widespread feeding mistake. As a result, we now have a market for minced meats with bones.
Since demand has been created, and supply for it, there is a need – which is not always used correctly. It is thought that a dog must be given bone in its food – otherwise, why would domestic companies sell it – but they do not know how much to give.
The problem is essentially the same as with meat. People think they know what meat is, but they do not. That is why there are always questions about how many animals’ meat must be fed (also a legacy of barf) or how much heart can be fed (this is because it is not known that the heart is a muscle, i.e., meat, and is also a legacy of barf).
Before considering the amounts of bone feeding, make sure you genuinely know what meat means and what it is:
- Meat for the dog until its stomach is full
- What is good meat?
- What is an organ?
Since people have been sold the idea of bone feeding, but they do not know what it means, the responsibility of the sellers increases. In addition to selling, there must be guidance – dear merchants, these are not in conflict with each other, but they complement each other. Guidance means explaining real things, such as how and for what the product is used. Guidance is not the sowing of incorrect and worn-out warnings, such as not to thaw in hot water.
Of course, if the manufacturer had no other idea for making the product than that there are various raw materials available and how to squeeze a suitable profit from them, then it is difficult to guide. Especially if the end product is not functional in its purpose.
We are in a situation where even manufacturers say that something should be fed and end their sales pitch with this statement:
Always remember that the responsibility for feeding lies with the pet owner!
Responsibility is quite an empty word, especially when money is first taken, and then it is stated that the responsibility is actually with the payer, why did you believe the advertisements. Of course, this is a double-edged issue: in some way, even the entrepreneur must protect themselves against customers who have a pathological need to shoot themselves first in the ankle and then in the forehead, and not learn anything along the way. But that protection does not justify disinformation, which is a polite word for lying.
Why are bones fed?
There are three commonly used justifications and reasons, functions, for feeding bones to dogs:
- Bones are food for dogs because wolves eat them too (naturalness)
- Calcium is desired from food (everything is obtained from food)
- Pastime and dental care (home insurance and fear of security deposit)
People often formulate their needs much more creatively, but every justification for healthy dogs always falls into at least one, often at least two, categories.
Now someone notes that this talks about big bones and minced meats with bones are a different thing. They are not a different thing. They are exactly the same thing. Just as chunk meat does not change itself and the reason for giving it because of grinding, so the bone does not change when it is ground as such or into the meat.
Of course, grinding removes the pastime, but it does not entirely remove dental care – but focusing on leisure is trivial. For the dog’s body, ground bones are exactly the same as whole ones – with two differences:
- Large pieces can break off from whole bones, which can cause problems in the intestines
- Ground bone is easier to give daily in larger amounts than large bones, which poses exactly the same risk to the intestines (horse people know what we are talking about: sand in the intestines)
Because wolves eat them too
Wolves do not eat large bones significantly. Nor do they eat smaller ones excessively. This misconception arose about 40 – 50 years ago when the behavior of captive wolves tired of life was observed. The comparison is just as absurd as saying that a fox must run in circles because a caged mink does so.
Wolves do not significantly eat the bones of large prey animals as food. They do gnaw them for pastime, though, when the carcass has otherwise filled the stomach. The fact that a wolf uses toothpicks and toys does not mean that a dog should absolutely eat large amounts of toothpicks and toys – if you do not believe it, ask retriever owners how well that works.
The only bone-specialized canid is the hyena – and it is not even a canid, but closer to a cat.
Everything is obtained from food
Not everything is obtained from food, at least not sufficiently. To get even a little bit of everything from food, a dog should be fed like natural cats: whole mice, voles, birds, and hares.
But regarding bones, the naturalness thinking was not entirely wrong in theory. While calcium carbonate only provides calcium, bones would also provide a little magnesium. Of course, a bunch of other trace elements also come along, but their amounts are insignificant to the whole – which natural feeders should consider an absolute guideline.
The beautiful idea fell apart because the amounts relative to other food were absurd. When bones were naturalized, the foundation of the food was lost.
The second problem was that bones were no longer bones, Cartilage was fed as bones. This became more pronounced with chicken when pig’s spine, which has at least some nutritional value, began to be replaced with necks and wings in the name of bones.
How much is enough minced meat with bones?
Minced meats with bones are always lumped together in discussions. But they are very far apart because one has more bone than the other. Or at least it should be in the amount of bones, but it is not.
When a manufacturer says that the minced meat contains 30% bone, they are genuinely saying that one-third is something other than meat. That is a different matter. Now we are in the core area of lying. The manufacturer wants to call any cartilage and scraps bone because they do not even dare to call it meat. Ground bone, of course, sounds nicer than saying that even the last scraps, which cannot be used even in chicken balls or sausages, have been used.
If 30 percent bone is ground into the meat, then it must have about 10 percent calcium. If it has less, then what is called bone was not bone. Nor is it meat or organs. Figure out for yourself what it could be.
The core of the problem on the attitude side is this:
When the manufacturer does not consider bone to be bone, is meat even meat for them at all?
Translated: we are in a crappy situation when we have to think about whether the manufacturer/seller is lying just a little or deceiving thoroughly. This is what the sale of dog foods is all about all the time.
Dosage according to calcium
Meats with bones are always given according to calcium. In all theoretical simplicity, the dosage of meat with bones is calculated exactly the same as the need for canned calcium.
To calculate it, let’s forget at this stage what the manufacturer has figured out as the bone portion and look at the significant thing: calcium. If the product does not have an analysis that tells the amount of calcium, then do not buy it.
Let’s refine this a bit. If food advertised as complete does not mention anything but calcium, if even that, then under no circumstances buy it. Lying and cheating should not be rewarded with money – fortunately, in the Finnish meat business, there is (at the time of writing this) only one such operator – and his sales claims are otherwise… supernatural.
You must know how much calcium is in the food. If you do not know, you cannot figure out how much calcium is obtained from the food. This should not happen with commercial operators selling pre-packaged products – really, the analysis costs a few tens, and if the manufacturer saves on such pocket change, then what really important things are they also saving on?
The amount of calcium is not known, however, when it comes to, for example, meat scraps obtained from hunters or a random batch picked up from a small slaughterhouse. Then you have to guess yourself. In large bones, there is on average/typically less than 40% calcium, so calculate according to that: if (ground) meat had 30% bone, then it would give a little over 10% calcium – simplifying: a generous 100 grams of 30% bone minced meat corresponds to a tablespoon of calcium IF that 30% is indeed bone.
What is for sale?
Every operator seems to have meat with bones for sale. I dug out the most easily found products from two major sellers and put the invented reported bone amounts and how much is reported as calcium in the analysis in a table.
I also calculated how many grams of meat are needed to cover a dog’s calcium needs without absorption. The calculated amount is thus in one way a calculated minimum because certainly not everything that provides calcium dissolves.
The last column compares how many grams of meat are needed to get the same amount of calcium as calcium carbonate (the most common “lime”) provides. From this, you can slightly figure out the dosage differences in your feeding.
| advertized amount of bones | analyzed calcium | dosage for 80 mg/kgBW (~130 mg/kgME NRC) | same as calcium carbonate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| minced chicken with bones | 30 % | 5,46 % | 1,5 g/kgBW | 7,3 g |
| minced chicken wings | - | 1,16 % | 6,9 g/kgBW | 34.5 g |
| minced turkey with bones | 30 % | 3,69 % | 2.2 g/kgBW | 10,8 g |
| minced reindeer | 20 % | 6,30 % | 1,3 g/kgBW | 6,4 g |
| minced horse | 6 % | 1,0 % | 8 g/kgBW | 40 g |
| minced turkey | 40 % | 1,9 % | 4,2 g/kgBW | 21 g |
| minced chicken | 35 % | 2,1 % | 3,8 g/kgBW | 10,6 g |
| minced lamb | 16 % | 2,1 % | 3,8 g/kgBW | 10,6 g |
| minced salmon with bones | 15 % | 1,2 % | 6,7 g/kgBW | 34 g |
| minced reindeer, other manufacturer | 14 % | 3,19 % | 2,5 g/kgBW | 12,6 g |
There are a couple of values, which I am skeptical of: reindeer and turkey with bones. No, I cannot provide any facts for my suspicions, but they differ too much from other similar products. Maybe that producer has analyzed them and others not. Maybe they again rely on the slaughterhouse’s reported amounts, which are not always correct – it has happened before in Finland. Or maybe they are correct, I do not know. But the point is that the reported values are used, even if they make you think.
Food bowl
When bony meats are used to obtain calcium, the calculation is tolerably simple.
- The dog’s need is
0.08 g x dog's weight; for example, 0.08 g x 20 kg = 1.6 g (0.08 g is the same as 80 mg) - Check the analysis to see how much calcium is in 100 grams, for example, 2.1 g (or percent, same thing)
- Divide the dog’s need by the calcium provided by the meat; for example, 1.6 / 2.1 = 0.76
- The division gives the portion of a hundred grams, so when
0.is removed, the grams remain; here 76 g.
If the dog’s need is greater than the amount provided by the meat, the result of the division will not give a number that ends with zero, but for example, 1.something. Then it directly tells how many hundred-gram parts are needed.
- The dog’s need would be, for example, 0.08 g x 50 kg = 4 g
- The food has 2.1 g/100 g calcium (or 2.1%, same thing)
- The dog’s need divided by the meat’s calcium is 4 g / 2.1 g = 1.9
- That means almost two 100-gram pieces, i.e., 190 g.
If those seem too difficult, you can also go the long way around
- The dog’s need is 0.08 g x 10 kg = 0.8 g
- The food has 2.1 g/100 g calcium
- Convert calcium per gram by dividing by a hundred; 2.1 g /100 g = 0.021 g/g
- Divide the dog’s need by the calcium provided by the meat; for example, 0.8 g / 0.021 g = 38 g
- The answer is directly the grams of bony meat needed for the dog
Then there is the easiest way:
- Look at the table above for one with approximately the same calcium amount (analyzed calcium)
- Multiply by the amount in the third column and the dog’s weight
- The result is how much bony meat the dog needs at least
- For example, with 2.1 grams of calcium and a 15 kg dog: 3.8 g/kgBW x 15 kg = 57 g
The meat to be given can be
- Weighed
- Divide a half-kilo tube into five parts, so each slice weighs 100 grams
- Pretend that a deciliter weighs 50 grams
The dosage is not really a game of grams. Only the calculation is.
None of those took into account solubility. That means that to be sure, the dose should be doubled – or at least one and a half times more. That would then mean that according to the above examples, minced meat with 2.1% calcium should be given
- 60 – 80 grams (1.25 – 1.75 deciliters) for a 10 kg dog
- 75 – 100 grams (1.5 – 2 dl) for a 15 kg dog
- 120 – 160 grams (2.5 – 3 dl) for a 20 kg dog
- 300 – 400 grams for a 50 kg dog
Problems with bony meat
Bony meat, whole meat, or minced meat is not completely risk-free. In fact, most veterinarians’ opposition to raw feeding, when combined with intestinal blockages, are echoes from the heyday of barf. From a time when feeding was based on meaty bones, and the amount was about 60% of the portion, calculated as a percentage of weight. That formula has more errors than the fear of intestinal blockage.
When talking about the risk of intestinal blockage, it practically always means two things:
- A piece of bone that is too large
- A quantitatively too large portion of indigestible food
The first comes either from stolen, like the Christmas ham’s shank bone, and the latter nowadays from minced meats with bones. However, I claim that when talking about too large an amount of bone as food, it is most often about the old days. Nowadays, Billinghurst’s barf has fallen into the margin, which means a collapse in case numbers.
It is possible to cause a blockage with minced meats with bones, but it is not easy. Fortunately.
The significance of the bone percentage
The bone percentage only tells the amount of indigestible food. Like corn is considered in dry foods. It tells nothing about calcium. Therefore, the bone percentage is only considered as a quantity describing the quality of the meat.
There is an easy mnemonic for that. A higher percentage means lower quality meat. If the entire food portion provides more calcium than the dog needs, then the food is poor in that respect.
If you need some percentage number or amount of calcium, it is impossible to give.
- Ground chicken wings have only slightly more than 1% calcium, yet they are considered 100% bone overall
- Ground turkey has 40% called bone, but still, calcium is less than 2%
- Reindeer has 20% bone, and calcium is still over 6%
I personally use the amount of calcium as the definition for boneless meat.
- If calcium is more than 500 mg/100 g (0.5%), then it is classified as bony meats
- If calcium is more than 2000 mg/100 g (2%), then there is a lot of bone, and the food is only suitable as a calcium supplement
One Finnish academic often uses Meyer and Zentek’s article as a source, also in raw feeding. The same is done by others trained in production animal nutrition within her sphere of influence. Meyer and Zentek’s views are often entirely valid, but they have not always thought through the matter from the perspective of genuine feeding. The amount of bone is one such thing.
According to them, a dog needs 1 g/kgBW of bone to obtain calcium, and should not exceed 10 g/kgBW. That is often repeated, and the same can be found in Poochie Revival too. The claim is essentially true, but the problem is that bone is not a defined thing in dog feeding.
- If bone has about 37% calcium, then a gram provides about 4.5 times the need with 80 mg/kgBW and about double even considering absorption.
- If what is called bone has 10% calcium, then a gram provides slightly over the need.
- If chicken wings are called bone, then no calcium is obtained at all.
All those have different amounts of calcium, but the indigestible portion is very much the same when considering the foods available for sale.
In plain language: the rule is useless if it cannot be used in normal life and feeding planning.
- A dog weighs 30 kg, and then it should be given a gram of bone per kilo. Ground reindeer has 20% bone, i.e., 20 g/100 g. Then it should not be given more than 150 grams to keep the bone amount at 30 grams. The product has 6.3% calcium, so the dog would get 9450 mg of calcium – its need according to NRC would be 1.7 grams. The calcium overdose would be more than 5 times the portion where the indigestible portion is 30 grams.
- The same 30 kg dog eats only ground reindeer. The required portion could be calculated from energy, but since NRC’s energy requirement cannot be used in raw feeding, let’s go with the actual given portion: 800 g. From that, the dog would get 50 grams of calcium (almost 30 times the overdose), and the indigestible portion is 160 grams. We are below the 10 g/kg rule, but still, the indigestible amount is such that with a slower intestine and without fibers, we might start treating constipation, at worst even a blockage.
Genuinely, a dog needs about 0.5 grams of real bone per weight kilo, and that already includes absorption.
Animal fiber
In principle, the indigestible material ground in, cartilages, and everything else called bone, act as fiber. Not absorbing water like flaxseed meal, but certainly affecting the bacterial activity of the colon. For some, it is a good thing; for others, it causes yeast. A few start farting due to increased bacterial activity. Some get heartburn.
Plant and animal fibers work differently if you look at their effects in laboratory conditions. For the eater itself, the most genuine significance is fluid regulation, which succeeds with plant fibers but not with cartilages, tendons, or fur. And it is not automatic on the plant side either. Carrot grating does not achieve anything more peculiar than bony meats.
The strongest difference comes from which bacterial strains are nurtured. Sugars act as growth mediums for different strains than protein. Carbohydrates also have great differences. Although a few in the field claim otherwise, we genuinely have no measure to determine whether we are growing good or bad bacteria. We do not even know what is the so-called natural or beneficial fauna and flora for each dog – although a few claim to be able to regulate them for money.
There is only one way: try what suits the dog.
Depending on the dog, the indigestible amount, whether it contains calcium or not, helps by filling the intestines and, at best, slowing down the passage of food mass on its way to feces. For some, it worsens, and when the intestine is firmly of the opinion that a foreign object is being handled, the pace accelerates.
There is no right and wrong amount. Regarding calcium, there are some limits, at least a lower limit, that are followed. Instead, there is no measure for the total amount of everything called bone.
Or there is. When the indigestible portion of bony meat cuts down the amount of food, and too little fat or proteins are obtained for that individual, too much is too much.
Use of bony meats
Bony meats are just an expensive and cumbersome way to provide calcium, and in that sense, they make no sense. Not when the measure used is
- price,
- ease, and
- risk minimization.
But if you want to give bony meat to a healthy dog, perhaps in the name of naturalness, or want to follow the idea of getting everything from food, then they can certainly be used. Grinding bones and other indigestible material into food does not make it any more peculiar – as long as you remember the restrictions.
Then meat containing bone is given according to the calcium need, and the rest of the food is filled with boneless meat. If you thought of giving all the food as bony meat, then abandon the idea. If it is advertised as 30% bone, it means that at least a third of the food bowl is something other than edible.
Regarding bony meats, we are in a situation where to avoid a calcium jar, two meats must be bought for the freezer and remembered to give them in different amounts per feeding – so they also run out at different times.
Bony meat is not inherently a health risk for the dog. Provided, of course, that moderate amounts are given, which is less than the food would need. And as always, calculations must be made here too – there is no shortcut to happiness.
