iPets Ally Q&A Round-up
1. What is the best rotation schedule for your pup’s diet?
For the batches, assuming that your dogs can eat the first batch of beef for the first 5 days then you change to chicken or you can give them a different batch every day. As in, one chicken, one day beef, one day turkey etc., If your pets are not having any G.I issues, what I would do is simply rotate between batches. Now, many of you know that if your pets are experiencing G.I issues, I’ll recommend rotating every 24 hours and in every 5 days is great as well. But you can certainly go ahead and use up a batch and start another batch with a different protein, oil, veggies and etc.
2. What dry kibble do you feed your pets?
Assuming you’ve got 15 -17 years old Blue heeler, a 4- year old Texas heeler and then a new puppy coming who will be 8 weeks old. If you can do it, I would avoid feeding kibble especially to your really older dog. I think that will end up creating some issues. And frankly, every time I recommend a brand of kibble it gets recalled. There are several good starting places to do some research and I’m sure you will get a ton of recommendations from other folks as well but you can go to doogfoodadvisor.com and start with that.
. If your senior blue healer had an upset tummy, then that’s interesting because that’s just a tablespoon. But what I would do is just kind of take it easy and see if you can differentiate between because unless there’s something your pup is super sensitive to; I wouldn’t expect a tablespoon to make upset tummy but it’s possible because of the fiber. I would just take it super slow. If your pup was having absolutely no tummy upset on the kibble before, then I would definitely just keep going slow and maybe get the diarrhea straightened out before you start to transition again. So, if beef is a new protein for instance and that’s what may be creating diarrhea, then I would just try another protein. See if that helps.
3. Volume – wise, how much calcium should be added in the diet?
As far as the calcium goes, a 2000 milligrams volume – wise depends on the product. Basically, what you want to do is look on the label of what you have and see how many milligrams per teaspoon and then do the math from there. For instance, on the old product that we can’t get anymore, I think a teaspoon and a half was 660 milligrams. If you’re having issues, just post a label picture and we’ll swing back around and help you with that. And then treats; I think pieces of baby carrots, and green beans, there’s a recipe on the blog for DIY dehydrated proteins so all of those are great options. Check that out.
4. Are mushrooms and cucumber okay to be added in veggie rotations?
If you’ve been using mushrooms for quite some while and you’re using a cup or two every three batches, then that’s okay. And cucumber and celery are certainly okay to use as well just remember that cucumber is vastly just water and so you might have to use quite a bit more to get enough sustenance out of there. Celery is also a good one but I would use those more as garnishment though because celery is not super nutrient dense and also the fibers can be a little bit irritating to the gut. What we’ve generally done in the past is throw a cucumber that’s starting to go south and throw in the celery leaves as well.
5. What are the best freezer bags to be used for storing?
We’ve been using these reusable silicone bags and we’ve been travelling with them now for 2 and a half years and they’re still trucking. The one thing is that these bars tend to break, so we’ve glued them together a couple of times. Unfortunately, we were not able to find a source for just the replacement bars. But these things are awesome because you can cook sous – vide in them. They’re heat tolerant, and freezer tolerant. There are some other ones out there that have like a zip seal. But some of the zip seal ones we’ve heard have been problematic as well because this doesn’t seal as well as you would like especially when you’ve got a liquid in there. At any rate, check that out because they’re great and they’re totally non – toxic so far as I can tell.
6. Are walnuts toxic for dogs?
Frankly, that is not something I had heard before. But it turns out that there is some sort of a mold toxin that is present in all types of walnuts and a couple of other ones as well and so it’s not so much the walnut itself, it’s the fungi which evidently can be really nasty and fatal to dogs. I’ve given my dogs walnuts every now and then and again they don’t get a lot at a time and they’re pretty tiny, so I have not ever seen an issue but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible. I think it’s more of a dosage issue and if your pets are eating small amounts, I don’t know that it would be a problem. Again, it’s just like raisins and grapes where we never had an issue and then all of a sudden, it’s like the most lethal thing in the universe to dogs. So, I would just be cautious and see what happens. I think it has more to do with storage and things of that nature. Nuts, in general, really should be stored in the refrigerator or the freezer simply because they do generate molds and also the good healthy oils that are available in them tend to create problems as far as going rancid and things of that nature if they sit out in the cabinet.
7. What are the difference in synthetic vitamin e and natural vitamin e and why is synthetic vitamin e used in Holistic Total Body Support?
Here’s the issue, I am not a big corporation and so my choices about which components of the vitamins I can use are limited to what my supplier has, sadly. If I were making a hundred thousand jars of Holistic Total Body Support every few months, it’s a different story. Unfortunately, I just don’t have the leverage. But the natural vitamin e is always a better choice. The synthetic version is absorbed and it does get into the tissues reasonably well but it doesn’t get absorbed as easily.
I think if there is a condition where your pet needs additional vitamin e, then it is best to go ahead and add that in as in terms of a natural substance. The other issue is that it does reach tissue assimilation but at a lower rate. The other thing too is that many fish oils and things of that nature are preserved with vitamin e as well, so I think there are additional sources that are probably coming into your pet’s body. So, the difficulty is to get a company to produce a multivitamin that has glandular material in it is extremely difficult. Unfortunately, the only other alternative out there is really standard process whole body support but it is not a complete and balanced supplement so what I am trying to do with Holistic Total Body Support is to provide you a multivitamin that will provide a complete and balanced nutrition as well as the glandular components at a reasonable price.
For frame of reference, I think Holistic Total Body Support is up to like 54 dollars or something and it gives you literally half of the dosing that you can get. So, I hope that makes sense.
8. Does the CrockPet Diet have enough nutrients for an 8 – week old puppy?
It does. It is complete and balanced for all life stages but you may need to add additional amounts or volumes of food to keep up with the volume of growth that your puppy will be doing. And actually, down here too, evidently, the heeler that had a tummy upset and just wants nothing to do with the kibble at this point so maybe it is the kibble. What I would do is just feed plain rice or potatoes until the belly upset is done and then start mixing in CrockPet and see what happens.
Guys, take good care and I’m sorry I’m not as smart today but I will hopefully be next weeks. Thanks very much! We’ll be doing a Black Friday Cyber Monday sale of 25% off of the entire store. We’re going to start the sale this week. By this afternoon, we should have that up and going, so head over to the store and anything that you would like to purchase will be 25% off. Until next week, and take good care! Remember you your pets’ best health starts in the bowl.
