Whole raw sardines are amongst our easiest raw meals, fed with very little prep at the House of Two Bows. I used to get them from the grocery store in frozen bags or bundles of 8 or 16, where each fish consistently weighed two ounces. Lately, I’ve only been able to obtain larger sardines, averaging 4 ~ 5 ounces apiece, which is a very workable size.
These are the nutrition facts for 100 grams (3.527 ounces) of raw, whole sardines:
(via Livestrong.com, http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/nutrition-calories/food/generic/sardines-whole/)
Ignore the % Daily Values, as the calculations are based on a human, 2000 Calorie diet. For her ideal size and activity level, Bowpi’s recommended daily intake is about 500 ~ 600 calories, while Bowdu needs over 700 calories. However, I don’t bother counting calories for myself, let alone my dogs. Instead, I measure out their food by weight or volume, and adjust as necessary. When fed raw meats, Bowpi typically gets 4 oz. at dinnertime, and Bowdu gets 5 oz.
According to the nutrition information, I could stand to give them much more than a single 4 oz. sardine to make a meal with adequate caloric content. Seems I could even give them each two sardines, if it wasn’t for the fat? I usually offer a side of pumpkin or sweet potato, mixed with various supplements.
GotMercury.org lists sardines as a low hazard fish for mercury content, calculated at 0.016 ppm. We don’t feed raw fish more than twice a week.
Bowdu and Bowpi are always fed separately, since Bowdu eats much faster and would chase Bowpi off her share if he wasn’t obstructed or restrained. Usually, Bowdu gets his meal in the kitchen, and Bowpi gets hers behind a closed door in my study room. As part of their twice-daily mealtime ritual, Bowdu will wait outside of Bowpi’s closed door until she’s done eating. She signals her completion by jumping up on the futon and licking herself (the Basenji version of tidying up after a meal, like a cat), at which point I’ll allow Bowdu into the room to conduct a final inspection of her dish to confirm that she didn’t leave anything behind. Only then will he relax, knowing there are no more edibles at stake.
14 September 2011. A scrap of partly-frozen ostrich bone as a treat, not a meal.
It’s a little different with raw meals. Bowdu is still given his share in his bowl, in the kitchen, but he will immediately pluck out his raw, meaty bone and head directly to the backyard, which is perfect and mess-free. Bowpi is served in my study room, on a towel because she will drag her meat out of the bowl and plop it down on the floor. And if she is not monitored, she will drag it up onto the futon or off the towel, so someone has to be around to watch her eat.
For me, it is a pleasure to watch and hear her eat her raw meals. She is a careful, methodic chewer, as graceful as one can be when tearing at a hunk of flesh and crunching bone. But yes, it is kind of a chore to babysit her meal for the sake of sanitation, which is something that the Doggy Daddy apparently had no patience for when I was out of town last month.
Instead, he sent both dogs into the backyard, leashed up Bowdu while he let Bowpi drag her leash, and fed them both out there. It’s a system that worked out pretty well for him since he only wanted to deal with raw sardines, a fairly efficient meal, and none of the poultry that I often mix into the menu.
13 September 2011
I still prefer to feed Bowpi on towels in my room, especially as nightfall approaches earlier at year’s wane (too dark for dinner). But the DD’s system allowed me to finally get pictures of Bowpi feeding outdoors, in natural light, as it’s difficult to capture her rapid movements any other way.
Photographing Bowdu is also a matter of speed because he finishes his fish in about four quick chomps. Like Bowpi, Bowdu also prefers to start with the head. (Apologies to anyone who’s easily squicked…) After he finishes, he’ll quietly watch Bowpi consume her dinner, after which she’ll trot straight indoors. Then we release him, he rushes over to snort her patch of fishgut-splattered grass, and finding not so much as a fin with which to floss his teeth, he resigns himself to the sad fact that dinner is over!
no rolling? when kitsu watches tsuki eat, he is forced to wait until she’s done dragging and sniffing and licking and contemplating. when she’s done, he sprints to her spot, sniffs then rolls if we don’t beat him to the wet residue of what was formally something raw.
i need to find whole raw sardines! so far i’ve only found whole trout and smelt in our neck of the woods.
No rolling, thank goodness! We’d be feeding fish a lot less if that was part of the ritual. He saves his rolling habits only for the most savory smells of uncertain origin on the trails. =P
Whole trout would be interesting to feed! I haven’t really fed any bigger fish (we’ve done salmon after freezing — but just parts, not whole). Pike mackerel is another one they like a lot. There’s yellowthread in the freezer at the moment, which I hope will go over well. Smelt is thus far the only meat that NEITHER Bow will eat.
Don’t you love that Bowdu will always check Bowpi’s area for food even though he has had little success in finding anything?
Do you allow them to crunch and eat the bones? My fear has always been that Shio would swallow pieces of the bone and cause some sort of blockage.
Absolutely. They need the bone as well. What’s gone in has never caused problems coming out — for us, anyway. Sometimes they do get extra hard, bony poops when they’ve gotten a particularly bony hunk, but it comes out…
It’s definitely worth researching the potential risks, but I think most raw feeders will assure you that it’s fine. You can decide your level of comfort with it. I think most dogs ‘naturally’ know what to do with bone-in meat, but occasionally some dogs need to be taught how to chew, instead of gulping large pieces of bone that could potentially be a problem. But raw bones are probably more digestible than, say, a Greenie. [Warning: unverified claim =)]
Not sure how I would feel about fish known to have LOTS of hard, prickly bones, though. Sardines seem pretty safe.
Yummy whole raw Sardines lucky! I can only get them caned.. Hare today has sardines and herring.
Saya loves smelt she also gets whole saury and sometimes mackerel. I ran out of it so need to go to the Asian market to pick up more saury and mackerel..
Saya handles pork ribs, lamb ribs, turkey drumstick, and split pig’s foot with no issue can’t find it whole anywhere. It’s very bone heavy, but the pig skin is nice and chewy.
Only bones I avoid is beef bones ribs haven’t been on sale and I probably would just let her strip the meat off beef bones seem pretty hard.
“She is a careful, methodic chewer, as graceful as one can be when tearing at a hunk of flesh and crunching bone”
Saya is like that too she crunches up her bone in meals well and takes her time, but boneless she eats fast so I feed those frozen to slow her. hehe meatcicle.
Saya looks so refined and eats like a queen. I am shocked that there’s something I feed that *you* can’t get! You feed her everything!
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