I want you to know that chicken broth for dogs, as well as heart, giblets, pate… are wonderful foods for your dog if you know how to give them, but if not, they can be very dangerous, now I explain it to you.
I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but it’s common for people to ask me if they can mix pellets (processed food) with natural food, whether it’s leftovers or more specific things (soaking pellets with chicken broth is classic).
Or they also tell me: “I mix half pellets and half natural”. As you may have noticed, I defend that the dog eats pellets, but as a COMPLEMENT. And that they are quality pellets.
Two things are important here: why do they mix it, and why is it dangerous?
The first one is clear, the owner is dismayed because the dog doesn’t want to eat his food, he doesn’t understand it, if it’s what he has been eating for the last two years! The answer is very simple: the dog is fed up with eating the same thing day and night. Wouldn’t you get fed up after 3 days?
What I frankly recommend, if you love your dog, is to alternate natural food with other pellet foods. Did you see what word I used? ALTERNATE, not MIX.
What happens? If you mix, the natural food is “sequestered”, this leads to inadequate fermentation in the stomach causing gas and from there you can go on to gastric dilatation.
Chicken giblets for dogs (including heart and gizzards)
I consider that chicken giblets, including the heart, are excellent ONLY AS A SUPPLEMENT, I put it in capital letters and bold letters to make it clear. That is why the title is so alarming, if you give these foods to your puppy as the basis of his diet, you will develop serious bone problems in him. Why? Because they are very high in phosphorus.
In the body there is a calcium-phosphorus relationship, with the calcium concentration being higher, so if you give food high in phosphorus, it rises and the body tries to compensate. It takes calcium out of the bones to balance. What happens to those bones? They become demineralized and start to twist, this is also known as secondary nutritional hyperparathyroidism in dogs.
Tip. Chicken liver, gizzards, heart, giblets in general. If your dog does not eat the pellets, you should first buy quality commercial dog food free of cereals, and then add only 5% of the total processed food in the form of natural food, such as liver or heart.
Example: if you give your dog 200 grams of pellets, give him 190 grams of pellets plus ten grams of natural food. LET ME MAKE SOMETHING CLEAR: pellets are only a SUPPLEMENT, 80 – 90% of the time you should give him fresh and natural food. Feeding a dog with dry, highly industrialized pellets IS CRUEL AND UNNATURAL.
Can I use chicken broth for dogs and pâté with other natural foods?
When you feed your dog natural and quality food, it is classic that you use chicken broth, I don’t see any problem, just avoid that it is too spicy.
Regarding chicken pâtés, if you give them occasionally I see no problem, but only occasionally, and the higher the quality of that product, the better.
Other foods you can use are: a little melted butter (better than margarine), any type of animal fat such as bacon, bacon, chicken skin, etc. Egg in the form of omelette, scrambled or hard-boiled; a little bit of ham. If you notice, all the sources I mention are animal fat or protein.
Let’s think about it, the dog’s digestive system is created to swallow and therefore to store large pieces of food, not pellets.
Is chicken broth for dogs dangerous if you give it mixed with feed or kibble?
I finally answer the central theme of this article! It is dangerous for two reasons:
First: because the pellets are much more likely to generate gastric torsion or volvulus (which is the dilation of the stomach as if it were a balloon that swells until it bursts) with fatal consequences.
Second: because the digestion times of natural food are much shorter than those of pellets. If you mix the pellets with chicken broth for dogs, they swell right away, and this mixture remains in the stomach for many hours, which increases the chances of developing volvulus or gastric torsion.
One of the serious dangers of pellets in large breed dogs is volvulus and gastric torsion. My dog died from eating feed or kibble.
If you want to know more about processed foods and their possibilities of creating a gastric volvulus or gastric torsion, check out this article: Dangerous dog food or kibble.
It has been scientifically proven that processed food (feed, kibble, pellets) is much more likely to develop volvulus, gastric torsion… and the smaller the food, the greater the chances.
Yet another advantage of homemade food: the size of the food pieces is much larger than the largest of the pellets.
So you know: ALTERNATE, DON’T MIX.
Pedigree dog food sachets
I put this as an aside, because so many people ask me the same question: are pedigree sachets good for my dog if I mix them with his pellets?
Well, it is similar to the chicken broth mixed with the pellets that I just explained above. Also, I consider it a low quality food, look at the ingredients. It will be much HEALTHIER, CHEAPER and NUTRITIOUS for you to make the food for your dog.
One more thing, never put your dog in activity after eating, especially if it is processed food.
In case you don’t know, the pellets (kibbles, feed) need ten or more hours to leave the stomach, during that time they remain there and this leads to fermentation with the consequent production of gas and you can be about to pass to the dangerous volvulus.
If you see your dog getting restless and you feel the stomach area start to swell, don’t waste a minute, it’s a life or death emergency, to the vet!
Chicken broth, giblets, livers, heart, skin, pate for dogs. Conclusion
Let it be clear that these foods are not bad (BUT UNDERSTAND THAT THEY ARE ONLY A SUPPLEMENT).
If you give them in very small quantities or occasionally there will be no problem, but if you use them as the basis of their diet you will soon have problems in their general health and, above all, in the musculoskeletal system and renal and hepatic damage.
If you want to know about puppy nutrition I recommend my puppy food article.
Here is a series of recommended articles:
- Can dogs eat rice, noodles, pasta?
- Can dogs eat onions? Tricky truths about forbidden foods for your dog
- Puppy food and food for puppies. Key tips
- Calcium for adult dogs and puppies
- How to get your dog to eat kibble. 7 tricks
- Foods that regenerate the liver in dogs (liver disease)
Subscribe to the free online workshop on nutrition for dogs
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