Can I ask you raw feeders whether you feed/consider it safe to feed lamb shanks (neck). My butcher has given me about 10 having removed the fillets for human consumption and they look lovely and meaty. However, I have never fed them before and am a little nervous. My dogs are GSDs so I wouldn't think they'd have problems, they have chicken wings and raw whole fish regularly.

Thank you in anticipation of your advice
Kat

My Dobe is fine with them :) They seem to provide a really good jaw workout, being one of the only rmbs that he'll eat some of and then set the rest aside for later - almost everything else gets woofed down in a flash! I do give him a small amount of liver as part of the meal as the bone seems to be quite dense and makes his poo very crumbly otherwise

My dogs would probably have your arm off if you offered them a lamb shank :D

I'd have no particular qualms about feeding lamb shanks although I never have as any lamb shanks in this house are purely for human consumption :)

Though my butcher told me they were shanks, I'm not so sure. They are the neck, with the fillets removed. Is that shank? Again, is it safe?

Kat

Shanks are leg ... ;) Be afraid of a butcher who doesn't know his neck from his leg! :D Perhaps he meant 'scrag'?

If it is lamb neck, then I feed that all the time with no problems at all :)

Bit confused myself now :rolleyes: My Dobe has necks - not sure these are called shanks though?

Lol... youve got yourself right Muddled there Kat havent you! :D
scroll down to the 2nd row from the bottomp pictures of Lamb shanks fore (shoulder) and hind (leg) so you can see the difference from neck :)
  Its funny coming from a very rural Norwegian background my familys dogs have always been raw fed, and so of course I knew no different (they are bemused by all this 'Barf' talk) anyyway.. its funny because for all my experience Im more wary of chicken wings (for med-large dogs) than I am of shank!!

Muddled doesn't even begin to describe it :rolleyes: I blame the butcher, it's definitely neck because I asked him what part of the animal it was when he offered them to me, and it is definitely not leg!, but I'm still sure he also said shank I'm definitely a wannabe raw feeder, without the courage to go the whole hog (pardon the pun ). I dabble, and give the dogs variety with wings and whole fish, whole eggs including shell, tripe and organ meat etc, and have until now fed complete as well with a few frozen vegetables added. However I have read various articles a few years ago and again more recently about the ingredients and preparation of complete foods, and I really don't want to feed it anymore. What I really want to do is feed good quality meat with some raw meaty bones and a good plain mixer for a little bulk. I do worry though about getting it wrong in terms of good nutrition. I have just recently introduced chicken backs with a little trepidation, but the lamb necks look very knobby and I was wondering if they could cause choking or a blockage.

I've read fully about barf and also the prey model diet, and I agree with some but not all of the points put forward for feeding these diets. I actually WANT to fall somewhere in the middle, with a diet that is easy to feed, but is excellent quality so that I KNOW what they are eating. SO if I feed a good variety of raw, with some frozen veg (again, convenience) with a plain organic mixer occasionally substitued with a wholewheat pasta is this a good diet? Do I need to supplement it?

Ahhhhh that gets confusing.

Why do you want to feed mixer or pasta? Dogs dont need carbs like those (in fact, nor do we but thats a totally different post :D).

Feeding those things will do what? Well mostly, it will just create dog poo, it may give them a bit more energy but theres nothing in mixer or pasta that they need so its going ot come out the other end.

The problem with it is, it will obviously be a part of their ration and as such take the place of other food. And that other food may be more nutritious.

My dogs only get pasta when i have been a fool and forgotten to defrost something.

So if you can feed a good variety of raw with veg (better off blended than just frozen), including meaty bones, you have no need to feed anything else. No need to supplement, although some of us do, i chuck in a bit of keepers mix from time to time, sometimes some vit e and epo for my allergy boy...nothing religiously added though....

If you take out some of that good varied raw diet,a dn replace it with processed carbs, then you might need to supplement and i wouldnt know where to start there. You are making it far more complicated than it need be.

I dont think it would hurt if you threw in some pasta from time to time, but there is no need for it, its the same as it does no harm to throw in some crisps into your own diet, for the variety ...... not for the nutritional value.