Liver, liver, liver

[Love my lab]

hahaha that is to funny sprocket. My girl eats liver like its nobodys buisness, 1st time she was given kidney she dropped it on the floor and looked at me like ummmm you want me to eat this smelly crap???? She got over it and eats it, but does not enjoy it as much as liver. Oddly, I discovered and can't figure out why my dog refuses liver from wild turkey and goose......strange. I guess ya have to do what ya have to do as long as the liver goes down the hatch. Dogs are smart and can pick out what they don't like that is for sure, so if you can get it down w/ a little parm cheese then keep sprinkleing less and less, hopefully it will become an aquired taste. Good luck :)

[kathylcsw]

Tonight I added liver to Lola's evening meal. For the past 2 weeks I gave her tiny pieces twice in a week. This week and next week I am adding it in 3x per week. I put 4 grams of beef liver in with her venison tonight and added some blood from the venison. Tonight she ate it without any parmesan having to be added. I don't know if the blood helped or if she is going to be ok eating it. I guess I will see next time I feed her some. It just feels like it is going to take forever to get her anywhere near the 10%. I hope that I can find some other organs and be able to just do 5% liver but so far no luck at all.

[kathylcsw]

We may be over the hump with liver - fingers crossed. I gave Lola 8 grams of beef liver in deer blood on Wednesday and she ate it with no problems. Tonight she had an egg for dinner and I added 8 grams of liver in with the egg and she ate it!! Her poop has been perfect too. I am trying to be patient and continue going slowly. My plan is another week of giving liver 3x with an increase from 8 grams to 11 grams. The on to 11 grams 4x per week for 2 weeks and so on up to 10%.

If liver is the only only organ I am able to find she will have to eat 80 grams per week to get 10%. I am hopeful that I can reach that goal by the middle or end of March. Of course I may finally find some other organs so then it will only be 40 grams of liver. Are other organs easier to get them to eat than liver?? The way Buster wolfs down everything I am pretty sure that I won't have any trouble getting him to eat liver.

[kathylcsw]

Looks like Lola is not a fan of chicken liver. I put in 11 grams with an egg last night and she ate all around it. It had been a long day and I was tired so I threw it away rather than putting some parmesan on to see if she would eat it like that. Tonight I will use the beef liver she will eat and will add a pinch of chicken liver. It would just figure that she won't eat the dirt cheap chicken liver that I can get for .69 a lb! Luckily it looks like Buster will eat it! He is not ready to add liver yet but I gave him a tiny taste of it before I threw it away and he swallowed it on down. Not that I had any doubts since he lives for food.

I did find pork kidney at a local ethnic market so I will introduce that to Lola in the next couple of weeks. I want to feed her the liver at 10% for another week then slowly add the kidney in the following week.

Wth Buster I am introducing fish this week and he is doing fine. I plan on starting beef with him next week. Once that is introuduced he will be on chicken, turkey, pork, deer, fish, and beef. Then in the beginning of March I will start with the liver. It is so hard not to rush him so that he will be caught up with Lola. It would be so much simpler if they both ate the same thing every day. I will be patient though because I know that by April at the latest I will be done with introducing new proteins and organs (for the most part) and will just be feeding it all.

[kathylcsw]

Lola won't eat pork liver either! I fed it to her last night with deer and deer blood. She ate everything but the liver. I even tried adding Parmesan this time but she just licked away all the cheese and left the liver. The good news is that my cat will eat pork liver.

So this morning I fed her beef liver and she ate it all up. For now I will stick with the $3/lb beef liver I guess! In time I will start slipping in little bits of chicken and pork liver to try to get her used to it.

[Sprocket]

Good thing you found something! I haven't tried any liver except chicken liver because I have so much on hand :)

I did find a good way to feed it to Sprocket. I mash it up into his ground venison...he can't really pick it out and he REALLY likes venison ;)

[Mondo]

Liver goes down good. I've got some kidney in the freezer. I'm not sure how that is going to go over. I've seen humans on TV eating kidney, and it seems it can have a "unique" taste, cough.

[NewYorkDogue]

hahaha that is to funny sprocket. My girl eats liver like its nobodys buisness, 1st time she was given kidney she dropped it on the floor and looked at me like ummmm you want me to eat this smelly crap????

Same thing happened with my pup. He has never refused anything raw I've given him-- and eats liver (all kinds) like a champ.

Well, I finally found some kidney and thought he would just inhale it like everything else. Nope. First time he actually left something behind, that sad chunk of blobby kidney. Next day, I decided to chop it up and mix it in with some tripe- it worked.

So, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do...

[Herzo]

Mine ate the kidney no problem, sorry. they still haven't turned down anything. I need to take out the last bag of it, I'm bad about feeding it and they have only had a little. It's kind of gross. I would much rather feed liver.

[kathylcsw]

Lola is finally eating the frozen beef liver regularly. I measure her food in grams because the math is easier so she needs 40 grams of liver and 40 grams other organ weekly to get the 10%. All she needs for her 5% of liver is 5 more grams!! I will get that tonight and I have been adding bits of pork kidney each day too. Her poop is great, small and formed!!

She wouldn't eat the thawed kidney but has eaten the frozen bits with no problems - so far. Since I will get her liver for the week in tonight I will start increasing the amount of kidney and may actually got thet 10% in this week too. I am so happy to finally be getting in the liver and organs. Since she is till so young - 8 months old - I have been worried that she is missing out on needed nutrients.

Now if Buster does well with the beef I will start liver with him in the next week or so. He is younger than Lola so I really want to get him started since he needs the nutritional value. I am so close to having them both through this transition period that I can almost feel it now!