# Which Pork Ribs Are Okay?



## 3RingCircus (May 24, 2010)

As you can see, I keep asking because I'm a little hesitant about feeding beef or pork ribs to my puppies. I'm used to the chicken hindquarters but "cluck, cluck, cluck" I'm chicken on the ribs. :redface: Last time I checked I hadn't grown any feathers yet. :biggrin:

My local grocers has a sale on pork ribs. Here's the two options:

pork medium spareribs

pork country style spareribs

What's the difference? Can I feed either one? 

Thanks!


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## dobesgalore (Oct 21, 2009)

I have fed the country style and mine all loved them. They seemed to have a lot more meat on them than bone. The bone was like a small piece at the end of the rib. It was enough I could hear them crunching, and the meat was thick so they had to really work at chewing it. It would probably be fine for your puppy.


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

The spareribs aren't really considered a RMB as it is a mostly a meat meal and little, if any bone. The pork ribs that I give the dogs look like pork babybacks but are a little different and arent as expensive, they give the dogs more of a chewing session.


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## JayJayisme (Aug 2, 2009)

It's the country-style ribs that aren't really considered ribs. They are cut from the blade end of the loin close to the pork shoulder and are meatier than other rib cuts. But they contain no rib bones, and therefore are not technically ribs.

That leaves baby back ribs, spare ribs, and rib tips. Baby-backs are are taken from the top of the rib cage between the spine and the spare ribs. These are usually premium priced as they are highly desirable as people-food. 

Spare ribs are taken from the belly side of the rib cage, below the section of back ribs and above the sternum (breast bone), and are flatter and contain more bone than meat. These racks of ribs often contain the rib tips, which are short, meaty sections of rib that are attached to the lower end of the spare ribs, between the ribs and the sternum and contain dense cartilage rather than bone.

I feed my dogs spare ribs since they contain a good percentage of bone and are often obtained for less than $1/lb. Both of my dogs are fairly small so I trim the rack into individual ribs, the smaller ones going to my 17 lb male, and the larger ones going to my 42 lb female. Watch out for the ones on the ends of the rack, which are often trimmed at an angle through the bone leaving those bones as sharp as a knife. I trim those off and discard them.

For larger dogs, you will need to trim the rack so several bones remain together, from 3 to 5 depending on the size of your dog and his/her eating habits. Just make sure you give them enough that they have to take their time and chew the ribs.

Spare ribs are great because they are soft enough for almost any dog to eat them whole, including the entire bone. Even my little 17 lb male can chew through the bones as long as I give him the smaller ones.


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

dobesgalore said:


> I have fed the country style and mine all loved them. They seemed to have a lot more meat on them than bone.


More meat than bone is good. :smile:



> The bone was like a small piece at the end of the rib. It was enough I could hear them crunching, and the meat was thick so they had to really work at chewing it. It would probably be fine for your puppy.


Whenever I feed these to my dogs, I cut off the bone at the end and throw it away. It's not necessary to feed bone every meal and even preferable to feed some boneless meals and I am just afraid of those small bones.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

We get spare ribs for the girls all the time. Its considered a relatively large meal in our house since we cut an average whole rack in half to feed two dogs. I would say a whole rack of spare ribs could be easily split between your kids for a good sized meal.

Don't worry about feeding pork ribs. You will see that it really is a piece of cake for your sized dogs. Just make sure that you give them a whole bunch of ribs stuck together and not one rib at a time because one rib is easily swallowed whole (which isn't a huge concern since our Dane puppy still does this on occasion without issue but it can be- just keep that in mind). Confidence will come with experience so just take the plunge and git 'er done!

Side note: How are your boys doing so far on the raw diet?


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## 3RingCircus (May 24, 2010)

JayJayisme said:


> Spare ribs are taken from the belly side of the rib cage, below the section of back ribs and above the sternum (breast bone), and are flatter and contain more bone than meat. These racks of ribs often contain the rib tips, which are short, meaty sections of rib that are attached to the lower end of the spare ribs, between the ribs and the sternum and contain dense cartilage rather than bone.
> 
> I feed my dogs spare ribs since they contain a good percentage of bone and are often obtained for less than $1/lb. Both of my dogs are fairly small so I trim the rack into individual ribs, the smaller ones going to my 17 lb male, and the larger ones going to my 42 lb female. Watch out for the ones on the ends of the rack, which are often trimmed at an angle through the bone leaving those bones as sharp as a knife. I trim those off and discard them.
> 
> ...


Okay, I think there is this odd bone, sternum  , attached to one side of the spareribs. I tried to remove it and this is what I found. This sternum piece is connected to two long, nearly round, side-by-side, whitish bone-like pieces. These are attached to the spareribs. Do I cut off that whole area and cut it off where it attaches to the spareribs?

There are only two pieces like this in the sparerib set. There's plenty of meat attached to the spareribs on the edge where I found the odd bone.

I might take a picture to make this clearer.

I don't think I'd want to serve this sternum bone ??? , right? It reminds me of a spine but without the separated cartilage in between the bone.


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

I feed that bone all the time to my good chewer Leo, haven't had any issues with it whatsoever. I chop it in half though!


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## JayJayisme (Aug 2, 2009)

3RingCircus said:


> Okay, I think there is this odd bone, sternum  , attached to one side of the spareribs. I tried to remove it and this is what I found.


Since your dogs are pretty large, you can probably feed this bone with all the ribs that are attached to it at once. I do feed this bone to my female after I've removed it from the rib rack. She's only about 42 lbs but she eats it easily. When I feed her this piece, I give her some extra boneless meat to keep the ratio of meat to bone proper.


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## 3RingCircus (May 24, 2010)

Here is a link which shows the pork cuts.

http://www.amazingribs.com/images/pix/pork_cuts_large.jpg

Here's a website where they explain where each pork rib cut comes from.

BBQ Ribs Recipes, Barbecue Recipes, Grilling Recipes, Baby Back Ribs, Barbecue Spare Ribs, Outdoor Cooking, Rating Barbecue Grills and Smokers


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