# Calcium in raw bones. . .



## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

Doing a little reading today and came across some info that raw bones as a single calcium source may not be enough for dogs. I have no idea if there is anything to this and was curious about others thoughts on this.

The claim is that raw bones (especially ones bought at a grocery store) are old and more dried out not offering as much beneficial calcium and that dogs (including dogs/wolves in the wild) would get more calcium from the blood of their prey than the bones. Grocery store meat/meat for human consumption is drained of most of the blood. Bones have high phos amounts along with calcium, added to meat which is moderately high in phos won't be enough calcium to balance out properly. I think Dr. Pitcairn talks about possible lead levels in bones, I'm not too concerned about this since I feed mostly poultry bones where the animals don't live as long to build up the lead levels in their bones. Beyond bones my dogs do eat whole eggs, one will eat the shell and one won't, I've heard they don't get as much calcium out of the shell unless it's finely ground.

http://mypetnaturally.com/ebooks/SufficientCalcuim.pdf

The Importance of Calcium in Natural Homemade Dog Food and Natural Homemade Cat Food

Also reading a post on another forum made me curious. . . It was claimed that Calcium from bones are not as absorbable as calcium from blood and that blood is a major source of calcium.


Are there any studies on the avaibilty/absorbtion of the calcium in raw bones vs the avaiability/absorbtion of calcium in blood for dogs?

I found this which seems a little relative, but it's from 1952
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/49/2/197.full.pdf

Maybe none of this is really anything to be concerned about?


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

I've always been concerned about calcium/phosphorus ratio. I do see it as something every raw feeder should be concerned about. It's probably the main reason Snorkels stays constipated, because I'm not willing to reduce the amount of bone she eats.

there is some calcium in meat and blood. However, there is also alot of phosphorus. I feed Snorkels ground whole chicken, goat, and turkey that are farm raised. I also supplement her with ground eggshells.

Rebel I don't worry about as much - he can eat venison ribs, lambsheads, etc for alot wider variety of bone and i give him lots of blood.

It's been over a year and so far their calcium levels and bones look good. I don't think it's something to freak out over, but I do think people need to be aware of it.

I also wouldn't use storebought eggshells for a calcium supplement. I would never use a fake calcium supplement, nor God forbid something like tums.


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## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

I put their diet into Nutrition Data as best I could with what limited info on the RMB's I could find, and the Cal/Phos ratios looked pretty good.

The eggs I get are either fresh from farms (including my inlaws) or from Whole foods being organic/free range etc. Maybe I should start giving my dogs some blood, where are people getting their blood sources from?

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/04/the-red-juice-in-raw-red-meat-is-not-blood/


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

i don't buy blood. I just give Rebel the blood from the meat that sits in the fridge.

Blood makes snorkels puke, even in smallish amounts. So I can't give her very much.

I think the egg is the perfect food! 

Plus, when you talk to people here who have been feeding raw for a long time, I haven't seen one time a calcium problem. You hear horror stores that vets tell people, but I am thinking it can't be all that difficult to get it right.


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## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

> Plus, when you talk to people here who have been feeding raw for a long time, I haven't seen one time a calcium problem. You hear horror stores that vets tell people, but I am thinking it can't be all that difficult to get it right.


True, and I have been raw feeding for 1.5 years now and so far no issues that I'm aware, although I get the impression dogs are pretty good at living with some lack for long periods of time. Who knows, I've always assumed you just have to be close, never exact with the ratios and amounts.


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## Caty M (Aug 13, 2010)

The amount of time a bone is sitting out doesn't reduce it's calcium content. Calcium or calcium compounds don't evaporate at normal temperatures.


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## bullyBug (May 31, 2012)

I just can't buy into this with out seeing some hard evidence. My raw fed dog and cats have had yearly bloodwork done for over ten years and their chemistries have always been within normal ranges.

The harm that can come from people rushing to add calcium to their dogs (PMR) diets based on this article is much more disconcerting.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

Roo said:


> True, and I have been raw feeding for 1.5 years now and so far no issues that I'm aware, although I get the impression dogs are pretty good at living with some lack for long periods of time. Who knows, I've always assumed you just have to be close, never exact with the ratios and amounts.


I think Bill has been feeding raw for over a decade with no problems. Wolfsnaps, for five. Liz's mentor, for over something like 25 years.

I'm not sure how long it would take to show up but it's been over a year for me and i get my dogs blood tested every three months, and snorkels has had several x-rays and I always ask if her bones look dense enough. I am aware that if my dogs are leaching calcium from their bones to make up for a lack in the diet, it may not show up in bloodwork for awhile.

This is an interesting article on it:
Dawg Business: It's Your Dog's Health!: What Do Those Nutrients Do? Calcium



> Because of its importance, your dog's body has a control mechanism to keep blood calcium at proper levels. When blood calcium levels drop, calcium is withdrawn from the bones to correct the deficit. If your dog doesn't get enough calcium in his diet, or cannot absorb it properly, it will result in loss of bone density.
> 
> There can be quite a substantial bone density loss before calcium deficiency might show up on blood work or present with other symptoms!


It does seem to me that sometimes folks aren't giving their dogs enough calcium. My dogs get bone every day, not every 2,3, or 4 days. But since I feed alot of red meat and more organs than most I know I'm feeding more phosphorus, especially to Snorkels.

I think in the end nature does balanace itself out, as long as we are feeding as much of the prey animal as we can, including the correct proportion of bone.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

bullyBug said:


> I just can't buy into this with out seeing some hard evidence. My raw fed dog and cats have had yearly bloodwork done for over ten years and their chemistries have always been within normal ranges.
> 
> The harm that can come from people rushing to add calcium to their dogs (PMR) diets based on this article is much more disconcerting.


I agree. It's why I would never supplement, except with some eggshell for Snorkels because of her unique constipation problem. I think we could do more harm than good throwing extra crap at them. AND, the Vitamin D thing - I don't want my dogs ODing on vitamin D because I panicked.

I would think within a decade your dogs would have showed a problem by now  - actually, I think MY dogs would have showed a problem in a year. I mean, I don't think calcium deficiency is a ticking timebomb that you have to worry about happening 10 years down the road.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

Caty M said:


> The amount of time a bone is sitting out doesn't reduce it's calcium content. Calcium or calcium compounds don't evaporate at normal temperatures.


Good point.


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## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

> I just can't buy into this with out seeing some hard evidence. My raw fed dog and cats have had yearly bloodwork done for over ten years and their chemistries have always been within normal ranges.
> 
> The harm that can come from people rushing to add calcium to their dogs (PMR) diets based on this article is much more disconcerting.


That's what I was wondering, the evidence of the availability/absorption of calcium in raw bones vs blood for dogs, because it didn't really make sense to me either considering as Xellil pointed out, there is phos in blood too. I agree adding unnecessary calcium to PMR could be bad.

With regular blood work it's not the whole calcium picture though, isn't it just the calcium amounts in the blood not the bone? I thought I read somewhere that Ionized calcium tests were better at showing the important calcium amounts, I could be wrong.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

I think the calcium deficiency in blood won't show up until the calcium has been leached out of the bone, to cause the drop.

I haven't asked about bone density tests or some other kinds of tests. I supposed if someone was really concerned about it, they could get those tests.

I consider myself very focused on the calcium/phosphorus ratio - I think about it every day and try to get it right. But I have faith in the PMR method enough that I'm not going to ask for those tests. I think my dog's bones are just fine.


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## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

I do know one of my parent's neighbors fed their boxer mix nothing but boneless raw beef meat for at least a year, with I guess a multi vitamin and the dog seemed to be ok, blood work and everything was fine, obviously it wasn't a balanced raw diet and when the neighbors mentioned it to my mother, my mother started talking to them about a PMR diet and the importance of adding bones and organs, they have since switched their dog to PMR, who has more energy now according to the owner. I agree it seems like Calcium deficiencies might take awhile to show up.

I could see possibly getting a more in depth calcium test maybe once every 3 years or so, if the owner was really concerned.

I think what made me curious the most about the info was the part about blood being a major source of calcium and more absorbable.


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## Kat (Jul 12, 2011)

The ratio is supposed to be 1 phosphorus : 2 calcium right?


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## Caty M (Aug 13, 2010)

All I know is I have raised a dog of a breed EXTREMELY prone to leg breaks (one in every three dogs break), on PMR since eight weeks and we have not had one incident.


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## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

The ratio can vary a little depending on what you read and who you talk to, but supposedly it should be between 1:1 to 2:1 Cal/Phos


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## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

I posted this on one other forum to also get their take on it and I thought this was an interesting reply. . .

_"I find that interesting. A normal blood calcium level of a dairy cow or heifer is on average of 9.5 mg per 100 mL of blood. That means that a 33 lb dog needing 750 mg of calcium a day would have to drink 2 gallons of cow's blood to get that calcium.

In turn, as far as I have been able to find, a chicken's bone has 5.5 g of calcium per 100 g which is a lot less chicken bone than blood. Of course, when you call the availability of the calcium to be absorbed, that's a different story. But, I honestly don't know if I could get any of my guys (one a lot bigger than 33 lbs) to drink two gallons of cow's blood a day..."_


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## Caty M (Aug 13, 2010)

They'd be peeing all day!


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## Caty M (Aug 13, 2010)

What form is calcium in within the blood as compared to the bone? Because apparently in an average animal 98-99% of the calcium is stored in the bones and teeth.


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## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

> What form is calcium in within the blood as compared to the bone? Because apparently in an average animal 98-99% of the calcium is stored in the bones and teeth.


Good Point, I'm not sure. I'm planing on asking the author of the post this and other questions soon, when they get back from their trip. They've had some interesting things to say about PMR recently on another forum.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

the calcium that shows up in the blood test is not necessarily a true test, but it is an indication.

it just shows how much calcium is in the blood stream at the time the test was taken....so depending on your medication, the supps you take, the calcium you ate, how often you ate it, will usually determine the numbers.

on the flip side, johns hopkins was conducting some experiments...well, not the university per se, but a bunch of med students who decided to take blood every day for two months and test it.

the blood panes were taken from four vegans, four vegetarians, and four omnivores.

the diet was set in stone. no one deviated.

the blood work was, across the board, similar enough to have made no real difference.

the point to this is i think our dogs are fine, as long as they do get enough calcium on a daily basis.....because what the body doesn't use is peed out. which is the same for all water soluble minerals and vitamins and electrolytes.

my question is this..


since dr. billinghurst wrote this, i presume, what is his solution?


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## Caty M (Aug 13, 2010)

Isn't Billinghurst the guy that promotes BARF and is against a strict carnivore diet? I guess his solution would be dairy and veg, then..


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

Caty M said:


> What form is calcium in within the blood as compared to the bone? Because apparently in an average animal 98-99% of the calcium is stored in the bones and teeth.


biochemistry of calcium


what did we do before there were supps ?


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## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

Sorry to disappoint you Re, but the author isn't Billinghurst, just another pet nutrition enthusiast poster on another dog forum that may or may not be an animal nutritionist. Honestly I don't think they even like Ian's Barf diet from a nutrient standpoint, but say they aren't against raw diets, just that many raw diets like PMR fed as is are nutrient lacking.


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## Jordan S. (Feb 2, 2010)

I've done the eggshell think before, I washed them out, baked them for 15 minutes on 250 and put them through the coffee grinder until it was a fine powder. Worked out perfectly.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

Roo said:


> Sorry to disappoint you Re, but the author isn't Billinghurst, just another pet nutrition enthusiast poster on another dog forum that may or may not be an animal nutritionist. Honestly I don't think they even like Ian's Barf diet from a nutrient standpoint, but say they aren't against raw diets, just that many raw diets like PMR fed as is are nutrient lacking.


that'll teach me to read too fast and post when i have the flu.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

Roo said:


> Sorry to disappoint you Re, but the author isn't Billinghurst, just another pet nutrition enthusiast poster on another dog forum that may or may not be an animal nutritionist. Honestly I don't think they even like Ian's Barf diet from a nutrient standpoint, but say they aren't against raw diets, just that many raw diets like PMR fed as is are nutrient lacking.


shoot. i thought pitcairn wrote this, but that's not even true LOL....

billinghurst wasn't even part of this....i am delusional. i don't think ian started out as a dog nutritionist. he started out as a veterinary surgeon....

'course, lonsdale didn't start out as a nutritionist, either. he was a doggie dentist specialist, wasn't he?

and pitcairn..is a vet too.

why i thought any of them had anything to do with this is beyond me.

carry on, everyone. i'll just pretend that i have intelligence. sigh.

but as long as i have foot in mouth disease, if the diet is not a proper one, pmr.....barf or not...physiologically, whatever is lacking will show up sooner rather than later.

i should think that applies as easily to dogs as it does to humans.


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## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

Awww, I hope you're feeling better soon Re. 
Perhaps you thought Dr. Pitcairn because I mentioned him in my first post, I believe the author of the original post does like him and recommends his book. I'm not sure this person is in fact a nutritionist, it may just be they are nothing more than a pet nutrition enthusiast.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

Roo said:


> Awww, I hope you're feeling better soon Re.
> Perhaps you thought Dr. Pitcairn because I mentioned him in my first post, I believe the author of the original post does like him and recommends his book. I'm not sure this person is in fact a nutritionist, it may just be they are nothing more than a pet nutrition enthusiast.


i can understand the question, certainly. and it's a valid one.....one that most of us think about as we move further away from kibble and that type of feeding, where someone else balances the diet.

there is a person on another forum who created a spreadsheet to see if her dogs were getting a balanced diet, especially the ratio of phosphorous to calcium....and as i read it, it seemed very close to what i feed.

humans don't eat a balanced diet daily.

they balance over time.....otherwise, we'd be eating all day long....

i realise dogs who eat a pmr diet have proteins (animal) organs (animal) bone ( animal) and fat ( animal) but there are different sources of animals to provide the crossover for nutrition.

i think, too, that we do have a tendency to feed to much bone....it's easy to do....and that can create a mild case of too much phosphorous....it'd be more worrisome to me....if these were not water soluble....minerals.

i know people who have generations of dogs fed a pmr diet...some using only three or four proteins...

either those dogs have the 'garbage gut healthy' gene or we're doing something right by NOT getting too anal or ocd. 

ok. done rambling....


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## Maritan (Nov 11, 2011)

I suppose reading through all this, I'm curious about how much bone needs to be given to a dog. I know we PMR types feed 80-10-10% of meat-bone-organs adjusting up or down depending on our individual dogs' needs. 

When we feed bone, we typically feed RMBs like turkey necks, chicken backs etc. So, if a turkey neck weighs 0.4lbs, does that whole weight count towards the 10% of the bone quota? Or do I have to count only part of the 0.4lbs (the weight of the actual bone in the neck) towards the 10%?


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## shellbell (Sep 24, 2011)

Calciumhosphorous ratio is something I think about, but I really don't spend much time analyzing it. I just know that I feed tripe and farm fresh raw eggs with shell a few times a week, two things that I know have the perfect calciumhosphorous ration. And I am lucky to have a lot of deer meat to feed, which is as natural as one can get and not from the grocery store. Including lots of deer bones. And mine get a lot of blood, and I get it from their food that has thawed. This is what I use to mix with their Bug Off Garlic, it is the only way Tux will eat it, lol.


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## creek817 (Feb 18, 2012)

Maritan said:


> I suppose reading through all this, I'm curious about how much bone needs to be given to a dog. I know we PMR types feed 80-10-10% of meat-bone-organs adjusting up or down depending on our individual dogs' needs.
> 
> When we feed bone, we typically feed RMBs like turkey necks, chicken backs etc. So, if a turkey neck weighs 0.4lbs, does that whole weight count towards the 10% of the bone quota? Or do I have to count only part of the 0.4lbs (the weight of the actual bone in the neck) towards the 10%?


Turkey Necks are approx. 42% bone. So, that turkey neck would be 0.168 pounds of bone. =)

List of bone percentages for bony meat - Raw Food Diet Forum


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## Chocx2 (Nov 16, 2009)

I think if you give some of everything your good I don't try to over think it


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## Malika04 (May 14, 2012)

Roo said:


> I put their diet into Nutrition Data as best I could with what limited info on the RMB's I could find, and the Cal/Phos ratios looked pretty good.
> 
> The eggs I get are either fresh from farms (including my inlaws) or from Whole foods being organic/free range etc. Maybe I should start giving my dogs some blood, where are people getting their blood sources from?
> 
> The Red Juice in Raw Red Meat is Not Blood


I have a store called Seafood City here and they actually sell beef blood and other animal bloods. I was thinking of buying some and making blood ice cubes for my dogs this summer.


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## bullyBug (May 31, 2012)

Roo said:


> With regular blood work it's not the whole calcium picture though, isn't it just the calcium amounts in the blood not the bone? I thought I read somewhere that Ionized calcium tests were better at showing the important calcium amounts, I could be wrong.


Not the whole picture, but normal results over such a long period of time (and always on at least a 14hr fast), no bone thinning ever present on x-ray, and no outward symptoms ever manifesting are enough of a picture for me.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

Malika04 said:


> I have a store called Seafood City here and they actually sell beef blood and other animal bloods. I was thinking of buying some and making blood ice cubes for my dogs this summer.


when you do that, if you do that, start out with tiny amounts.....although take what i'm saying with a grain of salt..

my dogs do not have garbage guts.

a little bit goes a long way with blood product.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

bullyBug said:


> Not the whole picture, but normal results over such a long period of time (and always on at least a 14hr fast), no bone thinning ever present on x-ray, and no outward symptoms ever manifesting are enough of a picture for me.


that's what i was saying. if there were bone thinning or a real problem with ratios of phosphorous to calcium, we'd see it even before a blood test or xray. 

and any other nutrient missing. potassium would show itself pretty quickly, for instance because there is such a narrow window of too much and too little.

the same holds true with many minerals and electrolytes and blood values.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

magicre said:


> that's what i was saying. if there were bone thinning or a real problem with ratios of phosphorous to calcium, we'd see it even before a blood test or xray.
> 
> and any other nutrient missing. potassium would show itself pretty quickly, for instance because there is such a narrow window of too much and too little.
> 
> the same holds true with many minerals and electrolytes and blood values.


So one of the scare stories - that a dog can have invisible bones from total calcium leach and the owner never have a clue until their jaw snaps in two - is not true??


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

if calcium is leeching out of the bones, it's going into the blood stream, which is hypercalcemia. 

there will be stomach aches and kidney stones, maybe for a while....unless of course, we're talking about parathyroid disease.

if there is a calcium deficiency, one of the first signs is called tetany which is a cramping and numbness and tingling in the arms and legs. 

thing is, yes, it's scary. there isn't enough of a window in what is normal and what isn't to let anything go on for a length of time.

BUT.

as long as your dog is getting calcium in the form of what our dogs eat, there is no way to NOT get enough calcium, since it's present in bone and meat and fish and just about everything we feed.

we have supplements to balance out the phosphorous and thank g'd they are water soluble.

the only time i would worry is if there is a disease process in place that prevents absorption or is pulling calcium from the bones into the blood.

this is yet another reason to NOT feed tums.

and, having said that.....feeding the proteins we feed gives our dogs the benefit of pretty much everything they need.

http://www.kaossiberians.com/old kaos pages/health/Nutrients.pdf


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## Roo (Oct 17, 2010)

Thank you everyone for your thoughts, it's nice to be able to talk about our concerns and get them cleared up when we have questions.:thumb:


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