Did you know that Offal is needed in dog’s daily diet? Its all about the Natural nutrition it provides.

Why is it important to feed your dog offal/ dog organs? If you feed your dog manufactured dog food, you may never have asked yourself this question, however, it is as relevant to ANY dog owner, as it is to a person who feeds their dog exclusively on a raw diet.

The theory goes that because dogs evolved from wolves, their diet should be the same. While I agree with this statement, the vast majority of dog owners only feed their dog supermarket dog food, which is grain or vegetable-based.  Meat might be up to 30- 40% but often MDM and not whole meats.  And if offal is added, it usually isn’t any prime pieces – for nutrition, just to reach the minimum protein levels required.

Offal can supply cheaply, some of the natural nutrition missing from most dog’s diets. With QUALITY WHOLE pieces of offal, not rubbish.

Some cheap manufactured dog foods will put offal into their cans or pellets, but often this is the cheapest oldest meat they can find, just to prop up the meat percentage value on the label.

If you buy supermarket dog food, and can’t get to a market where meat is affordable for your dog, then offal is often a good idea. Offal from the local butcher can be considerably cheaper than meat and provide your dog with many valuable nutrients.

The Importance of OFFAL FEEDING

Owners who feed their dog on a raw diet are probably already across this, but if not, offal is a vital part of a raw dog food diet. The reason for this is that dogs in the wild eat many sources of meat, and all of the animal. To get them the full spectrum of nutrition they require, they are required to eat most of the animal.

However in modern butchers, you may find that only beef and chicken or lamb is readily available, and they may throw a lot of the offal out at the abattoir. On a raw diet, your dog needs meat, offal and bone in approximately an 80:15:5 ratio. See the raw feeding link in the conclusion.

A lot of people may consider offal to be waste organs or unsafe or whatever, but as the summary below shows it has many nutrients in excess of what just plain meat or manufactured dog food can provide. Note this table was produced with human consumption in mind but is mostly relevant to dogs too.

Nutrient composition of dog organs meat (ref 1)

• All organ meats (except tripe) are extremely rich in vitamin B12, with more than 100% RDI in 100g (for humans)
• Liver is a rich source of protein iron, zinc, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin A, and folate
• Kidney is rich in protein, thiamin, riboflavin, iron, and a source of folate
• Heart is a good source of iron and zinc, but not as good as liver and kidney
• Brains and tripe are not particularly good sources of vitamins or minerals, but provide other nutrients in a different ratio than the other organs or meats.
• All organs meats are high in cholesterol, especially brains, and mostly low in sodium. This is not an issue for dogs.
• Liver is such a rich source of retinol that consumption of large amounts is not recommended in pregnancy.

From the summary above, and the tables below, you can see that animal offal can provide considerable nutrients to your dog, in a natural proportion.

Natural meat and offal is much better than having dog food technicians chuck in minerals and vitamins mixed up in a tub in a factory that approximates how nature intended your dog to receive them.

Safety with offal meats is very, very easy. If you buy them from a reputable butcher, offal should be as safe for you or your dog to eat as meat is. If you have any concern about it, your dog should already be receiving its monthly worm tablets – which could potentially be the main concern.

BUT OF COURSE OUR OFFAL dog treats are oven dried.  All potential pathogens are effectively removed in the drying process !

Even if on the rare situation of raw offal or meat having worms occurs, you can always freeze your offal for 24-48 hours before defrosting and feeding your dogs. The freezing process may not kill all of the bacteria, but should kill all worms. The bacteria should be at a safe level if you bought the offal from a reputable butcher, as offal is for human consumption as well.

See how much easier and safer it is to by using our healthy dog treats offal ???

Selected nutrients (per 100g) in raw liver, kidney, heart, brain and tripe

Folate values from US data [39]; all other values from NUTTAB 2006 [38]

CONCLUSION

Offal should not be considered just as a waste product, or a filler product for manufactured food. It is an integral part of a raw feeding dog diet program.

If you feed your dog a manufactured dog food, you may need to ease your dog into eating offal (because its nutrient source is so rich and may upset tender stomachs).

If you buy meat and offal from a quality butcher, and worm your dog, and freeze the offal before defrosting and feeding your dog, the potential for harm is very low.

When feeding offal you should consider the energy component of the offal that you give and how it should integrate into the total energy usage of your dog’s diet.

You should also consider feeding offal in the appropriate proportion of a raw diet (no more than 10-15 % of a dogs daily intake by dry weight). This is a good raw food feeding diet article that may help you further understand how offal fits into a dogs natural and healthy diet.

Did you know that both beef cubes (cow lung) and beef liver/ beef liver balls, can provide some of the daily offal requirements to your dog? These are available from the store on this site.

Article by Bruce Dwyer. If you wish to use any of this information please refer to the article as a reference and provide a link to our WEBSITE.

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Reference

Nutritional composition of red meat, 2007  P. G. Williams, University of Wollongong,