# Gizzards? Sardines? And Liver? OH MY! (And How Much?)



## MyRescueCrew (May 8, 2008)

Yet another question about raw stuffies! 

How many chicken gizzards should Jake (24 pounds) get? And how often?

How many sardines (bought some canned ones, low sodium, naturally preserved in spring water) can he have for a snack? How often?

And lastly, liver. I know he can only have this once a week (or once every two weeks?) I found some chicken livers cheap, $1.29 for a nice size container of them. How much can he have?

Thanks!


----------



## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

I freeze organs in one ounce bits separately on a cookie sheet so I can put them into a baggie and get out the bit I need daily. Chicken liver is expensive here, large gizzards are about an ounce each if you don't have a scale.

I do 10%bone, 80%meat, 10%organ. 10 ounces a day. 3-5 ounces meaty bone [back, wing or chicken leg] or 4 ounce can of drained sardines, 1 ounce organ, rest is meat, heart, gizzard or egg.

Guess I count the fish as boney meat, the gizzards as _part_ of the meat and feed the organ daily so as to be easier on the system.


----------



## briteday (Feb 10, 2007)

MyRescueCrew said:


> Yet another question about raw stuffies!
> 
> How many chicken gizzards should Jake (24 pounds) get? And how often?
> 
> ...


24 pounds x 16 = 384 ounces

384 ounces x 0.02 (2% of body wieght for daily ration) = 7.68 ounces per day (most of us divide this into two meals that would = 3.84...~ 4 ounces per meal of all foods)

Most of us strive for 10% of the diet being organs. Then the daily portion is less than an ounce. But what I prefer to do is divvy out a "weekly bag of organs" and put a spoonful in the bowl, usually one of the two meals per day at our house, until the organs are gone. A small spoonful is about one ounce.

So the weekly amount for you is 7.68 (daily ration) times 7 days per week = 53.76

53.76 x 0.10 (10% organs for the week) - 5.4 ounces of organs per week

Personally, I bought a postal scale that works up to 5 pounds at Costco for less than $20. It is digital and very accurate as I discovered the $5 scale from Walmart is really just a close guess. The other way you can do it without a scale...if you are buying the organ meat retail and it has the weight on the label, figure out how many 5.4 ounce servings are in the package and divide the package accordingly. I weigh because my small dogs can put on weight so fast if I eyeball things. And the only time I have to take out the scale is when I bring meat home and I portion it out that day so I can freeze it in baggies.

As far as organs go liver is crucial for vitamins A & D. And although heart is more of a muscle meat is it really good for taurine, an amino acid that is critical for eye and cardiac function. I have one whole meal, at least, of heart each week for the dogs. My dogs also like kidneys as organ meat.

Sardines, or any other fish (NEVER Pacific salmon or trout as they contain a parasite fatal only to dogs, not tested for in human grade meat) can be fed as a full meal. Or if I have a can of sardines I might adjust a meal portion down a smidge and flip a sardine in there. 

Liver...all dogs are different. My dogs cannot do a complete meal of solely liver or they'll have the hershey squirts. So for me the liver is about 1/2 of the organ meat each week and is spooned into their regular diet on a daily basis. I prefer to put the liver in the freezer first, get it a bit hard (the squishy phase is difficult to cut up), then cut it into little chunks, and then as I'm making the weekly bag of organ meat I have 1/2 the weight of the weekly organ amount put in as liver.


----------

