Feeding Pancreas on the raw food diet

[Nina and Janet]

Hi. Nina is an experienced raw food dog. We placed our first order with DAF and we got our hands on pigs pancreas. I was keen for Nina to get the digestive enzymes Pancreas is useful for. She does not have Pancreatitis.

My question is this: as it counts as offal, how much can I give her? She already gets her 5 percent liver, which leaves only 5 percent for the pancreas. She eats 200g/day so that's only 70g each week. Is this enough to benefit from the enzymes? Can I go higher with pancreas that the normal "offal" allows?

FYI: I have found advice for dogs with pancreatitis (3waggytails) and that is, "Feed 2 ounces of beef pancreas for every 20lbs of body weight, two times per day. " How can these owners stay within 10% offal?

Anyone else feeding pancreas? I would be very glad to hear how you got on.

Jt and N

[zeta1454]

Hi Janet,
Although raw feeding our dogs, I have not given them pancreas specifically so cannot help from experience. However, from what I have read, pancreas or pancreatic supplements are usually intended for dogs with some form of pancreatic insufficiency which means they are not digesting their food properly and their health is poor as a result. The advice you quote from 3waggytails is for dogs with pancreatitis who may need a high intake of pancreas to supply nutrients / enzymes that are missing from their diet and to help them manage a chronic illness.

If Nina is fit and well, she should have no need of additional pancreatic / digestive enzymes as she will be producing enough for her needs without supplementation. As you have bought the pancreas already, I would integrate it into her food at the small amount you have suggested but my personal view would be that she probably does not need to have pancreas added to what sounds like a good diet and is keeping her fit.

There is a link here to an article about digestive enzymes generally too:

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/e ... -your-dog/

[zeta1454]

Another useful addition to raw food diets (if you are not already using this) is raw green tripe which also provides plenty of digestive enzymes among a range of other beneficial nutrients and can be included at a higher ratio than the pancreas:

https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/t ... -on-tripe/

http://www.theyloveit.co.uk/green-beef-tripe.html

[Robin black mini]

Janet..those suggestions re wt ratio and amount to feed pancreatic enzymes are probably for larger breeds such as German shepherd dogs,more commonly affected by pancreatic insufficiency disease.
I'm not a raw feeder,but would not be giving supplemental enzyme source if your dog is not affected by P.I.disease.

[Nina and Janet]

Thanks for the replies - I think its unanimous that Nina should take a conservative approach ;) So I'll keep to the 5 percent of offal. Yes, Nina already enjoys green tripe. The article about Digestive Enzymes on the dogsnaturally website was very interesting so I reckon Nina will be getting Sauerkraut and yoghurt on her menu too. Here she is with her first Salmon head!



I actually believe that Dogs should eat slightly less well than their owners so you can imagine what I eat! Its cooked to start with....

Jt and N

[BBub]

I know this thread is very old....but just wondered if you had any success with feeding pancreas as a supplement?
We've fed our mini raw dried since she was a puppy and she's never had any problems, but we're aware of the potential problem due to the high fat diet as they get older.
The theory we follow is that it's not the fat that causes the issue with lipoproteins in the blood stream, but the mixture of fat with carbs which could stimulate the problem with the dog's pancreas...given that fat and muscle is a more natural diet and carbs are the things that human's have introduced to dog food, and we're now seeing in humans the damage that excessive carbs can do. So she gets about 5% carbs and no kibble etc.

Nevertheless we're thinking of adding a tiny amount of freeze-dried powdered beef pancreas as she gets older