Ready to eat frozen chicken…

[OneDogDad]

Hi all,

I use a lot of ready to eat frozen chicken from Iceland in my cooking.

it lists ingredients as:

Chicken Breast (98%), Salt.

I do not know if that means 2% is salt or not.

is this safe for my dog - miniature schnauzer??

I want to start only giving him this chicken and fresh veg, instead of kibble.

many thanks.

 

[JudyN]

Is there a nutritional label showing the overall percentage of salt? I've just checked online, and found some Iceland chicken breasts with 0.2g salt per 100g, but others with 0.6g (which say they have added salt) per 100g. Some on Ocado are 0.16g per 100g.

So the salted ones aren't 2% salt. I don't know what a dog's daily salt intake would be, but my instinct would be to look for chicken breasts without added salt. There are ways you can reduce the salt - soaking, etc. - but I'm really not sure it would be worth the effort, and you don't know how much you'd remove.

I have to say, though, that just chicken and veg would be a poor, unbalanced diet. I'm guessing your plan is to feed it raw rather than cooked, so you might want to have a look at our raw feeding guide: Raw feeding

 

[OneDogDad]

Thanks JudyN - I will check the packet now and see it mentions any more about salt content.

edit:

just checked - salt content is 0.7g per 100g of chicken. I’ve just checked a website that said this:

The magic number for dogs (we popped it in above, too) is between 0.25g/100g and 1.5g/100g.

so maybe this chicken is ok.

I have to say, though, that just chicken and veg would be a poor, unbalanced diet.

Really? I actually thought it would be a good diet

it’s not raw - it’s the cooked chicken and a birds-eye steam cooked veg bag. Basically what I eat.

I could always swap out the chicken for beef sometimes. But I honestly thought that the meat/veg combo would be ideal.

 

[JudyN]

Dogs need a variety of different types of meat to get the full range of nutrients they need. Remember, even if a wild dog only ate rabbits, it would be eating the liver, kidneys, heart, bones, the stomach contents and so on - and it would probably be eating different species at different times of year. We need to try to replicate this to an extent.

In my opinion, a raw diet is better than a homemade cooked one (and a lot less work), so I do suggest you read the article you linked to. Alternatively, there's some guidelines here which say the meat can either be raw or cooked, and give you an idea of the variety required: How to Make Homemade Dog Food - Whole Dog Journal Whether you want to go down this route is up to you, of course - if not, a good quality kibble would probably be healthier than just chicken breasts & veg.

 

[Hemlock]

With any form of natural feeding, variety is the key to success. So some red meat, some white meat, some offal, some fish, as wide a range of vegetables as your dog will eat, is the way. So do have a look at the link JudyN provided, and all the information you need will be there.