Hi again!

I am thinking of supporting our prey model feeding with some nature of skin/coat and general vitamin supplement.

I've heard great things about Nupro.

I've also been considering my own simple blend of Fish Oil (K-9 Shine Herring Oil) and some nature of powdered Kelp. With or without powdered alfalfa.

Pros of Nupro, as I see it, is it has a lot of great stuff in it. The major con is I don't like the Omega 3's to be vegetable sourced - I'd prefer an animal (fish) source.

Thoughts?

The diet you are feeding is spot on. I'd say the only thing you really need to add is the fish oil.

I like Nupro and have used it for years. I used to give it every day. Now I just give it a few times a week. But you're right, it does have plant sourced oils in it (flax) and that can cause a problem with some sensitive dogs. To me though, it is the best vitamin/mineral supplement out there.

I know that coconut oil is technically a nut oil (plant sourced) but I like it and use it and rotate it in my oils. Basically I use fish oil, krill oil, and coconut oil in a rotation. I add in the Nupro a couple times a week and call it good. Overkill? Probably.

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"Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way.....
but you can never say again that you did not know." William Wilberforce 1759-1833

Thanks!

Will go ahead with the fish oil then, and see about coconut oil as well. We use coconut oil ourselves, we have it around in bulk, and I've known it to be good TOPICALLY for animals, but I haven't looked into it for supplementation.

So I guess she gets all the vitamins (including iodine?) from her whole prey diet and she doesn't need any Kelp, Alfalfa, or Nupro, eh... I am trying to be really minimalist in our nutritional approach as I wean myself off feeding veggie matter. LOL

No, she doesn't NEED it. Some people just like the 'safety net' approach of knowing that all nutritional bases are covered. Just like people taking a multivitamin (just in case). But it sounds like her diet is about as good as it could be. So technically she doesn't need anything except fish oil for the missing omega 3's in factory farmed meat. If you are feeding grass fed or wild meats, they are plentiful in omega 3's so in that case, they wouldn't even be required at all.

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"Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way.....
but you can never say again that you did not know." William Wilberforce 1759-1833

Definitely need the Omega 3's... WISH we could do 100% grass fed but at this moment we can't, not even for ourselves. One day, though...

If I feed fish oil do I need to supplement with Vitamin E as well?

You can use the vitamin E in your rotation. You would not need to add it to another oil. I use flax seed oil, salmon oil, coconut oil, vit E oil and wheat germ oil in my rotation. They also get sardines in olive oil on occasion ( watch this though as it is very rich and a little goes a long way). I also like to add a shake of my kelp/ alfalfa mix a couple times a week.

Another trick I have is to take our egg shells and bake them @350 for 5 min then put them in a coffee grinder to powder them. This is a great calcium supplement. Even though mine get the bones, I give 1/8t of egg shell powder a couple times a week. This is of course a safety net too! But I'm big into nutrition for myself, family & clients and my furry friends!

I have read that over time, fish oil can deplete the body of vitamin e and I have also read that there aren't really any scientific facts to back it up. Some fish oil supplements already have a small amount of vitamin e in them as a preserving agent. I read also that it would take an awful lot of fish oil to deplete vitamin e from the body if that were the case. So, it is kind of up to you but I would research it some more to be on the safe side. I personally give my 2 a 500 mg wild alaskan sockeye salmon oil capsule 3 x's a week (i don't feed sardines or fish right now) and once a week I divide a 400 iu vitamin e capsule between the 2. I also try to give them an Eggland's best brown, cage free raw egg at least once a week because they are supposed to be a good source of both omega 3 and vitamin e. One egg contains 115 mg of omega 3 and 25% vitamin e.

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Pee Wee

I have also heard that fish oil can deplete vitamin E. The studies I read were from people though, so I don't know if that applies to dogs. Just in case.... (haha) I give a 200iu vitamin E a couple times a week when I give fish oil.

__________________

"Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way.....
but you can never say again that you did not know." William Wilberforce 1759-1833