Raw & Carbs

[jwhizz420 177]

Does anyone feed 100% raw

Are carbs needed?

There's a lot of old post been reading

Just answer

If on raw with carbs / yes

If on raw with no carbs / no

[sandymere 8,263]

Dogs don't need carbs the same as humans don't need carbs your problem is you are asking the wrong question what you need to consider is not the need but are they likely to have a positive effect.

Dogs and humans use glucose for sprint energy and fats for steady energy, i.e. whilst resting around % of the energy used will come from fats and 20% from glucose whereas at full speed it will be the other way around. Carbs from cereals in the form of pasta, biscuits, bread or in a complete are a good source of glucose, (and well digested). Dogs can converts protein/fat into glucose if this is not supplied in the diet but it would seem to be slower at replacing stores after exercise. Meat will supply both protein and fat and completes should supply all three. So the same as with ourselves using a balanced diet containing protein, fats and carbs seems sensible.

 

Dr Arleigh Reynolds, DVM, PhD, DACVN, a veterinary nutritionist and 2013 North American Champion sprint dog musher

States

"Dogs involved in sprinting and weight pulling activities such as sight hound racing or sledge pulling competitions undergo short periods of very intense exercise. These types of dogs typically do not have higher energy requirements than those of moderately active pet dogs. A greyhound expends approximately 75 kcal per race6. The energy required for these types of activities is solely anaerobic and comes from the muscle energy stores. Most canine athletes engaged in sprint type activities have an energy requirement of 1.6-2 X resting energy rate1. An appropriate feeding regime for sprint type canine athletes consists of a diet that contains approximately 25% calories from protein, 30% calories from fat and 45% calories from carbohydrates.
Greyhounds can deplete up to 70% of their muscle glycogen during a race7. However, it seems that “carb loading” as described for humans does not benefit these canine athletes8. Hill et al demonstrated that greyhounds ran faster when carbohydrate was increased from 30 to 45% ME at the expense of protein but they ran slower when fed 54% carbohydrates at the expense of protein and fat."

 

Edited September 18, 2014 by sandymere