Do Canine Multivitamins Help or Harm Homemade Raw or Cooked Diets?
Canine multivitamins are often added to raw (or cooked diets) when owners feel uneasy about their ability to balance their homemade diet. While there are some benefits to including a multivitamin, multivitamins do not “save” most raw or cooked diets. Sometimes they can drive up nutrients beyond what is optimal.
In this post, I have taken 3 popular canine multivitamins (based on amazon and google results) and applied them to a basic PMR diet for Luca, my 63 lb. low energy boxer.
Here’s what showed up short in the PMR diet.
Ingredients
Based on 80/10/10 ratios where main muscle meat sources are divided evenly. 2% of body weight fed for senior, low energy dog.
Ground Beef (85/15)
Chicken Breast
Venison
Turkey Neck
Beef Liver
Beef Kidney
Analysis based off of NRC Nutrient Requirements
Analysis
- Magnesium 65%
- Manganese 12%
- Zinc 66%
- Thiamin 72%
- Vitamin E 5%
- Vitamin D3 17%
- EPA and DHA 5%
Results
Multivitamin 1 provides Thiamin and Vitamin D3 in safe amounts. It also gives a boost to manganese (a nutrient important for joint health and antioxidant defense). It should be noted that it did contribute EPA and DHA, but the amount is unknown. Of all the multivitamins tested, this one proved to be the safer bet and provided the best nutrient profile.
Multivitamin 2 helps the Vitamin D3 quite a bit and provides safe amounts of Thiamin. However, there are still important components missing. This multivitamin did not contain any minerals. This might be confusing to some owners who may not understand the differences between multivitamins that do or do not contain minerals.
Multivitamin 3 is quite interesting. On the surface it looks good- providing safe amounts of Thiamin, E, D3, and basically meets the needs for Magnesium. However, there was an error on the label making it impossible to determine vitamin A content. It was either way too high or enough to double the vitamin A in the recipe- which is not preferred here. It also added 10% of calcium needs which really wasn’t needed in a 10% bone recipe.
- Magnesium 65%
- Manganese 73%
- Zinc 66%
- Thiamin 100%
- Vitamin E 37%
- Vitamin D3 100%
- EPA and DHA ?%
- Magnesium 65%
- Manganese 12%
- Zinc 66%
- Thiamin 100%
- Vitamin E 13%
- Vitamin D3 83%
- EPA and DHA 5%
- Magnesium 96%
- Manganese 12%
- Zinc 72%
- Thiamin 100%
- Vitamin E 100%
- Vitamin D3 100%
- EPA and DHA 5%
- Vitamin A (Preformed) ?%
Multivitamin 1 provides Thiamin and Vitamin D3 in safe amounts. It also gives a boost to manganese (a nutrient important for joint health and antioxidant defense). It should be noted that it did contribute EPA and DHA- but the amount is unknown. Of all the multivitamins tested, this one proved to be the safer bet and that provided the best nutrient profile.
- Magnesium 65%
- Manganese 73%
- Zinc 66%
- Thiamin 100%
- Vitamin E 37%
- Vitamin D3 100%
- EPA and DHA ?%
Multivitamin 2 helps the Vitamin D3 quite a bit and provides safe amounts of Thiamin. However, there are still important components missing. This multivitamin did not contain any minerals. This might be confusing to some owners who may not understand the differences between multivitamins that do or do not contain minerals.
- Magnesium 65%
- Manganese 12%
- Zinc 66%
- Thiamin 100%
- Vitamin E 13%
- Vitamin D3 83%
- EPA and DHA 5%
Multivitamin 3 is quite interesting. On the surface it looks good- providing safe amounts of Thiamin, E, D3, and basically meets the needs for Magnesium. However, there was an error on the label making it impossible to determine vitamin A content. It was either way too high or enough to double the vitamin A in the recipe- which is not preferred here. It also added 10% of calcium needs which really wasn’t needed in a 10% bone recipe.
- Magnesium 96%
- Manganese 12%
- Zinc 72%
- Thiamin 100%
- Vitamin E 100%
- Vitamin D3 100%
- Vitamin D3 100%
- EPA and DHA 5%
- Vitamin A (Preformed) ?%
The Proper Fix
How can we “fix” this recipe?
Based on 80/10/10 ratios where main muscle meat sources are divided evenly. 2% of body weight fed for senior, low energy dog.
Ground Beef (85/15)
Chicken Breast
Venison
Turkey Neck
Beef Liver
Beef Kidney
Sardines*
Egg
Oysters*
Oats (Tripe, oats, mussels can be used for manganese, but this old man is out of calories)
Vitamin E supplement 100 IU
Not required but beneficial: Plant matter- spinach, beets, apple, squash
Kelp* (Iodine levels vary in meat and wasn’t included in the multi analysis)
Mercola B Complex (Pork can also be used to meet thiamin needs for households who feed pork)
Analysis based off of NRC Nutrient Requirements
*Providing nutrients that can be balanced over time
Analysis
- Magnesium 100%
- Manganese 100%
- Zinc 100%
- Thiamin 100%
- Vitamin E 100%
- Vitamin D3 100%
- EPA and DHA 100%
- Iodine 100%
Concluding Thoughts
80/10/10 ratios alone will fall short without the addition of other foods. Multivitamins can help or hurt in some instances. Their formulations often do not make sense in a raw or homecooked diet.
Not every nutrient that fell short could be balanced over time. Thiamin and the other B vitamins should be provided daily. Vitamin E should be provided more frequently than other fat solubles.
Cooked diets must carefully provide calcium. Relying on a canine multivitamin is unsafe because dogs require relatively high amounts of calcium. Most multivitamins will not provide enough calcium without driving up other nutrients beyond safe levels. Raw bones provide more than enough calcium. Never feed cooked bones.
Never blindly add a multivitamin meant for humans. These can contain toxic doses of nutrients.
To be completely sure of what you are providing, consider using nutrient requirements in addition to ratios.