# Satin Ball Questions



## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I usually make mine somewhat bigger than yours. I gave Javelin three or four for lunch while I was working at getting weight on him. You could easily give four of those to Asher. Just give them half way between his other meals, so he is hungry enough to eat them, but not so close to dinner to spoil him against eating that meal.


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## Mysticrealm (Jan 31, 2016)

Really? that much huh? That'd be like a whole nother meal. These are about a GOOD handful in size. I worry with his issue with puking other raw food I've tried that that much would cause puking. I gave him one today, planning to work up to more.


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## MollyMuiMa (Oct 13, 2012)

Go to raw food feeding site and find a calculator for feeding raw .........find out how much you should be feeding him per meal then cut that amount by half that is what I did as I feed only 1/2 raw and 1/2 kibble.....here's one I use ;Calculate


I feed raw in the morning and free feed a measured amount of kibble that normally Molly grazes on but I think just making one meal raw and the other kibble is ok..........the belief that you shouldn't feed both has been disproven.


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## Mysticrealm (Jan 31, 2016)

I worry about feeding him a full meals worth of raw due to his puking when he's had raw in the past (meal patties). I also think that the satin balls aren't really nutritionally balanced for being half of my dogs food? He's pretty close to a good weight now, but feeding him the freeze dried I had been adding to his kibble was so expensive and I'm hoping this will be a bit cheaper. I didn't buy bulk this time cause I needed to see if he could handle it first


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Back in the fall when I was regularly giving generous servings of satin balls I was working on really putting some weight on him (needed to add about 6 pounds) so my need for them was different. If you are looking at something more in the maintenance vein then less would be fine.


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## Mysticrealm (Jan 31, 2016)

I think he could do with a couple more pounds on him. I fed him yesterday evening's kibble and this morning's kibble without the freeze dried topper and he definitely did not eat a whole lot of it. I was using to topper for weight gain but it also certainly helped with getting him to eat a bit more of his food. I don't want to lose the weight gain that we have had (he's 53 lbs up from 48lbs), but I also want to cut back on the cost of the freeze dried. I'm currently spending around 200 a month on the freeze dried using it to feed my 4 pound dog and using it as a topper/added calories for Asher.


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## Dina (Jan 24, 2016)

We had a hard time getting Hugo to eat his kibble too, and he was always very lean and could easily feel his ribs, we slowly transitioned him to raw by giving him a RMB or a drumstick whenever I was cooking and slowly built it up. I usually go to Costco and pickup one package of ground beef, one pack of drumsticks, one pack of thighs and one more pack of something either ribs, roast, (we used to do pork loin but he was really gassy on it) and it usually comes out to $60 - $80 depending on what we get. When I get home I portion it off into 25-35 baggies usually each bag weighs about 1lb of meat. (I give him liver separately once a week) He also gets a RMB when we are at work to keep him busy. He will get one bag in the morning, and in the evening he gets one cup of kibble that he grazes whenever he feels hungry. It works well for us, and his stomach handles it well, and he is now at the perfect weight at 56lbs


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## Mfmst (Jun 18, 2014)

I use my own toppers to keep the kibble interesting: a dab of cottage cheese, a bit of minced chicken or meat from last night’s dinner, even a dusting of Parmesan. DH has made extra fancy toppers of baked, deboned salmon and mashed that with boiled sweet potatoes. He packed a few servings in plastic bags and froze them.


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## MollyMuiMa (Oct 13, 2012)

You can add extra calories by feeding puppy food too!


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## Mysticrealm (Jan 31, 2016)

Thank guys. As Isaid, I'm not sure about doing full raw meals due to Asher having issues with puking on raw. I'll see how he does, increasing his satin balls. 
I'm not really wanting to add toppers to entice him to eat. I think if he won't keep up his weight well on kibble and satin balls because he won't eat his kibble well I would go to being more strict. Put down his food, if he doesn't immediately start eating, pick it up. If he walks away during the meal, pick it up. if he doesn't eat it all, feed half of what he ate next meal, etc. and make him realize that he needs to eat his food!
I really haven't found puppy food to have a lot of calories in it compared to the freeze dried food I have been feeding. Maybe it would help if he refuses to eat anymore kibble no matter what I do.
I fed him 2 satin balls at lunch and I believe he kept them down. I weighed him only maybe a week ago so I'll weigh him again in a couple weeks and see how things are going.


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## Dina (Jan 24, 2016)

You can try that! If Hugo absolutely wouldn't eat his kibble I would add some gravy or cottage cheese which helped get him more motivated to eat it. Hugo is still picky even with raw to the point where we usually have to cheer him on to eat haha. 

I guess its a poodle thing


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## Caddy (Nov 23, 2014)

I don't think there's anything wrong with making kibble a little more appetizing or for adding calories, but I do get how the freeze dry can get too expensive. The extras that mfmst suggested are good alternatives, or just really whatever you have in the fridge or use up leftovers.


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## Mfmst (Jun 18, 2014)

My breeder’s theory was to keep them interested in the same old, same old with modest changes that are on hand. I don’t have a separate budget line item for toppers, it’s what we can share from the good stuff I have bought or cooked. A little dab will do ya


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## Mysticrealm (Jan 31, 2016)

Thanks I'm jsut not terribly interested in having to tempt him to eat, having to change things up to keep him interested. if he doesn't want to eat then he can be a bit skinny. He was never SKINNY, even just on his kibble, I just would like a bit more weight on him for shows.


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## S_Toast (Jan 30, 2018)

I've made these for my husbands pointers. Can't keep weight on those dogs no matter what you do. Especially when they are hunting. Anyway...

I got a food scale and weighed mine as I made them. They were 2oz each. I fed two per dog so a total of 4oz per day. It only took a week to start seeing a difference and 2 weeks to get them filled out to where I wanted them.

Total side note, I always broke them up to feed them since dogs are "chomp-swallow" animals and I didn't need anyone choking on satin balls.

If Asher can't handle them raw you can always bake them a little. Think Medium-rare


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## Johanna (Jun 21, 2017)

I'm going today to get the ingredients for satin balls for Zoe.

Big question: Have those of you who have used them had a problem getting your dog to eat his/her kibble as well as the satin balls?

I'm hoping that if I get some weight on Zoe her appetite will increase accordingly - which may be wishful thinking on my part.


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## Mysticrealm (Jan 31, 2016)

So far he hasn't seemed to vomit and is eating them happily.
His kibble eating is currently not going great. I think a lot of it is cause I'm not putting the topper on. We'll see how this all plays out.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I wish you success. My dogs are all good eaters, but my mom's mpoo is picky. He has caused lots of worry over eating.


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## Johanna (Jun 21, 2017)

So I just finished making satin balls. I was amazed at how many the 1 lb hamburger recipe makes! As I made them, I gave Zoe several tastes - she loves it! I made them about 3/4 inch in diameter since she is a mini. I'll probably have to cut them in half to feed them - they should cut easily when frozen.

So now I have a couple of cookie sheets in the freezer. Once they are frozen I'll bag them in batches small enough for 2 days. That would be about six, right? Is three a day enough? Too much? I want her to keep eating her kibble (which I lace with cheese shreds or grated fresh parmesan so she will eat it all).

Keeping my fingers crossed that this will put some weight on her - I don't want to see bony hips when I put her in pattern next month!


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## Mysticrealm (Jan 31, 2016)

So an update. 
I had stopped adding his freeze dried topper. and was giving him 3 of the satin balls in the size on the picture on top of his kibble.
I gave in quickly and sprinkled some cheese on his kibble to encourage him to eat it. and as I predicted, for 3 days he ate all his food, then got bored of it and only ate as he felt like eating. Which sometimes was nothing a meal, and sometimes was half and sometimes was all of it.
I remade his satin balls about a week ago and made the balls much bigger and was giving him 2 of those a day.
I'd been really feeling him lately and realizing that I probably want him up to put on a decent amount of weight yet. Probably a good 5 pounds at least.
I went to weigh him today, and he's LOST a pound!
So I'm bumping him up to 3 large satin balls a day, and adding back 3 freeze dried nuggets a day (before doing the satin balls I had bee giving him 6 a day which was getting quite expensive). Hoping these changes bring his weight up

Since he hasn't had puking problems on the satin balls I'm tempted to try him raw again, but I'm going to wait for sure till after march as I'm going away for a week in march and don't want the person looking after him to deal with raw.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Why are they such pilly eaters?!? Lily will sometimes not eat for a day and a half. I think she has a really good read on her own metabolic state and she just doesn't eat if she doesn't think she needs the calories. Her weight is super consistent around 36.5-37 pounds over 8 years. Satin balls really did do the trick for Javelin to get the weight back on him. The other thing that was important was my realization that he must have a very high basal metabolic rate and that feeding him the recommended amount of food for what he should weigh wasn't nearly enough food for him. He should be a 50 pound dog, but needs to eat almost a 65 pound portion to maintain his weight.


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## reraven123 (Jul 21, 2017)

I have found that Zephyr does a lot better with free feeding than trying to make him eat just at mealtimes. When I was feeding meals he absolutely would not eat kibble at all, but with free feed he eats quite a bit of it. I give him his raw food twice a day, and leave kibble out all the time, he eats a lot of the kibble throughout the day. I am feeding Instinct Original Grain Free.

I am surprised and quite pleased by this development. I used to think free feeding was not good for dogs and they needed to be "taught" to eat at mealtimes. That always worked well for my other dogs, but does not work with Zephyr. I don't know if it's a poodle thing or what, but whatever works! It's quite a recent development; he has a vet checkup on Thursday so will see then if he's actually gaining any weight.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

reraven when we fed commercial/kibble our dogs free fed. Fortunately none of them was a glutton and they ate to maintain healthy weights. When we switched to home cooked just over a year ago BF was convinced it wouldn't work since they were so used to being grazers (and they all were). I was sure that switching to 2X daily meals wouldn't really be a problem and it wasn't. As long as there isn't a glutton in the household I think either strategy works. If the only way a person thinks they can show their dog(s) that the people are in charge is through controlling the food they probably don't do much to earn that respect in all the other ways it is possible to establish social order (I expect dogs to sit before they go through door ways as one super simple example).


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## Mysticrealm (Jan 31, 2016)

I DEFINITELY can't free feed. My mini poodle would eat until he literally burst. I could leave kibble out when during the work day as my other dogs aren't around.

So he ate virtually all of his food last night and this morning since adding back the freeze dried, but I gave him 3 satin balls and he's eaten 2... sigh. Gonna see if he finishes it before the end of the work day

I think if he was shaved, he'd look too skinny. He definitely has NO cover on his ribs. You can't just feel them just it's like a valley between each one.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

My vets generally don't mind ribbyness, but they don't like it if the hips are really bony. I had a feeling free feeding was off your plate because you had somebody who is a glutton.


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## Mysticrealm (Jan 31, 2016)

I wouldn't say his hips are too bone-y. I don't mind a bit ribby either but he is just SO ribby. Even my pom who likes to starve himself is less ribby (though he actually is at a decent weight right now thank goodness)
When I'm at handling class tonight I'm gonna see what my instructor says. If he thinks he needs to gain a bunch or not.


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