Tibetan Mastiff Calcium Supplementation Requires Care: A Few Points Breeders Should Know

Calcium supplementation is an issue that cannot be ignored. If you want your beloved mastiff to grow healthy and imposing, with a beautiful physique and strong, agile limbs, you must supplement calcium at the right time and in the right amount. The following suggestions are for reference only: When is calcium supplementation needed? For large dogs like the Tibetan Mastiff, the larger the breed, the faster it grows, and the greater its calcium requirement. For puppies, the calcium contained in ordinary puppy food can hardly meet their growth needs. If you feed your mastiff homemade food, then you should pay even more attention to supplementing calcium in a timely manner. In addition, if your mastiff has long been eating animal liver or has meat as its staple food, then it should also be given an appropriate amount of calcium supplementation. This is because such foods not only have a very low calcium content, but also contain high concentrations of vitamin A. Long-term intake of high concentrations of vitamin A by dogs can inhibit calcium absorption. Therefore, you should immediately stop the long-term habit of feeding liver and promptly supplement calcium for it. After a mastiff enters adulthood, if it is fed dog food, there is no need for separate calcium supplementation. This is because during this period, the growth and development of the dog's bones and other organs have basically stopped, and its calcium requirement is very small. If it is a stud dog or a female dog during pregnancy and lactation, it still needs a large amount of calcium supplementation, because semen, fetuses during the embryonic stage, and milk will all cause a large amount of calcium to be lost from the body. If it cannot be replenished in time, calcium from the body's calcium pool will be drawn upon, causing osteoporosis. How should calcium be supplemented for mastiffs? There is no obvious difference between the methods of calcium supplementation for dogs and for people. Generally speaking, calcium products for human use are also suitable for dogs. In addition, drinking more milk or eating some dairy products and cartilage foods in daily life, and reducing the intake of foods high in vitamin A such as liver, are also beneficial for calcium supplementation. If a mastiff has already shown symptoms of calcium deficiency, then medication should be used. It is recommended to choose relatively inexpensive calcium carbonate and calcium lactate while injecting vitamin D3 and orally taking vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. Of course, if conditions permit, you can also choose some imported-brand pet calcium products, because these products are relatively more professional. Methods for supplementing calcium for young mastiffs Some people believe that feeding all meat can make puppies grow strong, but this is actually the wrong approach. Eating only meat not only cannot make puppies strong, but instead, due to indigestion and difficulty absorbing it, can cause most puppies to develop diarrhea. Although meat contains a lot of protein, it has relatively little vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, and iodine. At the same time, meat has little calcium and much phosphorus. Long-term meat eating can easily cause an imbalance in the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio in puppies' bodies, resulting in skeletal disorders and making lameness likely. For large dogs, it is even more inadvisable to feed large amounts of meat too early, otherwise it may cause the front limbs to become bent. Puppies' feed should be supplemented with calcium powder and vitamins, which are necessary for the growth of teeth and bones. Especially for purebred dogs with larger frames, calcium is even more needed during the puppy stage. Usually, for growing puppies under one year old, the daily amount of calcium powder supplementation is about one teaspoon per 2 kg of body weight. As age increases, the amount of calcium powder and the dosage should be increased proportionally. After one year of age, because the puppy has entered maturity and the growth of teeth and bones has stabilized, the required amount of calcium powder is relatively reduced, and the dosage is about one teaspoon per 15 kg of body weight. However, there should be an appropriate amount of outdoor exercise every day, with exposure to ultraviolet rays, so as to facilitate calcium absorption.