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General info on dosing krill oil for your dogs
While deciding on krill oil dosage for your dog you need to keep in mind the two main principles of dosing omega 3 fatty acids:
- Fatty acids carry calorific value, so make sure you’re not overfeeding your dogs which can cause further problems;
- The main goal of adding omega 3 fatty acids to a dog’s diet is to balance out omega 6 fatty acids.
Keeping the above principles in mind we can say that it’s important not to overdo krill oil or any other omega 3 fatty acids source. Omega 3 fatty acids are not given to a dog based on its’ size or age, but on the amount of omega 6 fatty acids in its’ current diet. IF the ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 is too high the dog is in danger of chronic inflammation and other effects of omega 6 overfeeding.
The best and recommended omega 6 to omega 3 ratio is 4 to 1.
For a generally healthy dog with a more or less balanced diet proper omega 3 supplementation would require just about 150 mg of krill oil per day. If a dog’s diet is leaning towards omega-6 rich products heavily, then the krill oil dose should increase. These are the products that contain a lot of omega-6 fatty acids and thus require balancing with more omega-3, contained in fish oil and krill oil:
- lots of chicken and chicken-based dog food;
- lots of processed foods or “treats” from the human table”
- bread or durum wheat products
- lots of vegetable oils
If, moreover, the dog is suffering from inflammation processes, muscle and joint aches or arthritis, you should increase krill oil dosage. A dog with omega-6 related problems should be getting up to 1000 mg of krill oil or other omega 3 sources.
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How to feed krill oil to dogs
Generally you can give the whole capsule to your dog. There is nothing harmful in the capsules especially remembering the fact that krill oil is a human food supplement. So just giving the capsule is fine.
If a dog refuses to eat whole capsules, you can pinch the capsule with a needle and squeeze its’ contents into dog’s food.
Make sure you use up all of it in one serving, because omega-3 fatty acids are really fragile so krill oil will lose its’ value soon after the capsule has been opened.So spread a capsule between several dogs or give a double dose one day skipping the next day’s one.