From: 
Brett Middleton 
Date: 2001-04-02 15:55:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Furballs and feeding bones
             Sukie wrote:
> Our's do get powdered bone [snip] I simply am not wild about what
> happens when a diet containing larger bits of bone goes wrong. 
Bob responded:  
> Bone powder, depending on how fine it is, the amount, and the amount
> of HCl excreted by the stomach, would probably completely dissolve
> and wouldn't be useful in transporting hair. 
I'm as much of a coward about bones as Sukie.  When I grind a raw 
chicken, there's always about a cup full of stuff that won't go through 
the plate no matter what I try.  This seems to be mostly cartilage, but 
contains some nasty-looking bone spicules.  It's too much of a pain to 
try to sort it out, so I just throw it away.
But, now you've got me wondering if I'm not losing the best part of the 
bulk.  Is the part that *does* go through the grinder plate enough to 
clean out the hair, or is it too small to be useful?  (What gets 
through is enough to make pretty speckles on an x-ray, unless those 
were just the eggshells.)
Brett
*SLMW 1.0*  Thank goodness ignorance isn't painful.