barf or raw diets

Sounds like a great idea Steve, I know that I am interested in learning more about the in/outs, pros/cons, do's/dont's etc..... and I'm sure there are quite a few others in the same mind-frame.

I'm not much help but I like the idea

I think the best thing is to try & point out the difference between BARF & raw feeding. There are subtle differences.

Give me a couple of days & I'll see if I can knock something up for you.

Is this the sort of thing you want?

The BARF Diet:
A BARF diet comprises of:
60% MEATY BONES
60%-70% of which are RAW chicken bones, the remainder (30%-40%) being bones from RAW lamb, rabbit, beef, pork, venison etc.
40% OTHER FOOD STUFFS
Green leafy vegetables should make up about 60%-70% of the vegetable part of the diet, with grain and starchy vegetables being between 20%-30%. The offal portion of the diet, that is liver, kidneys and hearts etc., should be about 5%-15% of the diet.

The Raw Meaty Bones Diet:
Aim for 70% or more of the diet as raw meaty bones. Thereafter, the remaining percentage can be made up of offal, table scraps, and large lumps of meat or more raw meaty bones.
The closer you follow the natural ideal the better. Feed whole carcasses whenever you can and otherwise base your feeding regime on raw meaty bones in large pieces from a variety of animals. However, wolves frequently depend on meat from a single prey species, for instance deer, and there are lots of pet dogs that eat chicken at every meal.

To both of these diets you can add a couple of raw eggs a week and some cod or salmon liver oil.

Please remember that your dog cannot digest vegetables unless they have been cooked (losing most of the nutrients) or pulped. However, some raw carrot or cabbage etc will do no harm at all and if your dog likes it, then why not!

The following sites will give you more detailed information and suggested diet sheets for both diets….

http://www.rawmeatybones.com/index.html

http://www.barfworld.com/

Also, have a look through our forum for tips on raw feeding………http://staffy-bull-terrier.niceboard.com/t2170-looking-into-barf

Whilst it all seems at first to be a little complicated (compared to opening a bag or tin of complete food), it becomes much easier as you go on and become more experienced.

You also have the prey model raw which is made up of

80% muscle meat (including skin and sinew)
10% edible bones
10% organ (of which no more than 5% liver)

Muscle meat is all you think of as muscle, including heart, tongue and tripe
Edible bones are those small enough to be eaten (depends on the dog)
Organ are the squishy bits - brain (some consider this muscle, though), lungs, liver, kidney, sweetbread..

Prey model is either fed with whole pray animals like mice, rabbits, chicks and such or as "frankenprey" where you combine the meats, organs and bones from different animals to match the pray ratio of 80-10-10.

A good source of information on Prey Model Raw is the Yahoo group - http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding

Looking good!

A couple of typos:

Tetter weight control
To more doggy odour!

Also - can you add eggs in the muscle meat sections on prey model? I forgot to specify it as "muscle" along with tongue and heart and such.

If you want to add photos, feel free to use some of those I have posted in the raw feeding pix thread in the nutrition section.

Perhaps a "what is the right raw diet" Q in the FAQ?

With an answer along the lines of "Just as there are several kinds of quality kibble there are different diets that work for different owners/dogs. You will often find that rawfeeders believe strongly in the diet they have chosen. Please look through the links we have provided to learn more and make up your own mind of what will work for you."

Something like this? I'm sure a native speaker would make it better, though.


In recent years there has been a gradually growing trend of going back to basics with dog (and cat) foods. The concept behind all raw food diets is that the mechanisms of the canine digestive system evolves very slowly, while we humans have altered their diet radically in a very short time. Their ancestors hunted for their own food and ate it raw (and many dogs around the world still do today). No wolves cook their meals or mix them with vegetable matters and make biscuits - their prey animals provided them with all the proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins that they needed. And they still do! No additives, no chemicals, no harsh processing.. and no big industries making a profit on selling low quality ingredients to pet owner with remarkable profits. The raw diets aim to copy the natural diets of dogs, creating a more easily digestible and healthier food for man's best friend. Here we'll look at a few of the main kinds of raw dog food.

Aniemother wrote:You also have the prey model raw which is made up of

80% muscle meat (including skin and sinew)
10% edible bones
10% organ (of which no more than 5% liver)

Muscle meat is all you think of as muscle, including heart, tongue and tripe
Edible bones are those small enough to be eaten (depends on the dog)
Organ are the squishy bits - brain (some consider this muscle, though), lungs, liver, kidney, sweetbread..

Prey model is either fed with whole pray animals like mice, rabbits, chicks and such or as "frankenprey" where you combine the meats, organs and bones from different animals to match the pray ratio of 80-10-10.

A good source of information on Prey Model Raw is the Yahoo group - http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding

Tripe is offal & so shouldn't be classed as muscle meat.

Caryll wrote:
Tripe is offal & so shouldn't be classed as muscle meat.

Tripe is offal, as far as human diet is concerned, but it's muscle meat per pray model standards.

It's just that I've never heard it called muscle meat before - I've never eaten it myself ( ) so I wouldn't know what it's called for human consumption! You may well be right, I've just never heard it termed that way.

I was always under the impression that the Prey Model Diet was basically the same as Raw Meaty Bones, just a different name! http://www.rawfeddogs.org/rawguide.html

Both (if they are different) are substantially different to BARF!

Caryll wrote:It's just that I've never heard it called muscle meat before - I've never eaten it myself ( ) so I wouldn't know what it's called for human consumption! You may well be right, I've just never heard it termed that way.

I was always under the impression that the Prey Model Diet was basically the same as Raw Meaty Bones, just a different name! http://www.rawfeddogs.org/rawguide.html

Both (if they are different) are substantially different to BARF!

I see tripe is listed as meat on that site, too I think the two are pretty similar, but in my head (and I might be way wrong) the RMB people allow more bone in the diet. Perhaps its just a name thing.. but it seems like most of the PMR people frown upon the term "raw meaty bones" as bones should be such a small part of the diet (you should know there is a bone in there, but not be able to see it is the general description of the ideal bone-in-meat).

Steve wrote:http://staffy-bull-terrier.co.uk/barfandrawdiets.html

what do you think?

I just foud this and it's really informative, well done