For BARF feeders - Caryll :)

Ok Hubby and I have spoken about it... and we have decided that we are not soley goign to the BARF thing..
reason being I know I would let her down....
I run out of CAT food reg and have to make a mad dash to the late night supoermarkets.. and there wont be a butcher open then..
so my question is

Is it ok to feed some raw mixed with the dry?

It's better not to. The digestion rate for each type of food is different & you could give her a dogy tum.

It's fine to feed dry, though - as long as you find the right one for her she'll do great on it.

Oh really I didnt know that...

So can I say give her a meaty rigs in the morning, which would give me time to get the kids ready for school....
and then feed her dry in the evening etc?

I have been putting sardine in her dry... is that ok?

It's fine to add a sardine because it's just a small thing that won't make a difference, I just wouldn't feed half & half or anything like that.

so you mean half and half at the same time..
or at all?

cause wont she still need a few bones here and there to help with her teeth etc

anyone used those "greenies" they look like greeen tooth brushes

There's no problem giving her bones (raw of course, as cooked can splinter) and yes, they'll help with her jaws, teeth, cheek muscles & will supply calcium. But other than that, if you're feeding dry, then feed dry, not a mixture. If you're not feeding raw, then a couple of raw bones a week will be enough as her main nutrients will be coming from the dry food.

I feed a mixed diet for my dogs and they seem to have done okay with it.any offal I brown as they will not eat it otherwise mince is the only meat they will eat raw.I tried bones and had major problems. The bitch contantly sick with undigested vone in her stomach and the dog had them in his poo that seemed dangerous and he had blood in it so that put me off.I feed a lot of fish in there diet I steam it slightly and I mix a good dry food in just for the extra nutrients.what do you think?

i dont follow a barf diet but memphis loves nothing more than liver/kidneys browned a cup full of dry and a cup of water (his casarole) he is a rather slow eater but he can finnish a bowl of this in under 5 mins were its normally about 20 mins

gem wrote:I feed a mixed diet for my dogs and they seem to have done okay with it.any offal I brown as they will not eat it otherwise mince is the only meat they will eat raw.I tried bones and had major problems. The bitch contantly sick with undigested vone in her stomach and the dog had them in his poo that seemed dangerous and he had blood in it so that put me off.I feed a lot of fish in there diet I steam it slightly and I mix a good dry food in just for the extra nutrients.what do you think?

bigwazza wrote:i dont follow a barf diet but memphis loves nothing more than liver/kidneys browned a cup full of dry and a cup of water (his casarole) he is a rather slow eater but he can finnish a bowl of this in under 5 mins were its normally about 20 mins

If you're going to cook meat, cook it thoroughly, don't just brown it - you'll get the same food poisoning problems with dogs as with humans.

gem what sort of bones did you try? I give lamb ribs/neck/spine & they are always well digested. I did try chicken wings & I found that these were coming out undigested so I stopped (I can't give then to Dempsey now anyway because he's chicken intolerant).

I gave the lamb ribs and I could hear her grinding them ( yuck)
just when they got to the size that she could swollow them , or try i took them off her... she sure did hook in...

Lamb ribs from the supermarket but my 2 don't chew they swallow as soon as possible then sometimes gag cause too big pieces so I watch them with chews also

No i went to the butcher and he gave me a whole breast plate of lamb.. them cut it into 6 pieces.. about 3-4 ribs on each peice.. when she got down to about 2 ribs and not much meat i took it from her

I must admit that Dempsey will try to swallow smaller pieces, but this is what I normally try to get him - lamb spine.....



The bones are softer and easier to crunch up.

a friend of ours has a great dane and they barf feed.i must say its a very good way of feeding a dog but very expensive and time consuming.(so my friend says)to be honest i thought only danes had barf diets lol.lola just has tripe and dry food she stinks but loves it and is always full of energy and very healthy

It's not expensive, or time consuming, well not for me any way.
I find it works out cheaper than the natural processed food she was eating.

As for time consuming, I guess if you cook the food then yes, it might be, but I just take stuff out the day before to defrost and feed the next day, only thing I really do is weigh it.

Cornish-Muscle wrote:only thing I really do is weigh it.

lol! I don't even do that!

It certainly isn't expensive - what does she feed hers, steak? It's only time consuming in as much as you need to research it a bit before you start so you know what you're doing, otherwise it's pretty simple.

Caryll wrote:

Cornish-Muscle wrote:only thing I really do is weigh it.

lol! I don't even do that!

It certainly isn't expensive - what does she feed hers, steak? It's only time consuming in as much as you need to research it a bit before you start so you know what you're doing, otherwise it's pretty simple.

I only weigh it so we can track her weight gain or loss, with it being a new diet.

I wouldn't bother normally

But I figured if she was gaining weight, I could cut out 50g, instead of guessing at a hand full lol

I think it helps too if you have a huge freezer to store all the meat and bones, I only have a small freezer in my house fridge so it makes it hard to buy in bulk.. which i see the issue for me...... I dont have a heap of time to drive back and forth to the butcher every few days ..
I am , at this stage , sticking to dry food , sardines and 3 bones a week for a treat and teeth clean

I know a lot of people who look down on anyone who doesn't feed raw. To me, that's extremely short sighted.

A good complete (dry) food will give a dog everything they need to grow & be happy & healthy - it all comes down to preference & lifestyle. Raw is much more natural, of course, but if you don't have freezer space, or you can't stand handling raw meat then dry is great.

Nowadays, especially in the UK, it's so difficult as well to find a butcher - one who actually cuts his own joints from a full carcass, rather than one who just buys in already packed cuts & just puts them on the shelf. I'm lucky cause I have Morrissons supermarket about 5 minutes walk from me, the only supermarket in the UK (as far as I know) who actually have a butcher on the premises.

Welll caryll if i could walk to a butcher I would consider too...
I have about a 5 min drive, not that it is far.. it is the freezer issue for me,
xx
I will see how she goes on the Dry, it is the best i could find here...
and the vet has approved.. so fingers crossed. she is growing.. i hope not to fast as her legs look like she is going to be a GSD they have grown so quick lol.... i guess she looks out of proportion as she runs lol

I have a tiny freezer, but I'm happy to travel every week to pick up the food I need, an thankfully, I can get bones from the butchers 6 days a week, if I needed, they're a short walk away. They'd probably get the ox heart in if I asked them too as well.
Living in a small village that's still a little traditional is kinda handy.

I'm waiting for Durham Animal Feeds to start delivering in the East Midlands area & I'll start to get the bones from them.

There's a butchers in the city, where I got her hearts from, that has bones in, so even if the butchers in the village don't have any, I can go grab some when I get her heart. They had some kind of spine there as well, I'm gonna see how much things are from there and might stock up.

caryll just looked at there site and there only about ten fifteen minutes away from me i had never heard of them .
can you drive becouse there looking for distributers around the country problem solved lol

No, I don't drive. I took lessons but then a wooden post jumped out in front of me & dented my OH's car. Twice. Then OH made me drive home in the dark (first time I'd driven in the dark) and I never drove again!

I've heard differing reports on their food deliveries (quality etc) but it's the bones I'm interested in.

So, just a quick update on how Molly is doing on her diet.

Firstly, we've been adding her old processed food to her heart and mince, partially to get rid of it, but also to slowly introduce her.

She's now pretty much turning her nose up at the processed meat, so that's going to the dog shelter as soon as we can get out.

I do have a quick question about bones. Are pork bones okay to give to Molly? They're currently in the freezer as we weren't really sure she should be having them. Any advice greatly appreciated as always!

I don't give pork bones. I find them far too big & heavy and therefore don't get crunched up & digested the way lamb/chicken bones do.

I'm not sure that there's anything wrong with giving one as an occasional treat, but it should be thrown away after a couple of hours so as to avoid food poisoning.

So it might be a case of, let her chew the remaining meat off it, then throw it away, just to be on the safe side?

couldnt tell you what he feeds the dane on all i know is he has a seperate chest freezer in the garage and has it delivered............he is very lazy though so when he says time consuming he probably means he has to go the garage to get it lol thinking about it hes tight aswell hence the expensive bit !

lolalollypop wrote:couldnt tell you what he feeds the dane on all i know is he has a seperate chest freezer in the garage and has it delivered............he is very lazy though so when he says time consuming he probably means he has to go the garage to get it lol thinking about it hes tight aswell hence the expensive bit !

I'd love to have a separate chest freezer for all of Molly's food, but along with the mice for the snake, all the animal food is in the same place as the human food

I guess being a Great Dane, it probably would cost more than a Staff, my friends Lab eats a lot more than Molly, therefore my friend ends up spending more. I guess if you was feeding a Chihuahua it would cost even less!

Hi,
Caryll, help please
I'm feeding Stella raw meat with bones and alter it with wet puppy food (Wainwrights) or universal wet food (ZiwiPeak), so lets say one meal is a wet food from a can and 2 meals meat&bones or other way round.
I buy just what I can get in Asda, couldn't find a decent butcher but I'll try Morrison's.
Now I bought some pork ribs without noticing your older advice that pork bones could be dodgy, Stella loves it, she crunches and and eats it whole. I buy lamb and chicken and sometimes beef.
I always superwise her scared to death that she'll swollow a too big part and now she really swollowed the end of the rib it could have been some 3 cms....oh God............I gave her the rib yesterday as well and she was fine, I think she must have swollowed the end the same way as now, she's used to it, but now I know I won't sleep getting up every hour to check that she's OK, with car keys ready to drive her to a vet.....
I plan to go raw completely I just don't know now when she's a puppy (14 weeks).
I give her eggs as well (either just a yolk or whole).
She won't eat offals, I gave her liver and kidneys once, she loved it but then she had quite severe runs for a day and now she won't even touch it (I made a mistake I gave her too much at first, I should have given her just some couple of pieces...).
Yeah so I believe she loves it and she is doing really very very well on the meat and bones but it makes me SO nervous to watch her........
Now she's sleeping and I know she'd be fine but I will throw the remaining pork ribs away anyway....and get some lamb instead.
Thanks for all our expertise, highly appreciated

They like to do things that worry us

My lad crunchs up most things pretty well but still swallows things that are a bit big they normally stay down, although sometimes they come straight back up and he chews them a bit more and then is fine.

Harvey isn't the biggest fan of offal i think it's the texture he isn't keen on so i give all offal meals still fully frozen and he loves it like that!

I give egg but i just give him the egg in the shell and he eats the whole thing shell included!

Also you can give her a full raw diet at her age if you wanted to

Oh regarding pork i feed a lot of pork ribs and the like i just freeze them well before hand

plus i'm a bit sad i love to watch harvey eat as he REALLY enjoys his food

Thanks
Stella is sleeping and doesn't look distressed at all, it's just me nervous
Good idea with the frozen organs, I'll try to give her just one or two tiny pieces and I'll see, as soon as I see her eating them then I'd be confident enough to stop giving her the wet puppy food and go raw completely.
She looks great and I love seeing her when she's really enjoying her meals
Thanks!

maria0077 wrote:Thanks
Stella is sleeping and doesn't look distressed at all, it's just me nervous
Good idea with the frozen organs, I'll try to give her just one or two tiny pieces and I'll see, as soon as I see her eating them then I'd be confident enough to stop giving her the wet puppy food and go raw completely.
She looks great and I love seeing her when she's really enjoying her meals
Thanks!

Haha they don't realise the worry they cause at times!

I would definitely try them frozen and see if she will eat them then. You also try flash frying them so only the skin is barely cooked but the rest is raw,

That's great to hear that she is enjoying it

maria0077 wrote:I always superwise her scared to death that she'll swollow a too big part and now she really swollowed the end of the rib it could have been some 3 cms....oh God............I gave her the rib yesterday as well and she was fine, I think she must have swollowed the end the same way as now, she's used to it, but now I know I won't sleep getting up every hour to check that she's OK, with car keys ready to drive her to a vet.....
I plan to go raw completely I just don't know now when she's a puppy (14 weeks).
I give her eggs as well (either just a yolk or whole).
She won't eat offals, I gave her liver and kidneys once, she loved it but then she had quite severe runs for a day and now she won't even touch it (I made a mistake I gave her too much at first, I should have given her just some couple of pieces...).

The pork isn't a problem - if I remember rightly, I said that people never used to give pork because of the threat of worms, but that isn't the case nowadays. A dog's stomach has really strong acid - much stronger than a human's - and the bone should break down & pass through.

Offal can often be a problem, it will loosen a dog's poo. I give a kidney or a few bits of liver about twice a week mixed in with Dempsey's normal food. Don't try to give a whole meal off offal, they don't need that much & it'll certainly upset a young stomach - it even upsets Dempsey's if he has too much.

Hi,
thanks!
Stella is cheerful today and ate her breakfest with pleasure as always (Wainwrights wet puppy food) but her poo is looks like a slime, I'm sorry of you are eating your breakfest!
It is such a light brown colour, a bit transparent, and it looks slimy like mucous
Because she's fine otherwise I'll wait how it looks later during the day...poor doggy has to pay for my diet mistake
Thanks xx

there are websites that deliver all you need for youjr dog on a barf diet.

I have mine delivered and all she has is chicken wings and chicken carcass's frozen as she doesn't like it defrosted.

I also gove sardines and pilchards as well as her meat and raw eggs aswell, although niot all together.

Lola won't eat lamb and hates kidneys.

Quick question. At what age can you start giving the dog bones to chew on?

You can give chicken wings as soon as you start to feed meat! I usually wait till they begin teething to give other bones such as lamb necks/spines/ribs & chicken/rabbit carcasses.