Basic newbie BARF diet sheet?

First of all, I'd like to say Hi

We have a 14 month old staffy (Scooby) which we rescued from a home.

I've only had him for a couple of months and it has become clear based on a few issues we have had, that he suffers from some sort of allergy and after extensive reading, I'm sure it's diet based.

We've only been feeding him high quality dry food from Ardens Grange but not having the best of luck really.

From the little I've read on BARF diets, it does seem to have a lot of positive results and not just with allergies - anything which our new little bundle of joy can benefit from is definitely worth a try.

However, I can easily see that you can get lost in the huge amount of information out there on raw diets and I'm apprehensive on spending a lot of money on whole new diet to find that Scooby's not taking to it.

So without sounding like someone who can't be arsed, is there a simple BARF based diet sheet that I can sample for a few weeks to give me a good idea on whether this works for us and Scooby?

I've seen diets that are clearly aimed at the regular experience raw feeder and for a newbie like myself, are just too over whelming to begin with but I can understand that it can be progressed towards over time and practise

With this is mind, does anyone have any good little starter menus that I can try for a few weeks? One's that don't include many different types of meat/offal?

Hopefully, if Scooby takes to it well initially I will then be able to keep adding different things to the diet.

Apologies for the exhaustive first post

Welcome to the Forum.

I don't follow this diet but fully understand the allergy angle as my girl suffers to some degree too.

There are raw feeders here so do check back regularly.

If you get a min, pop along here and say Hi:-
https://staffy-bull-terrier.niceboard.com/f7-new-member-introductions

Hi again I know you said my diary helped but thought I might be able to be a bit more specific with some starter help.

If you just want to try it for a few weeks to see if it works, you can just focus on a few meats such as chicken, turkey, green tripe and fish as these are easily digestible meats. (Some dogs may have a chicken allergy so just bare this in mind if you feel something isn't still quite right after a week or so)
A good starting point of how much to feed would be between 2-3% of his current weight per day. Then if you notice him looking skinny add more, or if he struggles to eat it all or starts to get a bit podge, reduce it. It is a bit of a guessing game as each dog is different.

We just kept an eye on Bane's weight and also his stools to tell us what was working and what wasn't.
We fed chicken mince for the first week, with an occasional wing, leg or chicken breast added in. Then as his stools were fine, added 1 meal of turkey. If his stools continue to be normal after a day or two of this, add a second meal of turkey. Then after a week of turkey and chicken and normal stools, add in your third meat, eg. tripe, and continue as you did the turkey.
If it's working and you want to continue on with raw then add in the pork, lamb, beef and offal at the end

We found Bane had a few weeks of pretty gooey eyes and his scratching got a little worse before it started to improve as they have a "detox" period. I hope that the raw helps with his allergies And again if you need any help a few us feed raw so will do our best to answer any questions

Bane wrote:Hi again I know you said my diary helped but thought I might be able to be a bit more specific with some starter help.

If you just want to try it for a few weeks to see if it works, you can just focus on a few meats such as chicken, turkey, green tripe and fish as these are easily digestible meats. (Some dogs may have a chicken allergy so just bare this in mind if you feel something isn't still quite right after a week or so)
A good starting point of how much to feed would be between 2-3% of his current weight per day. Then if you notice him looking skinny add more, or if he struggles to eat it all or starts to get a bit podge, reduce it. It is a bit of a guessing game as each dog is different.

We just kept an eye on Bane's weight and also his stools to tell us what was working and what wasn't.
We fed chicken mince for the first week, with an occasional wing, leg or chicken breast added in. Then as his stools were fine, added 1 meal of turkey. If his stools continue to be normal after a day or two of this, add a second meal of turkey. Then after a week of turkey and chicken and normal stools, add in your third meat, eg. tripe, and continue as you did the turkey.
If it's working and you want to continue on with raw then add in the pork, lamb, beef and offal at the end

We found Bane had a few weeks of pretty gooey eyes and his scratching got a little worse before it started to improve as they have a "detox" period. I hope that the raw helps with his allergies And again if you need any help a few us feed raw so will do our best to answer any questions

Thanks for this, much appreciated.

Unfortunately when I got to the supplier, they had completely ran out of chicken mince so after speaking to the girl there who also feeds her dogs on raw, we thought we would buy two weeks of a mixture of minces.

So we came back with some oily fish, lamb & bone, lamb & tripe, chicken & veg, beef & kidney, tripe as well as a bag of carcasses and chicken wings.

So far he has had the lamb & bone, chicken & veg, oily fish as well as a chicken wing each night.

All seems good so far

One thing I have noticed pretty much immediately since he started the new diet is that he hardly ever drinks any water now - he used to drink loads everyday. I can see that the moisture content on the minces is quite high to I'm guessing that he is getting his hydration from the food now?

He wees just as often, otherwise I would be concerned.

Ok just be sure to keep an eye out The reason for doing 1 meat at a time is to check for any intolerances or allergies, but as long as everything is going well then that's great!

They do drink a lot less water because as you said the meat has so much more moisture in than the biscuits would have. Bane will only really drink if he has been running around a lot. Glad it is going well! Sounds like Scooby has had some tasty dinners

Bane wrote:Ok just be sure to keep an eye out The reason for doing 1 meat at a time is to check for any intolerances or allergies, but as long as everything is going well then that's great!

They do drink a lot less water because as you said the meat has so much more moisture in than the biscuits would have. Bane will only really drink if he has been running around a lot. Glad it is going well! Sounds like Scooby has had some tasty dinners

Yep. I started a little diary simply listing what meat he had that day, a word to describe his overall mood, and a word to describe his poo haha

That way, over a period of time I can look back and hopefully spot a pattern occur.

Have you fed Bane a chicken carcas yet? I have bought a bag of frozen carcases and wasn't sure whether to just give hime a full one or not? He loves his chicken wings and has only had one a day so far.

Would a carcas replace a whole meal?

At the moment, he is 18kg and I feed him one 454g of meat a day plus a chicken wing.

Haha you will find yourself watching what comes out the back end a lot in the first few weeks

He has had a few chicken and duck carcasses before, although quite small ones! If you think that he has been coping well with the bone in the wings and thighs, then he should be alright. If you're not so sure try cutting one in half and giving half to see how he gets on.

They do have a very high bone content, so if you feed one one day, try to even out the ratios of meat:bone the next day or later in the week.

I hope Scooby is better at eating them than Bane! The one he had the other day was dragged around the floor for about 30 minutes, until I cut it in half for him to eat! Poor excuse for a dog