A BARF Diary.

[Claire]

In spite of their differing styles they were both easy to read and surprisingly informative.

I think those 2 books really complement each other and give a balanced view because their styles are so different and they really come at it from different angles.  Lonsdale's main focus is around gum disease and the effect that it can have on an animal's general health.

The only slightly disconcerting thing was reading about feeding kangaroo tails  not sure about that here in England 

Yes, I remember thinking that about the road kill suggestion as well.   The thought of feeding something squashed with fur on as well nearly put me off the whole idea of BARF.  Thankfully it didn't.

[DennyK]

Paddy's on a "lamb only" raw diet - the homeopathic vet recommended this to SarahP to help with the colitis.  I get the bones and mince from the butcher and if I'm desperate, I get a pack of fresh lamb mince from Tesco too.  Haven't bothered with any of the pet shop meats.

From Tesco, lamb mince works out at £3.76 per kg.  From the butcher, it's £3.25/kg plus I can get the breast of lamb from the butcher too.

Keep posting, HappyDog - we want to know how Fern gets on...

Denise

[happydog]

Ok then where was I?

Oh yes. Saturday evening. In A.M.P. BARF up to the eyeballs with no room in the freezer for human food(had to chuck out the frozen bread in order to fit it in  ), a load of dog tins still in the cupboard and no mixer.
Fern got fed  Pedigree Chum Saturday and Sunday with loads of Bonios to make up for the mixer and a chicken wing or carrot for dessert. She knows the chicken wing has to be eaten outdoors...

Vegetables and other supplements
I had done a bit more reading and discovered that Alfafa and Kelp in the powdered form was recommended in one book. Having tried in a few health food shops with no success, I  read the second book and found that a dog in good health rarely requires supplements -so decided not to bother for the moment. If Fern had any specific health problems then I  would be looking for extra things to help if I was sure that it wasn't being provided for with a BARF diet.

I was a  bit puzzled that one book recommends garlic whilst the other one says it is toxic  . I like the idea of feeding garlic as it is known to help protect against fleas and suchlike. I shall be adding it to her diet occasionally in very small quantities, a couple of cloves a month perhaps -as most of these 'banned' foods (with the exception of chocolate) are, as far as I know only toxic at high levels.

These anomalies only serve to reinforce the point that BARF is not and never will be an exact science, so there is absolutely no point in trying to make it so. We all manage to keep alive and fairly healthy without measuring everything to the n'th degree. Variety and everything in moderation is the key to all nutrition,  human and otherwise.

I'm thinking I can't prevaricate much longer and now the basics are here I might as well get on with it. I can always offer the remaining tins to one of my dog owning neighbours who would be delighted with them. I can't bring myself to give her beloved Bonios or chew sticks away though. They will be used up and I shall gradually replace them with some home made stuff from Willows Kitchen http://www.itsaspringthing.co.uk/willows%20kitchen.htm.

Monday.
I had a couple of hours free from work so went 'vegetable shopping' ( I must get a life). Went out of town and found a proper greengrocer (a rarity in this neck of the woods these days) rather than the supermarket. I don't suppose the pesticide levels are any different but I  somehow felt better buying things loose and mud spattered rather than those perfectly clean, plasticised looking supermarket veg. They looked fresher to me anyway. Got rather carried away (again ) and came back with:
Carrots
Cabbage
Celery
Brocolli
Parsnips
Cauliflower

I crammed them into my, now groaning, fridge (I only have an under worktop one), got out the ancient Kenwood Chefette, that had somehow survived the liver cake and roughly chopped up:
One carrot
One stick of celery
Two or three slices of green cabbage

Added a bit of water, as the Chefette sometimes needs a bit of persuasion to get going (especially after the raw liver ), and whizzed away 'til all was mush. A rather fetching shade of pale orange I thought. It also smelt absolutely fab and fresh - a bit like coleslaw. Stuck 'dollops' (about a large heaped tablespoonful each) in to separate small recycled lidded plastic tubs (-my weakness is taramasalata ) and filled five. Stuck them in the fridge. I hope that five days isn't too long to keep them but think they will be OK as it's veg and not meat.  Have decided that I might not have to buy extra veg for Fern as she can have a little of whatever we have. It goes a very long way. I shall ring the changes every week but always include one root vegetable with a couple of above ground ones. Variety is the key.

According to the two BARF books I have one says feed only a very small portion (to simulate the amount of partially digested vegetation that would be present in a  herbivores stomach relative to it's size) in relation to muscle meat and bone. The other book says not to feed veg at all and is quite scathing about it  . I know Fern likes her raw fruit and veg so she is having it. I also note from the first book that veg helps loosen things up if constipation should ever become a problem. I definitely want that as an option .

I'll tell you about Monday evening in my next post....

[happydog]

She didn't have any plain baked biscuit mixer by the way.

that's good, so you weren't tempted by evil cereals 

  It seems that fate played a hand that day Penel. I know now that cereals cannot be digested properly by dogs and is one of the main reasons for large smelly poos  . As dogs have no known requirement for carbohydrates it does seem a pretty dumb idea to feed it when you think about it. If you have to bulk up a dogs food with a food type it cannot digest or gain any nutritional benefit from, simply  in order to stop it feeling hungry then it can't be very high quality food can it? Whatever the advertising blurb may say....

[happydog]

Oooh yes please!  Can I guess?  Fern can now eat a chicken wing in under 30 seconds?

  Not yet Claire. I'm hoping she wont for a little while tbh. I'm still a little paranoid if she swallows without a lot of chewing first - and spend the next half hour watching her like a hawk in case it's got stuck or has to come back for a re-chew .

[happydog]

DO be sure to ask Penel and SarahP just how many sardines you should give Fern. They are bound to be most helpful on the subject!

as for sardines, well, that depends on how big they are ?  I think Annette should be measuring Buddy's - from nose to tail...

Thanks Annette  . I have given Fern tinned sardines before all this and she loves them. Two questions about tinned sardines that some of you may be able to help me with:
If you are solely a BARF feeder then why are tinned, cooked sardines considered acceptable? I have read that mixing cooked and raw food together at the same meal is not a good idea  . I am guessing this advice is along the same principles of humans ideally not mixing protein and carbohydrate at the same meal - differing digestion rates and enzyme production. Or am I in danger of becoming too anal about this ?
The other question is about sardines in tomato sauce. Are tomatoes not one of the foods that should be fed with care to dogs as they can be toxic  ?

[happydog]

I got a bag of lamb bones from butcher . the dogs loved them but .there was a small leg bone in there can they have that? peppers a great chewer and grinder so I know she would be able to eat it, would it be dangerous because its a weight bearing bone.. ?

Now that I am 'an expert' on BARF Jean        and can quote from one of the two books I have read. Tom Lonsdale has a section at the back of his book entitled 'Suitable Carcasses and Raw Meaty Bones'. Under 'Lamb' he has: 'Large meaty lamb bones, lamb necks, meaty lamb brisket and ribs'. So I would  go ahead. 

  I stand to be corrected on this -but I have a feeling that weight bearing bones  have more air pockets in them and are therefore less dense than non weight bearing bones.

[*jean*]

thanks happydog, as I suspected pepper crunched her way through it and I chucked the bits she cracked off as they were a bit small and I was worried shes scoff them whole, she was more interested in the marrow.

[Claire]

If you are solely a BARF feeder then why are tinned, cooked sardines considered acceptable?

I feed sardines or tuna once or twice a week, because Ruby will not eat raw fish.  I want her to have fish, and if this is the only way she'll eat it, so be it.  Obviously it's not strictly raw feeding, but she loves the meal so much (I give it to her with raw eggs usually).  I don't think it matters on occassion - same as her training treats aren't usually raw either.

I feel that raw feeding means you are giving them an excellent diet which you have control of, so it enables you to break the rules sometimes because you're doing it on your own terms, rather than having some unknown additives given to them in the form of a complete food.

What I mean by this is that before we switched to raw, if Ruby snaffled something in the park, it nearly always gave her the runs.  If she does it now, it doesn't.  Because the food she eats is high quality additive free, a bit of stuff she shouldn't ideally have doesn't have any adverse effects.

A few months back, she got this ENORMOUS piece of chocolate cake in the park at the height of picnic season.  The only effect of it was a big smile on her face  .  

Treats I give her occassionally that are not part of a raw diet include left over meat with some gravy from our Sunday roast with (if she's lucky) a roast potato, squeezy cheese as a special training treat, cooked ham, scrambled egg, and empty yoghurt/icecream tubs to lick.

Re. the comments about the veg - it's Lonsdale that doesn't approve I seem to remember.  I do feed vegor fruit with at least one of her two meals a day, and I give her raw carrots (not pulped) as she enjoys chewing them.  Lonsdale is very good, but quite hardcore.  I seem to recall that he doesn't even like the term 'BARF'!

[happydog]

Thanks for that Claire. I have yet to try Fern on raw fish but judging by the way the nose twitches when the smoked haddock comes out of the fridge I suspect there'll be no problem there. Feeding occasional leftovers is something I have always done after we have finished eating. It is their reward for sitting still out of the way and not pestering us during the meal. I would not want to discontinue that.

 Lonsdale is very good, but quite hardcore.  I seem to recall that he doesn't even like the term 'BARF'!

I agree. He is pretty scathing about using packaged raw minced 'barf' too. In his view the only way to feed dogs and cats properly is to throw whole carcasses at them and let then get on with it. Not always practical in our house. I get his  point though, which is that in order to have a well balanced raw diet the  whole animal does have to be consumed, ie muscle, bone, skin, fat, organs, - and the more of it on the bone the better. The chewing and crunching serving to reduce dental tartar and the ensuing health problems that many non barf fed animals end up with.

thanks happydog, as I suspected pepper crunched her way through it and I chucked the bits she cracked off as they were a bit small and I was worried shes scoff them whole, she was more interested in the marrow.

Glad to hear that Pepper survived the challenge 

[LouiseAS]

I've been encouraged by this thread and have started Meg on a BARF diet (thanks Happydog for the kick up the backside I needed).  She never really liked dried food anyway and although was a little hesitant at first cleans her bowl now.  Jakey is still on complete with a few treats thrown in because I need to use it up and he likes anything edible 

My OH says Meg's eating better than us, which is probably true.

[happydog]

BARF Day 1.
With deep controlled slow breaths I approached the freezer and tentatively removed the A.M.P packs of chicken mince and poultry necks. I glanced at the clock, as I placed the unopened packets on the worktop. It was half past four. 'In just over an hour it'll all be over' I muttered to myself as I fumbled in the drawer for the scissors and began opening the bags. 'The vets don't shut 'til half past six so maybe I'll still have time, if.........'.
My thoughts were interrupted by the clatter of cocker nails on my new solid oak kitchen doors  and a cold wet nose reached the level of the worktop straining to get a lungful of the aroma eminating from the newly open packets. I looked down, a cocker tail was frantically wagging. Her whole body was trembling with anticipation as she excitedly ran her nose from side to side along the worktop savouring the raw poultry laden air.


To be continued....

[Joules]

 

So Fern is still alive and kicking then?

I have tried Coco on breast of lamb tonight with some veg - it disappeared in about 30 seconds flat.  So far, in the last week, she has had oxtail, chicken wings, lamb breast, lambs heart, turkey mince, sardines, eggs and pilchards in tomato sauce.  That with the odd cow's kneecap or bone to keep her occupied.  She has wolfed everything down with huge enthusiasm and licked her bowl clean.   I have not yet found tripe so that is a pleasure to come.    I have decided not to stress about it and just try and give her a good variety over the week.  If all else fails, she will get the odd meal of Naturediet.  Hurrah, isn't BARF fun? 

[Penel]

Her whole body was trembling with anticipation as she excitedly ran her nose from side to side
To be continued....

taken out of context this could be rather saucy 

[Mich]

Her whole body was trembling with anticipation as she excitedly ran her nose from side to side
To be continued....

taken out of context this could be rather saucy 

  I am laughing out loud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brilliant Penel