BARF Days 3-6 .
Today is day 7 of Fern on BARF. Sorry this is a bit long but I have only just had time to catch up. Life has intervened....
She has worked her way through my original BARF shopping list and greeted each meal with the same enthusiasm and polished everything off. She has crunched chicken and turkey bones, carrots and celery sticks(she spat those out after crunching
). She has still been having the occasional Bonio and garishly coloured chopped hide chew.
Poo and a worrying moment 1.Her poos have been variable, but to date no diarrhoea or constipation. Mostly small, odourless, harder and much easier to pick up. The day it turned bright orange
(after a surfeit of carrot) was interesting until I realised why
.
A worrying moment 2.Fern walked around for ages with a piece of turkey neck in her mouth one day. It was there for so long I thought she had got it stuck. I went to investigate but it wasn't. It was only partially defrosted when I gave it to her and she was sucking on it like an iced lolly. Eventually she crunched it up.
Quantity I am beginning to wonder whether Fern is getting enough in terms of quantity. She is a very active dog and seems hungry although her appetite has always been good. I had another look through my books.
Schultze only measures in cups full which for a beginner I found unhelpful. How big is a cup? There is no guide for feeding between a 10lb and a 50lb dog either. She also considers organ meats as well as raw bone such as turkey necks as an extra to be fed outside the guidelines. I found it too confusing.
On turning to Tom Lonsdale I found his recommendation much more informative. 20% of your dogs weight in raw meaty bones over a 7 day period. Now that I can understand. Nice and simple
. This means I can just wack the mince and chicken wings/turkey necks on to the scales each day for a few weeks until I get an idea of what it looks like. No more wondering what the ratio is of meat to bone on every flipping thing I feed. For Fern she will need 2.35Kg of meat and bone per week. Which equates to 336g/day if I feed her every day, or a bit more if I am fasting her for a day a week as he suggests (not sure about that yet). I shall be looking at feeding 350-400g/day until Fern puts on a little weight. If she gets too fat I shall reduce it. Veggies are extra.
If any of you actually work out that I have based this on a weight of 11.75Kg instead of Fern's weight of 11.15Kg as I put on my first post, this is because that is the weight I would like her to be .FridayBeef mince, chicken wing and turkey necks 375g in total
The first batch of whizzed veggies have run out. I have replaced then with:
Parsnip
Celery
Cauliflower
She loved these too. I wasn’t sure about the parsnip for some reason. Possibly just me putting a human slant on a dogs dietary preference.
She was eating her chicken wing in the garden last night after her veg and mince meal. She is still taking it gently and looking at me with eyes full of wonder at this new food after every few mouthfuls. A dog barked outside and instead of abandoning her food and rushing to the gate to have a good old nose, she grabbed the wing first. There was no way she was going to leave that unattended
.
Next week.
I shall be trying to see if I can get a fresh fish or two, and as OH no longer shoots - looking to our local farmer for the odd rabbit and pheasant carcass. I shall also be buying some liver, probably ox as Fern will need a greater variety of organ meats that just the frozen heart chucks I have in the freezer. I note that offal, or organ meats need only be fed every couple of weeks, up to a maximum of two or three times a week.
The other thing I shall do is to contact a BARF friendly butcher about six miles away that I found listed on Tom Lonsdales web site:
http://www.ukrmb.co.uk/showcontent.toy?contentnid=7379(a rather militant site I felt, but good in some ways - providing you are selective. He obviously has his own axe to grind….)
SupplementsI am still not entirely convinced about Fern needing any supplements with BARF and at the moment am wondering whether this is all part of the supplement media hype for humans that we have transferred to our dogs. I have read, for example that ‘dogs have no known requirement for Omega 3’. Muscle meat (not just brain -but is in highest quantities there) contains both Omega 3 and 6, with a higher ratio of 6. The more animal fat consumed the less Omega 6 is required. The role of Omega 9 is I believe, a relatively recent ‘discovery’ in relation to its function. I agree with Joules on this. If Fern has a wide and varied diet using good quality foodstuffs there should be no need for supplements. I shall conduct my own research in to this and if I discover otherwise I shall own up straight away!
Today(Sat) Fern will be having an egg with her dinner (which may well be tinned sardines* for a change). I seem to have forgotten to give her any this week.
*probably about 12 inches worth Annette