Another BARF question, how much?

[pinkcarys]

According to Dr Billinghurst, puppies need to be fed five to ten percent of their body weight per day    First off, does this sound right?  I know they need lots of food as growing pups, but that's a huge amount!  And if it is right, do we go for 5% or 10% or somethng inbetween?  There's a huge difference between 5 and 10%! And as a baby he's going to be growing quickly so how often do I need to recalculate his weight?  Is evry week enough or should it be every couple of days?  And, how d you weigh a puppy?  I was thinking of doing the weigh myself then weigh the two of us together method, but is this accurate enough?

Thank you for bearing with me on all this, believe it or not, I'm feeling pretty confident about BARF now in terms of knowing that I will be able to do it.  But I do have lots of questions still.  Thnks for your advice! 

[bluegirl]

I can't help completely as although I have raised both an 8 week pup and a litter on raw I do not actually use the BARF system. The way a did it was to split the feeding into several meals so 8 weeks to 4 mths got 4 meals per day. one was just milk, one was a cereal meal and 2 were meat with bones. The meat content started off at about 50mg per meal so roughly 100mgs meat per day plus the small cereal meal and the milk.
4mths to 8mths I stopped the milk in the morning but continued with the milky cereal which I increased and slighty increased the meat meals for the 2 evening meals, possibly to around 75mg per meat meal.
Once they reached 8 mths they went on 2 meals per day, the milky cereal in the morning and 1 meat meal in the evening followed with bones. This was probably about 100mg per meal although could have been a little higher.
I didn't really weigh anything, just had an eye for what was right. I judged it on the pups activity level and by feeling the pups ribs and how quickly the food went out of the dish (not very scientific or helpful to you I know).
The use of cereals is were the diet I follow differs from BARF as in general BARFers either prefer no or very limited amounts of cereal in the diet.
I guess reading the BARF book feeding guide for the puppy you would be looking at feeding between 5 and up to possibly 8 % of your pups weight.
I did have a weight guide that I gave to my pup owners as a guide to their cockers weight just for peace of mind, which was roughly correct for my litter, but as I've said it's only a guide, not gospel as looking at your pup is much more realisitic as to whether or not you need to increase or decrease food amounts.

[Krisdt]

I was told 10% but I think each dog varies so much its a case of watching how hungry they are or if they start putting on too much weight tbh.

[clairep4]

Hi Carys,

We used the 10% rule initially and it seemed fine, but once he got to about 5kg, 500g just seemed a bit like overkill so we cut it to around 400g from what I can remember. He's actually stayed pretty much on that ever since. I bulked it up sometimes when he'd have growth spurts and suddenly feel a bit thin, and likewise if he seemed to be getting tubby I'd cut it back - I think it's hard to stick to a set rule as they have all those little spurts and then periods of not growing much (eg when they're teething).

He's actually still (at 11 months and now weighing around 10-11kg) getting 450g a day - a huge difference to Bella who is smaller than him (10kg) and only gets a measly 150g because she puts weight on really easily (poor thing only has to look at an extra biscuit and she expands  ).

[clarey-doll]

not to sound daft (though i am )what does BARF stand for

[Nicola]

not to sound daft (though i am )what does BARF stand for

Bones And Raw Food or else Biologically Appropriate Raw Food.

[clarey-doll]

so where do you get barf from and do you recommend it as a good and nutritional way to feed?
As i am new to this excuse the naivety!!

[Nicola]

so where do you get barf from and do you recommend it as a good and nutritional way to feed?
As i am new to this excuse the naivety!!

As it's raw meat and bones you basically get it from wherever you want - your local butcher, the supermarket, direct from an abbatoir if you have one locally... wherever suits you best.

I did have Alfie (17 months) on a barf diet for about 10 months (Tilly wouldn't eat it) but recently took him off it again, I wasn't entirely convinced by it tbh and kept worrying that I was missing out some vital nutrients. There were various other niggles with him as well, plus to feed barf properly imo you need to buy the best quality meat possible which makes it quite expensive unless you have a good local supply of cheap, good quality, varied meat and bones - which most of us probably don't. I refused to feed Alfie cheap 'value' meat as it's not ethically produced and full of antibiotics etc. and I feel that it's better to feed a top quality dry food than this.

It's like anything, some people swear by it, others don't. I do still give Alfie a few barf meals each week, usually chicken wings, breast of lamb or pork ribs as they're good for his teeth but I wouldn't go back to feeding a wholly barf diet again.

[MontyMoo]

- a huge difference to Bella who is smaller than him (10kg) and only gets a measly 150g because she puts weight on really easily (poor thing only has to look at an extra biscuit and she expands  ).

I know exactly how she feels.....!!!!!