Well done Sam! I started Fern on BARF only yesterday and was wondering exactly the same thing about treats. Fern lurves her Bonios and her low fat milk dog biccies. I'm going to finish the packs off but she will only get them in the mornings when she has had time to digest the previous evenings BARF meal.
Regarding bones I have been feeding Fern the odd chicken wing before I started her off on BARF dinners as that was the bit that was worrying me most. I know now that she crunches them well befopre swallowing. I have been doing a bit of reading up and don't think it will be the end of the world from a nutritional point of view if you don't add bones for a week or two as a lot of the minced barf contains bonemeal anyway, but it will mean that they have no method of cleaning their teeth for a while and I understand that the raw mince tends to stick to their teeth. I think you should take the plunge with meaty bones asap myself. Have you got Tom Lonsdales 'Work Wonders'? and Kykythy Schultze 'Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats'?
Just for the record. Fern loved her first BARF meal. Raw minced chicken, a dollop of whizzed carrot, celery and cabbage with a turkey neck for 'pud'. She is munching on a whole carrot as I type....
The books I have are Work Wonders by Tom Lonsdale and The BARF Diet by Dr Ian Billinghurst.
Its the bones that worry me too, I did give them all a chicken wing a few weeks ago. Sapphi and Max had terrible diawotzits, Barney was fine. Sapphi was the only one who crunched it properly, the other two barely crunched at all.
I've since had the tip to bash them first which I'll try. I'm thinking I might try lamb ribs first rather than the chicken wings and see what happens.
The mince and blocks I've got do have ground bone in, so nutritionally that would be ok, but yes they do need to get chomping on the bones for their teeth. I know Sapphi will be fine in terms of crunching, but both boys are rubbish a chewing so it might take them longer to get into it.
I make my own treats which the dogs love and the small delicious as they have mollases in. I was given the recipe by my breeder.
These two love nothing better than, carrots and apples as treats.
Is that something you can share with us Lisa?
I will stop their other treats then, await the Bonio at bedtime backlash
I think I will chop up bits of fruit and veg each morning to carry as treats.
Do you think it would be ok to cut up bits of raw meat to use as treats when we go training or should I just stick to things like you make? I need to have something to capture their attention while training. I have been using cooked chicken, ham, cheese and hotdog.
When Poppy came home I started her on the mince and as advised by Penel kept her on the same variety for a few days - this seemed to make the transition very easy. Then I added in chicken wing tips after only a few days - she loved them and at 8 weeks old she has had no problems crunching them up!
How useless are my boys.
Little Poppy at 8 weeks old can crunch away at chicken wings and they were just so rubbish at it.
Then again I reckon the only reason Sapphi has no problems is she built her jaw strength up by getting up my carpets up and ripping them to shreds as a young dog.
Rawhide is banned in this house, Sapphi used to eat it without problems but then seemed unable to digest it and would throw it up after a few days. We tried again a little while ago and the same thing happend.