BARF

[Naughty Pair]

Hi All,

After having posted a thread re my 7 month old being ill - ie sickness and the runs.  I have decided that I will start the BARF diet this coming weekend - for both of cockers.  I am hoping Teri will pick up and that their eyes will not be as weepy and they may stop scratching.  They currently eat nature diet but teri does not like it - so vet suggested the prescription bland diet.

I will add slippery elm powder for teris sensitive stomach.  Any other powders I should add for nutrients.  Will draw up a menu for  a week for them  - anyone got a good BARF, simple menu for one week that I could steal??

Have read the Barf threads on here before - and they are great very informative!

Any further advice - gratfully received!!

Thanks,
Jane

ps found a dog walker now for £15 pounds a day she collect and drops them off and keeps them for 4 hours .........am very happy

[kate.s]

I have startd Sam on BARF just this weekend. I started off by buying a bag of natures menu chicken, tripe, heart and veg from PAH just to see if he would like the idea and now he is on his third day.

I have never known him bark for his food before, he's never really been interested. I've been adding extra veg to the frozen mix as there doesn't seem to be much veg in it....he has been polishing his bowl. I also gave him an egg yesterday which he polished off quite quickly too. In another day or two I'm going to try a chicken wing eek!!

If you read the BARF diary thread in the health section of the foum that should give you some ideas, that's what I've been doing.

There seems to be a few new BARFers on the forum at the moment which is good because we can all share our ideas. 

[Naughty Pair]

Great - glad it is going well for you!  Its a bit nerve wracking.

Have looked at the diary thread - so much info!!

Will you get your meat from a petshop, butcher or supermarket - if from the supermarket will you get the value stuff?

Im prob going to do a supermarket/butcher run on sat...

You adding any supplements?

Am looking forward to this!

[Naughty Pair]

also do you give the shell to them with the egg?

[Rhona W]

also do you give the shell to them with the egg?

Yes. Mine won't eat them whole (but others do), so I crush the shell and mix it into their sardines and pilchards.

[DennyK]

Jane

My dog Paddy has a sensitive tum (recurrent colitis, no parasitic or bacterial cause, just a predisposition) and is on BARF.  I'd suggest that you start your dogs on lamb as a homeopathic vet has told another COL poster (SarahP) whose dog has colitis that lamb is better than chicken or beef - I think it's less likely to cause any kind of inflammatory/sensitivity type reaction.  

You're looking to feed about 3% of your dog's body weight per day.  

A simple menu would be lamb mince, with the slippery elm stirred in, plus a dessertspoon (max) of blended raw veg stirred into the mince too for one meal, plus breast of lamb bones for the other meal.  Then add in (either as a meal on its own or bits added to the mince daily) some organ meat.  Paddy hates liver and kidney - picks the bits out of his bowl - but loves lamb's hearts.  I use one heart per week, divided over the week and mixed into his lamb mince daily.

I do a "mixed meal" of mince, veg, heart plus Keeper's Mix (from Dorwest Herbs -a kelp-based mixed powder for vitaming/mineral) which I bag up and freeze so each bag is one meal, then I bag up meal-portions of breast of lamb and freeze.  Any excess blended raw veg mix, I pop into ice cube trays.

If I forget to thaw something, or else once a week, I give him sardines or mackerel in tomato sauce plus a raw egg on top.

If you want to supplement fish oil, get a capsule and pierce it and put the oil into the mince too.

Am I right that one of your dogs had c. bacter?  If so - the lamb is an even better idea.

Of a morning, Paddy gets one of the pre-mixed bags of mince/veg/heart plus I add in freshly the Keeper's Mix.

Hope that helps - good luck and keep us posted.

Denise

[CraftySam]

I'm starting mine on BARF on Wednesday.  Until Saturday I'm feeding them the frozen BARF blocks from PAH.  Then I'm switching to this menu, which Rhona W has kindly helped me with.  

I'll be feeding twice a day.

8 meals of raw meaty bones - Chicken Wings and Lamb Ribs
3 meals of mince (from PAH for the time being as its got ground bone in, though may be ok to switch to normal mince later) and whizzed up veg
2 meals of offal and whizzed up veg
1 meal of sardine/pilchards and egg

It depends on how much they weigh to how much they get. I've got three of all different weights, so it was a bit complicated at first but Rhona got my head straight. I know that alot of people don't bother working out weight to food ratio and go on how their dogs are looking. If they too thin they get more, if they are too fat they get less.  As a beginner I had no idea how much to feed so I did work it out and I'm feeding 3% of their body weight and I'll adjust as needed.

I'll give you an example (that Rhona helped me with again   ) of what Barney will get fed.

He weighs 13kg so he's getting 390g (but 400g is much easier to work with so I probably will!   )

Two meals of 195g

195gs of chicken wings/lamb ribs.
195gms of mince and veg. - made up of approx. 160gms mince, 40gms of veg.

Once or twice a week use 160g of offal instead of mince.
And once a week give sardines or pilchards (or both) and with an egg.
And once a week give a bone meal for tea as well as breakfast.

Hope this helps. I know I found it all a bit confusing when reading the books, websites and posts on here where everything was saying slightly different things. But I'm really happy with that menu so I'm taking the plunge at the weekend.

[DennyK]

Just seen the extra questions - during the better weather I gave Paddy the shell but it's so messy now in the house - bits of egg shell secreted in odd places that I just break the egg into his bowl.

Source of meat/bones: I haven't tried the pet-grade mince although there are positive reports on here from people who use them.  I just decided to use human grade meat and bones - from butcher and Tesco.  I don't use the "Value" type meat because the fat content was too high and I didn't want to set Paddy's tummy off again.

With the veg - it's counter-intuitive to us, but dogs need no cereals and vey little carbohydrates from veg either - so a dessertspoon of mixed veg seems to be at the upper end of what they need.  Some dogs will happily munch more veg - I haven't chanced it, again because of the colitis - wasn't sure if it would trigger too much/softer pooing....

Denise

[Rhona W]

I don't use the "Value" type meat because the fat content was too high and I didn't want to set Paddy's tummy off again.
Denise

I never thought of looking at the fat content. Do you think it matters to dogs without stomach problems?    I have used supermarket and pet shop mince.

The bones, chicken wings and offal (ox kidney, lambs heart and liver) I get from a local butchers. They are much cheaper than the supermarket and will usually give me the bones for free.

I was told to add a 'dollop' of veg to 100gms of mince  which worked out to be about 20gms. (It depended on how fed up I was getting towards the end of bagging it all up.  )

[kate.s]

I'm going to go to my local butcher today, what bones should I actually be asking for?

Think I've given Sam too much veg by adding a bit to the ready made stuff....poo was a bit soft this morning.

Also, excuse my ignorance, but what is bone meal and where do I buy it?

[DennyK]

Kate

Bone meal is basically ground bones: it gives the dog the nutrition (mainly minerals) from the bones, but not the teeth cleaning or the jaw exercise and salivation which crunching the bones provides, so it's better than no bone content but not as good as bones "as is".

Bones to ask your butcher for - breast of lamb (contains lamb ribs), turkey necks, chicken backs ( you get the rib cage and spine, with some meat and flesh, plus bits of organs still attached), chicken wings, oxtail, beef leg bones and beef knuckle (still haven't been able to get these!).

I'm sure others will post their favourites soon!

Rhona - I recall Penel (I think) or ClaireP advising to trim off excess fat from e.g. breast of lamb, as too much fat can give any dog slight diarrhoea.  If you think of the rabbit as the feeding model, there aren't too many fat rabbits waddling round in the wild, so most of their intake would be lean meat, with the greatest concentrations of fats coming from the organs as EFA's.

Denise

[kate.s]

Sam has just eaten his first chicken wing and he seems fine. I put it in his bowl so he took it out and started licking it, then he took it outside and found a corner to eat it. I kept checking on him and he was just munching away. I've been out and had a look where he was sitting with it and there isn't a bone in sight...phew!!

Where can I buy bone meal from?? Surely it's not the gardening stuff 

[Rhona W]

Bones to ask your butcher for - breast of lamb (contains lamb ribs),

I just ask for the rib cage as opposed to breast of lamb. I used breast the first time, but there wasn't much bone content in it. The dogs tended to swallow it down in whole strips as there was nothing to crunch. And then Reuben was sick afterwards. Or regurgitated it.
I found it was also a lot more expensive than ribs, which I can usually get free.
(Penel posted a photo of the lamb ribs she uses on the "Barf Again And I'm Not Sorry" thread which was useful as I knew what I was after when I went to the butchers.)

[Penel]

Who wants to feed bonemeal and why ?  no definitely do not use the gardening stuff..... the Prize Choice mince contains ground bone so you really shouldn't need to add bonemeal to anything.

[Naughty Pair]

thanks for all the advice - i will try the lamb diet for both my dogs.  annie can have some chicken as she is not so sensitive as teri

am prob going to go to the butcher and start from there.......gave annie a carrot tonight and she liked it....its just the beginning!

do you think i should start the barf diet on sunday.  once teri has finshed her antibiotics and prescription diet.....do you think the barf diet will be ok for her??  given her runny poos (bit harder now) and sickness (she was a bit sick today).  she is not as lethargic now but she never seems as happy as annie...

let me know if you are doing a gradual intro or straight away...

thanks!