BARF Day 38Fern has at last reached the stage of the two minute chicken wing. She demolishes small chicken legs at a similar rate, with plenty of careful crunching and with no resulting adverse effects at either end, so I think her jaws must be getting stronger and her digestion has adapted well.
Time to move up a notch on the BARF.
I bought breast of lamb yesterday, a good meaty piece with very little fat (as breast of lamb goes) about 800g, and cut it roughly in half down between the ribs, saving half for today. I chopped up the meaty bone free bit into small chunks and gave it to her with her whizzed veg in her bowl. It disappeared in a flash. So I gave her the remaining piece whole and told her to 'take it out'. Outside on the patio she dropped it and looked quizzically at me as only a cocker can. '
What do I do with this Mum?' 'Take it' I said. She looked, licked, looked at me again...licked some more and then sat looking at it...
I took it in and cut down between the bones so she had three or four pieces resembling spare ribs and about the same thickness as a chicken wing. Then I gave her one and sat down outside with her. She put it down on the patio. More licking, more quizzical looks. 'Good girl, take it'... She picked it up and brought it to me. I took it and she immediately wanted it back. I gave it back to her, she put it down and licked some more and then
slowly,
gingerly began to chew.
'Good girl' I said, each time she crunched. I think because she is naturally a soft mouthed breed, this idea of being able to crunch anything in her mouth is quite an alien concept to her. She keeps looking at me as if to say 'is this
really OK to do?' It took some time, but she took each piece from me as I offered it. Finally she licked the patio clean! The whole episode took about half an hour. No vomiting afterwards and pooing normally today
.
Tonight we repeated the process to finish off the breast. I don't think i'll be doing this more than once every week or so as the bone feeding with Fern involves sitting outside with her whilst she eats, or she just wants to come straight in
. It's getting cold out there at this time of year and I feed her at 5.30 pm. I can do the 5 minute chicken wings thing, but the breast of lamb will be mainly a spring/summer food methinks
AMPI cancelled my online AMP order and stocked up from my local pet shop again. I got to the payment option and a message popped up saying that they would contact me
. When I telephoned I was told that they don't yet have a secure site (one is planned for next year) and
then they wanted to add a surcharge for paying over the phone with a credit card
! I got a bit narked with this as there is no mention of this on their web site, even when you have placed your order
, so I cancelled on principle and told them why. I then thought that the minimum order of £50 worth, might not have fitted in my freezer anyway, what with the extra Christmas goodies I shall want to put in there, even though I had padded out the order with a box of pigs ears. They were a good price too -shame. Thanks for the warning Rhona W. An extra freezer for one dog isn't something I can run to atm
