B.A.R.F. diet questions

[lv4dogs]

I know it's been posted on here a bunch of times & I just spent the last few days looking back (& on other boards) but there's still a few questions I had.
I've been wanting to feed raw for a looooong time & think I am finally ready to start.

This is such a touchy & questionable topic. Everywhere I read I find different opinions, views & suggestions. One place might say not to feed this with this, another place says it's alright to feed together. etc... etc...


The books I see as reccomendations the most are:
give your dog a bone
and
grow your pups with bones
Does anyone here think that they are great books?


Another question & possibly the answer will determine if I will or will not start the raw diet.
Do you really have to have a chest freezer in order for the BARF diet to be cheaper than kibble?
I can use about 50-75% of the freezer space in my freezer for their food but with 3 dogs I'm not sure if that will be sufficient.
Price isn't too much of a concern but it is a concern. If it will be quite a bit more money to feed the raw diet with having limited storage then I odn't think it would be possible.

OR does it matter if I feed a LOT of one type of meat for a while? I can buy one item in bulk at least to store in my freezer. I know chicken is the most common, so I could buy that in bulk, then just buy a little of something else for a couple meals a week (beef, fish etc..) and feed chicken for the rest of the meals for that week.

I've pretty much learned & remembered what/how I should feed but would like to get a book for a reference just in case.

If anyone has any other suggestions or opinions please by all means share.

[cali]

Do you really have to have a chest freezer in order for the BARF diet to be cheaper than kibble?

no, I feed BARF to 5 dogs and I do not have a chest freezer, we simpley pick up about 3 bags of bones at a time, 2 go in the freezer and one in the fridge to thaw



I can use about 50-75% of the freezer space in my freezer for their food but with 3 dogs I'm not sure if that will be sufficient.
Price isn't too much of a concern but it is a concern. If it will be quite a bit more money to feed the raw diet with having limited storage then I odn't think it would be possible.

there should not be a problem, as I said we feed BARF to 5 dogs with limlited storage and we are on social servases, and easily cheaper then kibble, some people insist it cant be done but we dont even struggle with this

OR does it matter if I feed a LOT of one type of meat for a while? I can buy one item in bulk at least to store in my freezer. I know chicken is the most common, so I could buy that in bulk, then just buy a little of something else for a couple meals a week (beef, fish etc..) and feed chicken for the rest of the meals for that week.

YES you can do this, we feed almost all chicken and pork ribletts, anything else is pretty much a treat because the butcher we got the other meats from moved the day of the week that they do the cutting to a day that my mom does not work so she cant just drop by on her way home from work anymore(the butcher is out of town) and anyone can tell you that my dogs are doing fabulous

[binka_nugget]

The books I see as reccomendations the most are:
give your dog a bone
and
grow your pups with bones
Does anyone here think that they are great books?

Give your dog a bone was a good starter book for me. I learned a lot from the internet too (the rawdogs community on LJ is awesome).

Do you really have to have a chest freezer in order for the BARF diet to be cheaper than kibble?

I only have two shelves for their food and right now, I'm paying roughly the same price as I was paying for kibble. I buy premade raw (mixed veggies and fruits).. I'm sure it would be cheaper if I bought in bulk. It would be even cheaper if I did everything myself (I'm too lazy ).

OR does it matter if I feed a LOT of one type of meat for a while? I can buy one item in bulk at least to store in my freezer.

Your pups should be fine if you choose to do this. My boys get two meals a day and at least one of those meals is always chicken (bones). It's cause chicken's cheap, and it's easiest for me to find chicken bones. I read somewhere that chicken is one of the better meats to feed too.

[lv4dogs]

Originally posted by binka_nugget

Give your dog a bone was a good starter book for me. I learned a lot from the internet too (the rawdogs community on LJ is awesome).


I only have two shelves for their food and right now, I'm paying roughly the same price as I was paying for kibble. I buy premade raw (mixed veggies and fruits).. I'm sure it would be cheaper if I bought in bulk. It would be even cheaper if I did everything myself (I'm too lazy ).


Your pups should be fine if you choose to do this. My boys get two meals a day and at least one of those meals is always chicken (bones). It's cause chicken's cheap, and it's easiest for me to find chicken bones. I read somewhere that chicken is one of the better meats to feed too.

Thanks for the info. When you say you buy the premade raw, what is that?
Is that like a frozen pack of mixed viggies or is made just for dogs or what? That seems like an easy way to do it thats for sure. I don't blame you. lol

[binka_nugget]

Yup, they're frozen packs of raw dog food. Some are just raw meat, some are raw meat and bones.. the ones I buy have a variety of veggies, fruits, and a type of meat mixed together. I used to do everything myself but it became way too time consuming (it's already hard enough finding time to feed them premade raw LOL).

[cali]

lol premade raw is easier but it is rather pricey lol many raw feeders set aside one day a month in which they prepare meals ahead of time, personally we make them fresh food every day, we only make bulk amounts for flyball tournys and such. also you can choose which order to feed the meals in as one meal would be meaty bones and the other pulped veggies and fruits mixed with organ meats and such, for many morning is the busiest so they feed bones in the morning as this is the simplest pull bones out of bag and toss em to dogs lol and when they have more time in the evening they feed the veggie slop mix, its really not that time consuming, it takes me 5 minutes each afternoon to prepare and feed the veggie slop mix, I mean its not that hard to toss veggies and fruits in a blender, pour into bowls, toss in some organ meats or fish(once or twice a week) stir and hand out. personally I think some people just make it more complicated then it really is lol

[Husky_mom]

sorry to ask, but what does BARF stand by? Raw Food or something?

[cyber-sibes]

I've been curious about raw feeding for a while, could you post what a typical day's meals consist of? Do you never feed kibble? What percent of it is is meat? bones? Do you ever have to worry about salmonella, especially with chicken?

[cali]

BARF stand for Bones And Raw Foods as well as Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods.


for my dogs a typical days meal is:

morning/afternoon(basicly anytime between 6am ad 2 pm):

veggies such as Romane lettace, red or green bell peppers, an egg or 2 including shell, broccoli, bannanas etc.. things like this, each day is differnt basicly its whatever we happen to have at the moment. sometimes Yogurt, all this is pulped in the blender with a little water to help it blend. this is then poured into the bowls which are washed daily and lined up on the counter, how much I pour in depends on the dogMistys gets the most, Happy and Blair get a little less then Misty, perky get a little less and Ripley gets the least,. NOTE: this is NOT actually measured out. I then add in some raw hamburger most days, my mom usually adds things like heart and kidney just because I have trouble cutting through those things myself. stir all together and hand out.

Evening(6PM sharp):

pull bones from fridge, usually chicken or pork ribletts give the 3 bigger dogs each 2 chicken backs and Musty also gets a few necks and the little dogs get 6 chicken necks each. pork ribletts 2 each and the little guys get 1 each.

Sundays: one large meal of meaty bones at 5PM this is the only meal on sundays.

I have never worried about salmonella, we just make sure to clean up after feeding time, and obviously wash our hands with soap and hot water after each feeding. in the fridge we do keep a seperat section at the bottom of the fridge for the dogs food to avoid cross contamination. as for the dogs, seeing as they potty 5 second after they finnish eatingI think its a safe bet that the dogs wont get it lol

[Giselle]

I don't feed BARF, but I do feed raw. It makes me a little cheesed off when people say "raw", but only know of BARF . Just to clear things up, there is a whole other array to feeding raw than just BARF. For example, I feed Schultze's "The Ultimate Diet". I find that BARF is too artificial, whereas Schultze's diet attempts to reconstruct an actual prey animal with minimal (think 3 tablespoons for a 50 pound dog) of veggies. I highly suggest you buy more books on the topic. Billinghurst's books left me confused and even more apprehensive about starting the raw diet. You'll find that the book is pretty poorly written and with a lot of criticism against the dog food industry. I suggest these books:
Natural Nutrition for Cats and Dogs: The Ultimate Diet by Kymythy Schultze
Cr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats by Richard Pitcairn and Susan Hubble
Raw Meaty Bones by Tom Lonsdale

I can see where you get your confusion because even though all the aforementioned authors differ on what supplements to feed. Pitcairn recommends torula yeast, while Schultze wouldn't dream of feeding it. Pitcairn likes a lot of bulky grains whereas Billinghurst doesn't recommend it. The point of reading all these different diet concepts is to create your own opinion and choose the diet you like best.

Just like the others, I don't need a separate chest freeze for my pups. I buy bulk about bi-weekly and store it in the lower portion of my freezer. It empties very quickly and won't clog up your fridge if you do it right.

Having the bulk of your dog's diet be chicken is perfectly okay. When you consider that most kibble-fed dogs are fed chicken and rice every day of their lives, having a little fresh variety from time to time is fantastic! Schultze usually uses turkey, which is easily accessible if you find the right butcher. I like both and buy whatever cuts and bones are on sale. In fact, you'll notice that in my thread "What does your dog's dinner look like?" that I used a chicken carcass. We generally feed chicken, with a bit of beef, duck, and turkey thrown in. I don't like pork as I find it's more difficult to digest and generally not as nutritious.

Cyber-sibes, I do feed kibble lots of times, but the kibble is Innova EVO. I never feed any other kibble. The phosphorous:calcium should be 1:2. I don't worry about salmonella or E.Coli too much. The same precautions that go for humans go for dogs as well. I just think of it as cooking another meal. I hope that helps!

[Giselle]

Ack, I noticed you asked for a meal plan. Okay, here goes.

(From Schultze's The Ultimate Diet). Meal Plan for a 50 lb dog:

1. Raw Meat: 3/4 - 1 cup muscle meat (plus organs and eggs). Muscle meat is precisely what it sounds like- meat w/o bones. This includes chicken breast meat, leg meat, heck, even filet mignon if you want!
2. Raw bone: 1 turkey neck or 6 chicken necks
3. Veggies: 3 tablespoons, pulped
4. Supplements: 2 tsp Kelp/Alfalfa mixture
1 tsp Cod Liver Oil
2 tsp Essential Fatty Acids
up to 3,000-6,000 mgs Vitamin C

Adjust accordingly to your dog's breed and weight, and you've got a meal for the whole day. I split the meal above into halves because I feed twice a day.

[Vette]

My friend wants to know if its okay to feed raw eggs?
she feeds her Boston BARF but has been holding back on giving her any raw eggs. she always boils them before giving them to her.

[cali]

RAW eggs are actually very good for dogs some people say feed raw eggs in moderation, our dogs get eggs like every day, mind you its like 1 or 2 eggs in the blender so that is split amongst 5 dogs, and that is the WHOLE eggs shell and all, the shell is very healthy, full of calcium

[Giselle]

The controversy behind raw eggs is that the egg whites can cause biotin deficiency. This can be 'cured' by feeding the egg yolk raw and cooking the egg white. Some people believe that the whole biotin deficiency is mostly due to being fed excess amounts of egg white. A raw egg or two a couple times a week shouldn't hurt the dog, but boiling it doesn't necessarily hurt the dog, either.

[cyber-sibes]

Thanks for the explanations, and reccommending the book titles. I'll bet mine would love more fresh food in their diets, I think I'll start adding a little raw stuff to their diets, and look into this further.