Feeding a dog the BARF diet

Oh.. for the people that travel, or don't want to deal with the icky raw.. Freeze dried works well. :D

I will say .. about the dog specific foods.. MANY of those are just marketing ploys.. And most of the foods that have breed specific lines are crap (as in lots of corn/wheat/by-product/etc)


If you do research on dogs. you will find out what ones are prone to becoming snausages. Corgies are one of them.. so with kibble.. often times a lower protein works well..

Raw is usually a broad spectrum food..

I also use a freeze dried raw called honest kitchen. It made a massive change in me boston terrier who always had a vomiting problem since she was a pup. She was on very expensive meds to stop the vomiting for years. Now she eats just the raw No vomiting in 4 yrs! Would never go back to kibble.

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Originally Posted by starstrukk

I have always supplemented my dogs with raw meats and the like, and wouldn't really mind switching to a raw except for- how do you figure out how much to feed your dog? I play enough of a guessing game with dry kibble, so I think it would be rather scary to do so with foods that will very directly affect the dog's nutritional intake.

Also, it seems like everyone else here just has a couple dogs... with 5 dogs I wonder if it really becomes any cheaper.

That's just my two cents. :P

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2-3% of the dog's body weight per day is rule of thumb when feeding raw. If a dog is on the heavy side, you feed less (2%). On the lean side, you feed more (3%). Either way, the amount you feed is spread out over the # of times you feed in a day. Example, our dogs each get 3.5 lbs per day, so 1 lb in the AM, 1.25 lb at noon & night.

This is all information that you'll see time & time again when thoroughly researching raw, and I cannot stress enough how important it is do really do your homework before making the transition to feeding a raw diet. While it's an easy feeding method once you understand the requirements, it's not as simple as just putting raw meat in a bowl & feeding it to your dog.

As far as expense when feeding more dogs...I have friends with quite a few dogs (7 in one household, 15 in another) who feed nothing but raw. This is where buying in bulk for discounted prices & having the option to store large quantities of frozen food really come into play. Buying the same amount of premium kibble every month would cost nearly twice as much as the raw, but these folks are also very, very resourceful when it comes to finding good sources for quality raw.

This topic got me thinking so I started doing some research and I found these great videos, I will be changing my dog to BARF. Please take the time to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3wLT...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTWHxvjI_as&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdDPi-1Yjy0&feature=relmfu

I know this is older, but I wanted to share my friend's experience with Raw diets. She has 3 German shepards and I often helped her find meat sources. We picked up feet and heads from farmers and local people who raised 4H animals. They'd give us guts too and we could often get rabbits, chickens and goats. Some people would give us crud from their freezers that was freezer burnt that the dogs would eat. Even hotdogs are fine for treats once in awhile ^_^ She wasn't too picky as long as most of what they ate was healthy.

One of the dogs had chicken allergies and the first time she tried raw food, the diet was mostly comprised of chicken product. He had goopy eyes and liquid poop all the time and her vet in Southern California convinced her she was killing him with raw food. Once she started him on a non chicken based diet, she tried raw again with turkey and beef and he does great! It's a little harder with dogs that don't chew well and you can sometimes have issues with bone chunks if your dog inhales his/her food if it's not pre-ground. Even with the risks (some studies indicate that raw fed dogs can have slightly more salmonella bacteria in their systems) it's what I will feed my dog if I ever get one! i figure if i feed my snakes as close to a natural diet, why shouldn't it work for dogs? I figure if they can breed with wolves, they are still close enough to their wild selves that they can almost the same thing!

i tried this with my dog,,, and he refused it:confused: go figure.
spooky

I also Feed My dog a raw food well there skin improves a lot hair become shinny overall a good health