Do You Feed Your Dog(s) BARF (biologically apropriate raw food) Diet?
If you have is it easy and healthy?
I’m a bit sceptical but am interested in hearing from real people who have thier dogs on this diet.
Interesting.
My dogs scratch alot too and they are flea free.
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Tagged with: diet • dogs • real people
Filed under: Raw Food Diet
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Hello! I do not feed a BARF diet. I do however feed a prey model raw diet. While BARF is time consuming and expensive (and actually completely species inappropriate) the raw diet is cheap and easy and very healthy.
I have two dogs and a cat eating raw and they have never been healthier.
Dogs are carnivores, not omnivores. Their bodies were not made to process grains and plant matter (i.e. Fruits and veggies) Hence the sharp pointy teeth instead of flat teeth for grinding.
Join the yahoo group rawfeeding. There are over 13,000 members and all feed raw and have the healthiest dogs with the best teeth and fur and no bad breath!
You’ll find it is sooo easy to literally throw a piece of meat ,(chicken quarter for example), bone and all on the floor and see how much your pets enjoy it! Plus, feeding raw is cheap. I buy food that is marked down all the time for my pets!
Good luck and hope to see you on the raw group!
Its a great food, that many good breeders swear by. However it is not convenient and it is not at all cheap.
Thought BARF stood for bones and raw food diet. Sorry. Stupid me.
I don’t feed BARF but I do feed a lot of meat. My dogs are working sled dogs and in the winter when they are using a lot of calories each dog eats a pound of ground chicken every day. I buy necks and backs from a poultry processor and grind them with the bones and skin to make sure the dogs get the calcium and fat. In addition to that each dog eats about 2 cups of dry food, 1/8 cup fish meal and 1 tablespoon fish oil.
I primarily raw feed my dogs… have for about 15 years. I use a basic prey-model diet.
Raw feeding is not something to venture into unless you’ve done quite a bit of study. Balance over time is an essential component.
FWIW- I strongly disagree with the first poster. I feed 350 lbs of adult dogs and 2 large breed growing pups (who out eat the adults). It would be far more expensive to feed a high quality kibble than it is for me to raw feed. But then again, I have a freezer and I do bargain shop as well as buy alternate meat sources. Right now my average meat costs are about $220 a month. If I were to feed kibble it would be over $300 AND I would have to increase what I set aside for vet bills due to increased teeth cleaning, anal sac cleaning, ear meds etc… None of which I have to deal with now. Not to mention the fact that because I raw feed I never have to clean up my back yard as the poop just washes away (no preservatives).
Frankly, you couldn’t pay me enough to talk me into going back to feeding kibble.
Edit: One of the things I like about raw feeding is that it gives your dog a variety of different meat. I believe it is due to this variety that my dogs generally have no intestinal upset. And as another poster pointed out, there is less of an issue with dry skin itching. I also find it easy to adjust.. give a higher percentage of fat when I see the coat looks dry.. one of my b*tches needs more fat than the other dogs so she gets a bit more chicken skin.
I also feed raw but prey model instead of BARF-style. I don’t have the patience for all the grinding and mixing and preparation and I also don’t think they necessarily need all the veggies and stuff. I just feed hunks of meat and I supplement with occasional veggies or table scraps (though I’m pretty stingy since I tend to use everything up myself).
Feeding raw isn’t all that much more expensive than feeding a really good kibble as long as you have a chest freezer and shop the sales. There are lots of great sources of cheap meats and I just go for as much variety as I can, and I tend to go a little heavy on chicken since it’s cheapest. The only real inconvenience is when I buy a big load of meat I’ll take some time to separate it and and freeze it, but then it lasts me a while. Then I just take out the evening’s meal in the AM to thaw for the PM. I feed three shepherds this way and it’s pretty easy. One of my dogs ONLY does well on raw — he scratches himself silly if he eats anything else.