My first Dane puppy comes home on Feb 24th and I have been reading and researching what to feed him (he's currently on Beta). I'm very interested in the BARF system of feeding and agree with the principles of this diet. Is there anyone out there who can share their Barf experiences, particularly how to start off with an 8 week old puppy who's currently on kibble? thanks LisaW

Hi LisaW,if you do a search on here(top right hand corner) for barf or raw feeding there is a whole heap of info that you might find useful.
Christine, Spain.

Hi Lisa,

I'm feeding my 6 month lab the BARF diet, but as he is a typical lab and eats for England, Chicken wings weren't successful as he just swallowed them whole..! I use Anglian Meat Products Raw food mix...its all prepared for you ...Raw Chicken, heart, liver, tripe, veg, maize, seaweed and rice......it's frozen and you just defrost!...saves preparing the veg too......he loves it, he has bones 3 times a week......I changed from a kibble over a 1 week period....There's a really good book to see all the benefits by Dr. Ian Billinghurst called "Give a Dog a Bone"

Hope this helps

Hi Lisa,

I have never tried the BARF diet (nor has my dog!! ha ha!!), however from what I have heard it isn't too good for them.

Is this just me making something up unconsciencely, or do I have a point??

Best Wishes and Kind Regards,

Daniel.

ps. Sorry for the hideously corny joke, but I just couldn't stop myself!

You haven't made it up that is some peoples' point of view but I think you will find a few people will disagree. Including me and 2 Beardies :-D

In reply to your question, the best thing i ever did was to take my afghan hound off all complete and put him on the barf diet his whole behaviour and temperment have 100% changed for the better he is starting to put on weight which he never did on complete and believe me i tried them all cheap ones and all the expensive brands nothing worked he would eat them for a couple of days then would eat no more and his behavior was getting worse and worse so i took the plunge and started with the barf and my god i wished i'd done it 4 years ago. i for one am a total convert and i then decided to feed my chinese cresteds the same and they are looking absolutely fab on it., and i would certainly not consider ever putting them back on any of the complete foods.

Yep, same here, all my dogs probs with allergies & skin cleared up. Would never go back to all in one foods.
Christine, Spain.

I changed my Munster pup Mungo over to the BARF diet. I use the PrizeChoice (AMP) freeflow Chicken, Chicken & Tripe, Tripe mince which has the bone ground quite small and include a mixture of veg/fruit.
He also has pilchards and Tuna. I add a cod liver oil capsule and evening primrose oil capsule on alternate days. His coat is so glossy now it looks wet.
I've not been brave enough to give him the raw chicken wings or necks but he does have a big raw meaty bone twice a week (compliments from my butcher!).
He was gradually going off his complete food even trying to tempt him with nice tidbits on top. It's so nice to see him really enjoy his food now.

Zoe P

Edited because I missed something off!

I agree - the raw/BArf diet is great. Sonny did well on it and at the moment I'm in the process of changing Murphy over although I'll still use some Oscars. I gave him a chicken wing the other day - which of course he loved but I'm sooo nervous of giving him another one - he seems so tiny!
He's not, I hasten to add - he's an eight week old lab puppy with an absoloutely colossal appetite!:D. I'm using minced up chicken carcasses at the moment.

Ruth:)

thanks everyone for all your advice and sharing your experiences with me. really appreciated.

Hi,
I started my lurcher pup at 6 weeks onto raw feeding. He had previously been fed Vitalin and tripe. I just switched him straight away onto raw.
As Dill was pretty small, i started him out on AMP mince blocks, and gradually added more varietys to it as he grew. When he was about 10 weeks, i started him on chicken wings, holding them with a pair of pliers to make sure he chewed them properly. At first he could really only rip the meat off, adn eat the smaller bones, but by12 weeks he was scoffing whole wings.
Since your puppy has a lot of growing to do, i woujld reccomend that you do a lot of research into how much of which food groups you provide, how much protien there is in certain foods etc.
There is loads of info out there on the net, so get going!!!!

Good luck with your pup,
Em