Please please please excuse my ignorance, but what the heck is the barf diet that you are all talking about???????!:o

Bones and raw food.

Joan
Take the rough with the smooth

Would it be possible to explain this diet further, as in exactly WHAT goes into it, cooking, raw etc, fruit, veg etc, and what suppliments you use, and the approx cost compared to a good quality complete food

Have a look at my reply to mari in the ' New to puppy ownership ' section - Barfing can be much cheaper than feeding complete or tinned - depending on what you feed - I can feed a dax, collie and a shep for around £7 per week basic plus leftovers from our own food, bit of cheese , egg, veg fruit that kind of thing - certainly no more than £10 per week for all of them - I don't supplement as I feel I vary the diet enough, but that's something you can read more about in the various barf books _ Dr Billinghurst is one of the more well known and respected ones.

By the way that cost is for getting the meat in bulk - bought froma supermarket or pet shop will cost a lot more obviosuly - depends how puritanical (?) you awnt to be...some people will only feed organic or meat fit for humand consumption - whereas I'm not so much concerned about that - we don't eat organic ourselves, so I wouldn't be feeding my dog on it.

I use a complete with a small amount of tinned it costs me £12.30 to feed 5 Parson Russell Terriers a Schipperke and a Boxer so I would dispute that Barf is cheaper. However, I think the best way with the feeding of your dogs is to find a food your dogs like and you are comfortable with and stick to it regardless of the costs.

I did say that it CAN be much cheaper depending on what you currently feed - as some canned and dried food can be cheap then barfing wouldn't necessarily be cheaper....indeed, when I have to buy meat from the pet store rather than in bulk, it definately isn't cheaper ! However, I consider the qualtiy of what I am feeding to my dogs as high priority - that said, I'm not loaded so have to be sensible. Having read about the sorts of things that go into some processed pet food and bearing in mind that some tinned food is 70% water which you are paying for, I'd rather make up my own pet meals.
Also, you shouldn't really mix tinned food with complete as it upsets the nutrient balance of the complete.

[deleted]

Big breeds are ideal candidates for the barf diet as they need to be grown slowly and carefully, not stuffed full of bulk and additives...how many other dogs do you have ? I bet once you get intot he swing of it and you've read the billinghurst book, you'll want to put the others on it too.

The other thing I do aswell is to fast for perhaps say one day in every 14 which is very good practice, although I wouldn't do it with puppies. Also I feed say 5 or 6 small meals per day and I always feed adult dogs twice per day. My 7 month shep pup is still on three or four meals per day...also I underestimated the meat amount she gets more like 2llbs of meat per day plus veg and other bits and bobs when I've got it.

Are you starting today?

yes waiting on a delivery . the rain is chucking it down so im glad to stop in and wait for the meat to arrive . ive just come in soaked after feeding my canines . i have 3 adult bullmastiffs and 1 puppy bullmastiff and my darling 15 yr old collie , who is still the boss , i raise my pup indoors , but found it too hard to house the others , so got lovely kennels done 2 yrs ago with heat lamps . they are very comfortable and are also allowed to come in and out of house and have the freedom of the garden as well .so happy dogs mari

mari? Could you tell me more about your heat lamps - I have built a kennel - well it's more of a raised platform with sides and a door - I want to put a heat-lamp in it for the purpose of warming up and drying off wet dogs after wet muddy walks before they come into the house.....I was quoted £16 for the whole fitment froma farming supplies - you need the red halogen bulb don't you? And do you need to get it wired in by an electiricain or do the just plug in? So to speak. know you need to hang them off a chain rather than the flex.

thanks
Norm

by the way - the kennel is in the garage - where there are electrics and where I intend to suspend it from teh ceiling above the enclosed ' bed ' which is about 5 foot square.

Hi Norm
The price you have been quoted seems very reasonable. You can put them together yourself. They plug into a socket and you suspend them from the ceiling with chain.Make sure all the wiring is above where the dogs can reach. We have ours plugged into a thermostat so you can keep the kennel at a constant tempreture. As for the bulb we have a solid white bulb which gives off no light at all the red ones give off a red glow , it is just preference I think.

Hope this helps

Longdog

they can be bought in any electrical shop in Ireland but im not sure about uk . so I guess what you have is the same, as price tallys with mine Ialso have a dimplex heater in case a lamp should blow ,and the flex is in a tube of copper so no chance of tradgedy . the walls are lined with plywood half way and under the lamps are the large tough plastic beds on wooden pallets ,(the pallets can be hauled out as often as you want to clean and dissinfect) . with shredded paper If you know bullmastiffs youll know they just fling out vet beds, mats, or blankets ,so thats my options ,it works fine for me.The fittings on lamp are complete so its plug in to power point.

Hi Jusjoking I started on the barf diet yesterday, not me the dogs :d
I have not got the books yet . I will not be getting them untill after christmas.
So Iam following norms advice , puppy is great no bother loves it. fat Alice would not care what she ate so no bother, same with Alec.Babs not impressed so I did not give her any food and she ate it today. bones I did not get yet. , butcher reckons rib of pork bones are softer than most and wont damage teeth. ( Norm if you are reading do you agree with him about the bones) It is hard work though well not hard work but it takes a bit more time . Iam looking forward to seeing how the dogs look in 6 mths time mari

Biologically Appropriate Raw Food Diet

Biologically Appropriate Raw Food - Or Bones and Raw food

It is quiet easy to find what many of these terms mean by using a good search engine, such as ilor or
google both of which I highly recommend.