I've gone through the search and can't find what I want to ask.
I don't understand the Barf diet. Is this a totally Raw diet??
If so what would be best to feed a Mastiff.
My girl has decided she won't eat the 'complete' that she has been on for years. She doesn't have a boring diet she has just 'gone off' her usual food.
She has OCD & arthritis so I have to keep her lean. She currently weighs about 8.5 stone.
I feed the cats and the ferrets on raw food. What kind of meat and how much would I have to feed the Mastiff??
Also where is it best to buy the raw meat??
I have three other dogs who are happy to eat the 'complete'.

BARF = Bones And Raw Food. Have you tried NatureDiet? It's as close as you can get to BARF without the risks :) NatureDiet :D

It may be called raw food but it is only the meat that is raw the veg is lightly steamed and the additives are brought in ready processed. Agree NatureDiet would be easier as it is only one dog you are thinking of putting on it.

On a totally raw diet ALL food is raw, including the vegetables.  My dogs get NOTHING that is cooked.  The best place to get the information you need is Britbarf UK a site devoted to raw feeding on Yahoo, alternatively Raw feeding and K9-nutrition are excellent US sites.

Books you need to read are:  Natural Nutrition for cats and Dogs by Kmythy Schulze, The BARF diet by Ian Billingshurst.

Do NOT commence raw feeding until you fully understand it and are comfortable with it.

Dogs eat ALL meats but with bones, meat alone will mean a calcium deficiency, raw fish, raw eggs, raw offal, small amount of veggies/fruits if wished.

You can go to farm shops, wholesalers, abbatoirs or Pets at Home stock frozen meats supplied by AMP etc.

I urge you to look at Britbarf UK for help on quantities and ratios for your Mastiff, generally adult dogs are fed 2 - 3% of their bodyweight per day.

Naturediet is a commercial food made from meat, rice and vegetables but cooked.

Stand corrected the BARF instructions I had said lightly cook or steam the veg and use some sort of additive which you buy in (think seaweed based). May be that is why my dogs did not do well on it.

The theory behind lightly steaming the veg (or else raw, but pulped or processed through a food processor) is that dogs can't digest them properly completly raw.  They need to have the cell walls broken down, and steaming them does this as does putting them through a food processor.

Wendy

They CAN digest them completely raw as long as they are pulped or frozen.  No need to steam.

Yup - that's what I said - didn't say about the frozen, but did say pulped or processed:)  There are some books that suggest very lightly steaming - literally just a minute or two to break down the outside.  Not enough to really cook it.

My girls love their raw veggies whole - they DIE for broccoli stalks whenever I'm doing broccoli for us.  So they get no nutrition out of it really, but they enjoy it:)

Wendy

NatureDiet also has bone powder in for calcium, and seaweed extract and vits/minerals :)  It's 100% natural too :D

Kathy,

It's the raw versus cooked camp debate, again.  :-)  I feed Naturediet too, but I don't think it follows BARF principals.  I do think it is good, simple, complete and balanced diet.  And a better option than even the best brand of dried complete.

Stacey

I agree :)

Sorry - wasnt debating, just posting about what we feed. I would love to be able to trust BARF but cant, so this is an alternative thats all :)

Hi Kathy,

I know you weren't debating.  I too think the risks of BARF outweigh the benefits and that the benefits to date are largely anecdotal.  However, you may be like me in that I believe that dry completes and mass produced/highly processed canned foods are not optimal foods for dogs.  They are convenience foods .. and some can hardly be called "food".  And the risks of feeding this stuff as the only source of nutrition to dogs is also not fully known, despite years of feeding trials by the pet food industry.  Industries (and governments) are not very good at regulating themselves.

Stacey

Absolutely agree - hence me using NatureDiet. I was one of the dry food pushers until I read more about it after Ruby's diagnosis. :(  Now trying to find suitable and slightly more economical diet for a large breed pup (6 packs of NatureDiet a day the feeding guide says?!?!?! *lol*).

I don't wish to appear pedantic but are not the benefits of commercial food also anecdotal? Witness the debates on here regarding various commercial brands?  And anecdotal as opposed to what? 

When people ask for opinions on various ways/brands of feeding are not all the responses "anecdotal"?  Opinions expressed may be informed or uninformed to a varying degree and are generally based on empirical data peculiar to the user and individual animal(s) involved.

I would be interested in how the opinions of raw feeders and the empirical data upon which they are based differ from those of commercial feeders?  Are they any more/less valid and why?

Naturediet cannot follow raw feeding principles as it is cooked

regards

Tohme,

I agree that the opinions here are anecdotal, regardless of feeding regime.

The pet industry has been doing feeding trials for many years, as horrific as some of them have been.  Granted, from what I've seen these trials focus on the short term implications of a food regime, short meaning no longer than one generation.  A significant weakness, but IMO not as serious a weakness as the failure to compare commercial diets from the industry giants with alternatives.  However, the results from these feeding trials appear to be the only data available which is not anecedotal.   I would love to know if there are any university studies or other bodies which are conducting trials where the aim is to find out which type of diet is best for dogs .. rather than which brand of commercial food or which formulation of the same delivers better results.

Stacey

Even better would be scientific study NOT carried out by the food manufacturers themselves :D

Such as these? :)
Is feeding raw meat safe?
Chemicals in Pet Food
Animal Protection Institute - What's Really in Pet Food?
Hence me being on the fence and feeding the most natural food that I feel is safe :D

By study I mean properly designed scientific study without emotion by disinterested parties; unfortunately feeding is, like tail docking and hunting, quite an emotive subject for some who are totally unable to conduct a reasoned debate about the issues involved without increasing the polarisation of various extremists.  Is feeding raw meat safe could not be called "clinical" or "disinterested" IMHO. 

I have always maintained that people should feed what they feel is in the best interests of their animals after informing themselves of the facts, the risks, benefits and drawbacks of various diets, ingredients, synergies etc for their animals; according to their own philosophies and resources available.

This is indeed what I tell myself as I reach for yet another Mars bar for breakfast :D

If you look at the first link - there are details of various studies :)

Edited to add: There is also a link in that list I gave for the Animal Protection Institute. Dont *think* they have a vested interest ;)

Tohme,

Absolutely, the last body to do any diet study should be one with a vested £££ interest in a specific outcome. 

Stacey

Stacey. is it? There is a good deal of miss-information about, just because some of us would like to talk about it does not mean it is ' that old discussion again'. It is clear that when I thought I was trying BARF on my dogs, I wasn't, as my instructions said to semi cook the veg. Now it appears it should all have been raw. So many different people all with their own ideas of what feeding BARF or Raw or Nature Diet means, best talked about I think even if you and others have heard it all before.

To be fair Jackie there are many "versions" of raw feeding; some that include grains and others that do not.  I try not to use the acronym BARF myself as it is the term used by IB in his book and a lot of us deviate some way from his designs :D

Obviously if I feed RAW then nothing needs to be cooked; that is not to say that you should not give the odd table scraps leftover etc; I would if I left anything on the plate :D

Hi Jackie,

If I didn't like to talk about it I would not have joined in the discussion :-)

Stacey

Sorry Stacey. must have miss-understood your >>It's the raw versus cooked camp debate, again.<< remark. Supose it was the word again! ;)

No problem Jackie. It was a "word thing", I didn't mean debate in a negative way.   They keep my brain from turning to mush and force me to reevaluate my opinions.  I was too quick composing my response and it came off the wrong way.

Stacey

Hi Jackie

I think I am correct in saying that dogs can't digest cellulose in its natural state (look what happens when they eat whole carrots, sweetcorn, grass or even whole wheat as mine have been doing recently as they learnt to open the goose house door and help themselves).  If the vegetable matter is crushed it then becomes digestible for canines.  Perhaps this is why the stomachs of prey animals is generally the first to be consumed.

I imagine that lightly cooking has a similar effect except that it defeats the object of giving it raw.

~~
I feel that anyone wishing to switch to raw feeding would do well to read IB's books BUT, read them with a large degree of cynicism.  He appears to subcribe to the belief that everything bad happening is due to food, that dogs can't safely repoduce etc etc unless they are fed raw, which, as we all know is absolute codswallop. (Although who knows, he may be proved right in the very long term). I do feel though, that if you ignore (or think carefully about) the more extravant claims then the basis of his books do make a lot of sense.

~~
To those people who say "my dog is healthy, has a glossy coat etc etc" I would like to point out that my Fennel who had to be pts a few weeks ago had the most wonderful glossy coat, bright eyes and damp nose and never lost these at any point in her illness.  To look at her she looked the picture of health, sadly this was very deceiving.

My dogs dont really like their veg raw -& i have tried & tried! as a compromise when we cook our veg i take out theirs about half way through the cooking.
i see dorwest herbs has a "greens" powder out now, i might get some at crufts to try!

On the glossy coat point have to agree. Not a very good indicator of health every time. The "sheen" comes from the high fat content of the BARF diet too :)

Hi,

I've been on the britbarfUK site.
I may seem a bit dim but when I posted I really wanted DIRECT advice. My Mastiff has OCD & Arthritis and has decided to refuse her complete.
I've got the leaflets from Naturediet but the price range is way too high for me.
I have too many dogs to be able to afford that.
I have been putting raw meat in Ragga's complete and she has eaten that.
The reason I posted in the first place was that I was under the impression that the BARF diet might help Ragga. I give her Glucosamine and Garlic as Well.
Is there anyone out there that can give me advice. I know someone in an abattoir but he says he needs to know what 'bone & meat' I need.
He can supply whatever I ask for.

D4wn

Hi
Have you tried just tripe, with wholemeal biscuit as a filler? most mastiffs do very well on it.

Why do you not purchase some of the excellent books out there such as Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats by Kmythy Schulze, The BARF diet by Ian Billingshurst etc.

Tohme,

Yes I am going to get the books but at the minute I am on a restricted income so it will be a few weeks before I will be able to get one of the books and possibly another couple of weeks before I will be able to get the other.
Have you any idea how much (weight) raw I should feed my Mastiff, not bullmastiff, as some people have thought I've said.
She only weighs 8 stone as I have to keep her weight down due to OCD & Arthritis.
I will get the books it's just as I said at the moment I'm a litle restricted.
Another thing . Do I just change her over or do I take a week or so to get her on to raw??

Adult dogs should eat around 2 - 3% of their bodyweight per day as a general guide; obviously a lot depends on their temperament, activity level, time of year etc.  Therefore if your dog is around 30kgs it will be eating between 600 - 900 g of food per day.  Some need less some need more.  I would start your dog out on one food first before making things more complicated :D This way you will be able to see if it agrees with her and so chicken wings would be a good start.  You could feed these twice a day for a couple of weeks and then gradually add in other protein sources.

I feed my dogs twice a day, one meal is always RMBs the other may be too or it may be a whole rabbit, raw kidneys, heart, liver, fish, egg and veggies and yoghurt etc.

I have changed all my dogs cold turkey and most dogs do not have a problem with this, a few do need a more gentle introduction.

Your dog may not know what to do with raw food at first and may, like one of my dogs, take 3 days before she will touch it and then never eat anything else, others just scarf it down from day one.  If she is one of the latter she may bring it up again, do not worry she will crunch it a bit more and enjoy the meal for the second time :D

Does this help?

If you are going to chage to raw tripe I would do it gradually over a few days. I never give a female more than 2 Ibs a day divided into 2 meals. I would have thought 1 l/2 Ibs would be adequate. If you shop around and can buy in bulk you should be able to get it between 16-18p a LB, you will have to get it from a pet supplier.
I can't reccommend feeding chicken wings to a mastiff, I have seen them get bits of the fine bones stuck between their teeth, no fun getting it out again.

Are mastiffs teeth different from all other dogs then?

There are 2 brand new BART Diet books for sale in the bring and buy section on the board I think it is £18 for the 2

http://www.njboxers.com/faqs.htm#started

http://www.njboxers.com/more.htm#cost

http://www.diamondpaws.com/health/rawswitch.htm

These sites have excellent info on BARF. Look at ALL the links on it and see what you think!!