I have been feeding BARF for about 18 months and so far, all has been ok. The problem I have now, is that Murfee is constipated. He is straining to go and what comes out doesn't really do his effort any justice. He has been like it for a couple of days, he is very well and lively in himself and still has a ravenous appetite as normal. He also drinks lots of water. Although no more than has always been his normal.

Ella isn't at all constipated. They both have RMBs from the butchers, lambs neck/ ribs, chicken wings/carcasses beef ribs, mince beef/lamb, trotters, raw tripe about twice a week, steamed veggies twice a week, fruit when they eat it, raw eggs, garlic, natural yogurt. Don't get hold of rabbit or pheasant very often. My butcher keeps my big container up there and just fills it with all of the left overs and it varies from week to week as to what he gives me, I collect once a week.

I am now questioning their diet and wonder if I am leaving anything out or could add anything to ease the constipation. I have in the past given, heart, kidney, liver & lung but they always seem to have the opposite effect on both dogs and give them very loose grey stools, so I haven't fed offal for a while. Are these imperative to their diets?

What with getting a new pup in a few weeks who will be on BARF as well, I don't want to make her constipated as well. Is there any of the above foods that I shouldn't feed her to start with? Various literature that I have read says that pups can eat the same and other articles say you should leave some out. Its all confusing, I thought that I had it cracked but now I am not so sure.

I like to hear about what people do with dogs diets in the real world as the literature sometimes contradicts itself. My vet is no good, he doesn't believe in BARF at all and if he had his way, they would be on some complete food.

I would hate to think that I have been going too far wrong, somebody please confirm that it's right or educate me on where I'm going wrong. The dogs are the right weight and full of vitality, apart from the above hiccup. :)

I would say offal is viatal in small amounts.  I used to give mine half a pound once a week, whereas they woudl normally have had around a pound of Raw Meaty Bones.  I usually gave the offal with a Veg meal to bulk it out.

Im not an experienced barfer by far but I do believe they should have offal at least twice a week.  I have a 15 week old pup and ive been feeding him the same types of food as my other dog (although really they are both pups as my other dog is only 10 months) I think you are supposed to feed more RMBs meals to pups.  You are lucky with your butcher, most of my stuff comes from AMP or the supermarket I feed as follows :

Morning : either ox tripe chunks / beef chunks (which contain bone) / heart,liver etc / fish /
Afternoon : RMBs
Evening : minced tripe/beef/lamb/chicken etc mixed with a mixer (I only put the mixer in because they enjoy it and with my dogs it is difficult to find stuff they will eat - even on BARF )

The also have goats milk ( I know another sin but they love it and it helps keep weight on them when they dont eat :rolleyes: )

Oh, and eggs and natural yogurt if they are in the mood for it :p

HTH

Claire

edit to say - I dont weigh the food for mine, they eat as much as they like because they are so fussy some days they dont eat and other days they clear their bowls.

Thanks for that. Doesn't tripe count as offal? They have this regulary. As far as other offal goes, do I just give in small amounts again and hope for the best regarding their poo, maybe I gave too much of it in one go. And to ease constipation? More veggies perhaps?

Mine have the odd bit of goats milk Claire, and it doesn't do them any harm :)

Once your dogs are mature, unless they are unusually non greedey you will probably find you need to weigh/measure in some way what you gie them, as they are likely to eat more than they need and get fat.  this is certainly tru for my breed and many others where they would eat and eat. :D

Oh Brainless I dream of the day when my anorexic Irish gets FAT, im actually getting quite defensive of him, someone at training with a rather otherweight golden commented on how skinny he is and I got quite hurt in fact I had to bite my tongue to stop myself saying "well your dog is fat" :D :D 

I sympathise,it is so hard knowing what is the best to do with so much conflicting advice available.
My 10mth old Staff is fed on scrambled eggs in the morning just because she loves them and has done since a pup
Through the day on three meals, she has chicken/beef mince/white fish/oily fish sometimes sausages as a treat and a little light cheese. We also use Skinners Muesli mix which we order in, because her breeder has always fed her dogs on this and it makes up for what we may be missing. Its not tested on animals. We also give her bananas,apples,carrots and a little bit of garlic. I could do with advice on which bones to feed her because we dont really give her any except those ones with marrow in them from the pet shop and only very occasionally. I have read here that you can give them raw chicken wings, bones intact
She has never suffered constipation fortunately

Coleystaff, I feed mine on wings, ribs etc, it's a good natural diet, as I understand that they need the calcium from the RMB's and also it gives their neck, jaw muscles a good work out ;) Apart from that they really enjoy them. But I think that the bone part of the diet may be affecting my boys bowel movements, albeit he's been on this diet nearly all of his life.

So I am trying to find out if anybody elses dog has suffered constipation on this diet and what their opinion is on what may have caused it and also what I can do to ease it. Apart from giving him a big dose of liver that is, I think if I do that I'll make sure that OH is up first in the morning :D :D

My older dog does get constipated on the odd occasion, but it is usually if he has been particularly greedy and eaten a lot of his 'recreational ' bone :)

Daisy

Mine occasionally get constipated when they`ve eaten too much bone. You could try giving him less bone, more meat. Up his fruit &/or veggies. Our supermarket is full of dried fruit like figs n dates after xmas, you could try giving them or if he`s really constipated, good old syrup of figs ;) :D
Mine have whole quails several times a wk so I rarely give extra offal as its in the whole birds but they do need it a couple of times a wk but only small amounts :)

Christine, Spain.

Thanks Christine, thats very useful ;)

Good old syrup of figs eh, that hadn't occured to me, I have such terrible memories of it, I've blocked it out (pardon the pun) of my memory :D :D  That & castor oil as a last resort........yuk :D

HI
Too much bone can cause constipation....so try feeding less bone.As a rule also veges grown above the ground eg cabbage,cauli etc are stool loosening and those grown under ground eg carrot are stool firming
Archer

Well, you learn something new everyday archer ;)

I didn't know that about veg, I just thought of all veg as the same, and presumed that they ALL had a fibrous effect! excellent, thank you very much :)

Mine havent suffered from constipation on barf?

deleted = duplicated

Mine have never suffered from constipation on Raw, but if I notice stools becoming too hard I give them a little ox heart with a couple of meals, seems to keep mine about right. Too much though and eye of needle springs to mind.  Only made that mistake once :D

Hi Hairypooch :)  Sounds like a little too much RMB?  My hound used to get slightly constipated when I started feeding raw and I believe this was due to much RMB especially those with a higher bone to meat ratio such as ribs.  I now feed about 40-50% RMB, usually chicken wings, thighs, rabbit, poussin etc.  I 'bulk it out' with muscle meat - a good source I find is heart (Lana loves lamb heart) as well as chicken breast and beef steak.  Some books will say heart is offal, but there aint no denying its a muscle ;)  I feed offal once a week in the form of liver and kidneys, but not too much as it's rather rich - You can really see the difference in Lana's poo's after a RMB meal compared to a muscle meat meal :D  The other thing is that a little straining aint so bad, at least those anal glands are getting a work out ;)
Sarah
PS We dont do veggies!!

Thanks Rozzer, it's true, in all the time that I have had him, we've never had any bother with the "wonderful anal glands". ;)

No Lel, neither have mine. Seen a little straining once or twice but nothing I`ve had to remedy. Tho I`ve heard & of dogs being constipated & from what I`ve read it`s usually the bones that cause it. They make it hard & dry. I`ve heard if the fecaes is white when it`s immediately passed then you`re giving too much bone, if it turns white a little while after it`s been passed then it`s ok!! What a lovely topic & I haven`t even had me breakfast yet :D

Christine, Spain.

thanks for all your Input :)

Murf has had constipation on and off since he was a puppy, but it has been more noticeable lately and as I say, Ella is on exactly the same diet but has never suffered from it, different constitutions and dogs I suppose. But today I have bought some lambs heart and will feed a little of this, as some one mentioned, I don't want the eye of needle scenario :D And today is veggie day, so that should do the trick. ;)

This is strange, my dogs never get constipated. In fact the complete opposite. Yesterday they had breast of lamb and have been squitting for Britain ever since. They have raw chicken, breast of lamb and offal all once a week, and a bowl full of tripe the other four days, blended veg 3 or 4 times a week and rice and yogurt as a treat. (Any ideas of anything missing gratefully received)

I avoid all dog biscuits and treats as they are guaranteed to give them the squits. My oldest dog (10) is a lovely weight, but the 2 yr old is very slim, although he is fit and healthy and does agility, flyball, obedience and is an honerary husky on a two collie sled team! Obviously I don't want him carrying any extra weight, and I believe most pet dogs are overweight anyway, so I don't worry about him.

Just thought I'd share that. Why do we always end up talking about our dogs poo?! :rolleyes:

TTFN Claire 

Lol @ Claire. :D We end up talking about our dogs poo, because we love 'em, just like we care about our kids.

My dogs certainly aren't over weight, my youngest dog who is 2 1/2 is the biggest sloth on this earth, he's so laid back,nothing makes him excited, yet he is always on the safe side of slim. my eldest speyed bitch  has a bit more covering but as she has hip probs, I put this down to limited excercise. It very hard to stop her running about like a pup though :rolleyes:

I give mine raw eggs with their tripe a couple of times a week and they have mackeral on a Friday. Apart from that I feed mine a similar diet to yours. I cannot get hold of rabbit from my butcher, yet we are surrounded by bunnies in the fields.

I tried giving mine raw eggs but then spent the night up and down the stairs letting them out to the toilet! :rolleyes: I do give them crushed egg shells though, they seem ok with that. I think I am going to try breast of lamb again, but give them half the amount. Mmmmmmmmm, reakon I'll try that on an 'out and about' day, preferably on the beach - regular dips in water and all that. Plus it's easier to pick up on sand! ;-)

My youngest dog has this great scheme going. Our garden is half gravel and half patio. When he is solid, he uses the gravel, when he isn't solid, yep, you got it, pebble dashed paving. My mum thinks he's a huge pain in the @£$e, I think he has artistic qualities! :D

Hairypooch, I think the rabbit butchers sell is usually farmed these days, coz of mixi-ma-tootsies disease and all that jazz. The Pets at Home store near me sells rabbit mince but that gave my dogs the squits too, as did the white fish, chicken and liver and another one I can't remember. Yet I can give them raw liver and raw chicken with no ill effect. Makes you wonder how '100% natural' it really is.

The biggest laugh I have is the tripe I get has 'For Working Dogs Only' written on it. Apparently the firm had to put it on but no one knows why! If anyone has any ideas I would love to know. I did ask if I had to show my dogs P45 before buying it but they said not to worry! :p

Because there is no VAT on "Working Dog" food :)