hi i have just started a barf diet (4 weeks now) but i am worried i am not giving enough variety, i use chicken pet mince from the butchers this is just all chicken cut offs and bones, etc.

i also give a lot of green veg and some fruit. some times i give chicken wings but i cant afford to give these all the time as they are £2 a kg and i have 9 giant breeds.
i also give tripe, and twice a week i give egg, and offal meat. i sometimes have given tinned fish but i would like to give fresh but it seem to be very expensive. i also can't afford to buy lamb or beef much cause my dogs need a lot each.

i also give vitamin E tablets, primrose oil tablets, garlic tablets and have just started to give cod liver oil to one bitch as she has very bad skin, but i am very worried cause i have heard they can die if you overdose with cod liver oil, she is about 55kg in weight how many tabs should i give her a day and for how long.

i have not seen any change in my dogs yet so i am worried i am doing something wrong, well apart from there faeces which is now white, very easy to pick up and they don't smell.

i have got two books on the barf diet, (the barf diet by ian billinghurst) and (natural nutrition for dogs and cats by kymythy r. schultze.)
i just need more help any suggestions or advice will truly be appreciated. please tell me what i am doing wrong and how to correct it.
thanks kim.

Buy your chicken wings from a wholesaler, you can then get wings and carcases for around 26p per lb.  Look in the yellow pages.

Your dog must have variety and raw frozen food in Pets at Home etc is not bad value.

I would ditch the CLO and substitue Fish Body Oil, this does not contain Vitamin A which is fat soluble and can be toxic to dogs if they OD on it.

What changes are you looking for?

If you join you can get more help.

You definately need to give bones to balance out the cal/phos ratio in the diet,if you cant feed them often enough then you will have to add the calcium into their diet some other way,such as crushed eggshells,i think the ratio is 1tsp. eggshells to each pound of meat.

If i were to guess your dogs may be deficient in calcium hence the poor coats ect.

I agree with tohme about getting rid of the CLO,your dogs will gain much more benefit from fish oil,i prefer salmon oil,from memory the reccomendations are 1 1000mg capsule per 30lbs.My brain hasnt quite woken up yet :p

It would be helpful if you could join,it only takes a minute :)

Yikes i missed the part about the pet mince has already got minced bones in it! Do you know what the meat/bone ratio is?

hi i have joined now thanks for your replies, frodo, i am not sure on the meat/bone ratio in the mince but i will try to find out. but i do give other bones that i get free from the butchers, ribs, large leg bones and some pig trotters.
my bitch that has bad skin, i thought would of improved a little by now that's why i am worried i am doing something wrong. her coat is dull and her chest is bald her skin is black and crusty and her ears are very waxy and smelly, she smells awful. she goes to the vet very regular but i have been told there is not much to do about her skin, it is just her and she has a lot of yeast in her. if we bath her, her skin on her chest goes very sticky and she sweats through her skin, this is when her hair falls out. it cost me a bomb to treat her ears cause as soon as the antibiotics clear it up its back again. she has been like this years before the change of diet and four weeks in still not even a little change.

You could also join BritBarf & BritBarf Health for more advice ~ sorry I don't know how to do the links but if you go into Yahoo Uk & search through the Groups you'll find them.

Some dogs detox before you see any improvement & some can look worse before they look better.

I don't obviously know where you live but for good quality minces you could try Landywoods if they deliver to your area, great products at very affordable prices.  Try to find a Poultry Wholesaler & you should be able to get carcasses cheaper, our local wholesaler does 5kg for £1.50 although my butcher now does them for me for £1.10 for 5kg & I don't have to travel so far which is an added bonus!!  Also get the butcher to save you his off-cuts.  Sometimes you'll find you can get loads of goodies from your butcher if you go just before closing on a Saturday, ie, get stuff from him that he would have to scrap because by Monday it won't be fresh enough for the counter!!

Good luck with your dogs, I'm sure you will soon see the difference in them :-)

hi borderpride, thanks for your reply, and your very helpful advice. i will join britbarf it should also be very helpful. (if i can find it lol.) i have heard about them detoxing first but as she had this problem before its hard to tell if she is or if i am not giving enough variety.
i will try landywoods there products look great, i emailed them and they do deliver to my area but just once a month so storage is a little bit of a problem, but i do have two small freezer's for the dogs and one for me, etc.
my butcher sells me chicken mince which is carcasses plus meat, etc. for £2 for 22-25lb so this is quiet cheap but i cant just feed this can i, with veg, eggs and offal. how often could i feed this chicken mince do you think.
i did try anouther butcher cause he had pet mince that was all different bits, pork, beef, chicken, lamb, etc. but it was more than double the price of the chicken mince and he charged me the same for off cuts which he would of threw away.
is extra virgin olive oil of any good value to dogs as this is what i have been told.
i am also worried as i have a 12 week old pup and being a giant breed she needs to grow slow, she is slim and very healthy but i dont want to damage her bones by giving her the wrong things, she has 3 meals a day now and she has chicken wings every day but they take up nearly a whole meal in weight as i am still weighing things is she getting to much chicken, i do give her a little veg every day and some pet mince and pork sasauges as well as the primerose tabs and garlic tabs. does the pup older dog need these tabs or any other supplement i am not yet giving.
so sorry it is so long.

Jazzy i would definately start supplementing with a good probiotic,the antibiotics would have killed all the good bacteria as well as the bad,and you need to replenish this again in your dogs gut,probiotics are also good for clearing up yeast infections.
Go for the capsules or powder,you can find them in the fridge section of your health food shop.This would be the first thing i would do,i would then start an elimination diet.Find a protein that your dog has never had before,such as rabbit,you said you dont feed much beef or lamb,how much is not much? As i was going to say lamb as well as the rabbit,do not feed your dog any other meat besides this for 6 weeks,then slowly,slowly start incorporating the chicken back in to the diet,if your dog starts to flare up again then you know she has an intolerance to chicken :( I would also keep the supps down to a bare minimum in this time also.For this to truly work,you are best to stick to 1 protein sourse,1 carb source et. etc. and then start to add the others in one by one.

I hope i'm making sense ? as i am hopeless in trying to explain things!

If you have any more questions or you need clarification ,please dont hesitate to ask :)

hi frodo thanks for your advice again, sorry to sound thick but will the capsules just say probiotic capsules on the front of the packet, or are they called something else. is bio-yogurt also a good probiotic.
well as for the amount of beef and lamb i give it is basically hardly any, beef i give is just from the RMB's that i get free and i have give the beef mince twice, as for the lamb i never have give it only once which was just a little it is so expensive.
but would it be ok to give lamb and beef mince from landywoods products.
don't worry i not very good at explaining things either frodo, so i think is what your say is for me to give, for example one meal of rabbit in morning and one meal of lamb in the night (landywoods mince.) no supplements apart from the probiotic capsules (do i just give one every day.) what about veg, offal and eggs? is there enough bones in landywoods mince. does this sound right! sorry to sound so confusing hope i am not to much of a pain. i just want to get it right for my dogs, they mean so much to me.
one last question should i feed this way for 6 weeks just for the bitch with bad skin or all my dogs. thanks again.

If your female is the only one experiencing these problems than i would only do it for her,the elimination diet is NOT a balanced diet as it is just the bare minimums until you get the problem sorted.It can say anything on the probiotics label,such as megadophalus,inner health etc. however you wont have trouble finding it,you would have to feed tubs and tubs of yogurt to get the same benefit as one capsule!

Beef can also be a high allergen protein,so if you can, try and stick to lamb or rabbit,but one or the other,not both as if she has a problem you wont know which one is causing it. You can stil feed vegies,but keep them to a minimum,and if you want to feed offal keep it to the same species as the muscle meat.Forget about the eggs for the time being.
To be honest i'm not sure about the fish oil,some dogs can be allergic to it,however this is very rare,your dog obviously needs some form of fatty acids,maybe continue giving the fish oil and if her symptoms persist,drop it and go from there.

I cant see why you couldnt use Landywoods products,they do have a good reputation and your very lucky that they deliver to your area :)

Basically this will be a trial and error process,if one thing doesnt work you will have to move onto the next and so  on and so on,but you must give it a minimum of 6 weeks if you are to see an improvement. There is no one way of correct feeding,most of us tweak our dogs diet to suit them,some combinations dont suit some dogs and others thrive on it. Another misconception is that every meal has to be balanced,this just is not true,balance is achieved over time,my dogs get their balance over a 1-2 week period,i dont put ALL the food groups into each and every meal,one day they may get a fish meal,the next might be a veg and offal meal etc. etc.

So remember stick to one protein source only and do not ever think you are being a pain or asking to many questions,this forum is here to help and i'm sure lots of other folk will also be learning from your questions :)

Canine nutrition is my absolute favourite topic,i could talk about it forever ;)

Sounds like your dog has a yeast overgrowth such as Malasezzia, have you had her tested for this?

She will need to be kept off all cereals and fruits as they can contain sugars which feed the yeast.

Your dog may be allergic to a protein although generally speaking it is the cooking of meat that produces the allergic reaction; you could have her allergy tested by Yorktest.  They are on the web.

hi tohme, thanks for your advice, no i have not had her tested for malasezzia. how do i go about this. what is york test, i think i seen it on the net before is it for people. do you buy a test kit of them or something. r they expensive.
i will keep her off all fruit and cereals, but see don't have cereal anyway. but she has fruit a lot. she loves apples.
thank you to you again frodo you really do know a lot, i am glad you don't mind me asking all these questions.
i will try her on lamb for 6 weeks then and let you know how see gets on, fingers crossed it clears up.
also could i ask you about my 12 week old pup, what should she be getting, is it a good idea to give her any supplements. also do you think she is having to much chicken, cause she has 3 meals a day and has one chicken wing in each meal. every day. and the chicken wings make up most of the meal. she has 6oz in each meal and the chicken wing weighs about 3-4 oz so the rest of the meal is made up of veg, offal or pet mince. she is slim, and very laid back.
thanks again.

http://www.animal-allergy.com/about_us.php4

It is not cheap but if you are insured this should pay for it.

It is cheaper in the long run than keep going back and forth to vet and changing foods.

FWIW my current puppy has been on:

400iu Vitamin E
1000mg FBO
1000mg Vitamin C

from 7 weeks old.

At 11 weeks I commenced 1 clove of fresh garlic per day and Keepers Mix from Dorwest Herbs.

Personally I prefer to feed a meal of RMBs and a meal of offal or mince or veggies with eggs etc rather than mix RMBs with muscle meat.

Meals do not need to be "balanced" except over time.

HTH

I was just being nosy and having a skiving afternoon on champdogs and was reading this..... I wouldn't feed chicken to a dog with yeast problems - I personally suffer from yeast in my gut causing bad skin, bloating and fatigue... I have had allergy tests done and chicken was one of my big no no's because chicken contains so much antibiotics (unless organic =v exspensive!)... which kills the good bacteria in the body letting the yeast grow. I just cant eat it at all now I have eliminated all the food stuffs I am allergic too.. would reccommend york tests they were very good!  Christopher Day Vet is really into all this and suppliments . Put his name ino google. He is based near us in oxfordshire and has a good reputation in the area. I take a new zealand suppliment called Horipito and Aniseed which is amazing at killing the yeast overgrowth wonder whether this could be used in animals???

I have a horse who has been through a allergy testing and apart from being allergic from everything the two main one were peas and Garlic..... I am also allergic to peas ( sorry intollerant) I have been told by both my Dr (very homeopathic) and REACT the equine allergy clinic that these are very common allergens.

Very interesting subject nutrition. and intollerence..likewise could talk about it for hours.