Hi i have bought a new pup home and she came with a diet sheet which had all sorts or rubbish on it and to be honest she doesn't even like half of whats on there.

anyway she does not eat enough puppy dry food for my liking wont eat the pilchards that on the diet sheet from breeder will not eat much raw tripe that i have tried adding to her dry food, but will eat chicken wings and loves them.
i don't mined Barf but i am not sure how many chicken wing per day and what else should a 8 wk rottie pup need to get her into top show condition and keep all her joints in good health?

My Rottweiler was weaned onto raw food before she came home at 8 weeks old. I was giving her about 4 chicken wings a day & adding extras to that. The most important thing is not to take the diet sheet too literally because not all dogs like the same stuff, if she doesn't like pilchards then try mackerall or sardines, if she doesn't like tripe then give her some liver or kidney or heart. I have a menu from when my dog was a puppy that i will send you in a PM.

You say she doesn't eat as much dry food as you would like but to be honest you need to decide on one or the other because the raw food should be varied enough not to need to give both - that's the whole point of raw feeding. I don't use any dry food at all.

Thanks rottman

i didnt explain myself very well the diet sheet she came with was not raw feed

it was breakfast rice pupping, porridge, weatabix

dinner  puppy dry & mince beef cooked, tuna, pilchards, tinned meat balls, fish , chicken cookec.

tea same as dinner.

i have raised a litter and never gave anything like this but used only quality dry puppy food.

my new pup is not eating enough dry i dont mined rice pudding but dont see the need when she should be getting everything from her dry food.

i tried her on chicken wing and she woofed it down i like the idea of barf but dont know how much to give a pup and want her to have a balanced diet.

> i dont mined rice pudding

It's full of sugar though - can't be good for a dog - I would definitely avoid the rice pudding part - and I wouldn't be too sure about the tinned meat balls either.

Benson before doing barf I suggest you buy a book and read up on it.  Barf/raw feeding is brilliant for dogs but needs to be done properly.

Just feeding chicken wings is not a balanced diet for a puppy.  That's not to say that you couldn't feed chicken wings only for a couple of days, but then you have to balance it out over a period of time.  There are various methods of feeding raw but my preference is the way that Ian Billinghurst suggests.  Maybe buy or borrow one of his books from the library that way you will know exactly how much and of what to feed. 'Grow your pup on bones' would be a good one to start with. 

As for amounts, as a general guide to raw feeding, a puppy should be fed approximately 10% of his/her weight per day again this is approximate and you can reduce or increase depending on weight. 

I would certainly agree on reading up as much as possible, it does seem the diet sheet you have was not particularly well thought out as rice pudding, weetabix & tinned meatballs are not something i would like to use myself.

Perhaps it may be best to use a dry puppy food while you are looking into raw feeding so that you can get an understanding of how it works before making the switch over. I know it is all a bit overwelming when you first go into it, i was lucky enough to have the guidance of my breeder who had studied it at great lengths & knew what she was doing.

Hopefully the info i sent you last night will be a good starting point for you, there are some quite good groups online that promote raw feeding which are very good to get info on, i can pm you the link (not sure if we are allowed to post links on here).

> I suggest you buy a book and read up on it.

I always read the barf comments with interest, although tbh it took me a while to get over the giggles when I first realised that barf in relation to dogs is a whole other thing than the "Oh I'm horribly hungover and just seen a fried egg" kind

Like the OP is trying with her pup, I've noticed that in quite a lot of threads recently there is a trend to combine raw with dry food.  In your experience is that do-able /desirable or is it better to just do one or the other?

It's certainly doable, i know people who aren't quite brave enough to go the whole BARF hog who do half and half, you just need to remember that dry food is not digested & utilized in the same way as raw food, it swells in the stomach & is processed at a different rate to raw so what some people do is to have one meal of just the raw food in the morning & one meal of dry in the evening, other people put just a few raw ingredients with the dry & give the rest as a raw meal seperately.

Do let me know if i just confused the hell outta you. Why can't i do smileys like you all can?

I feed one dog all raw/home preared, another half and half raw with Natures Harvest/Diet/Menu and the youngster takes anything put down to him which includes a mix of raw, moist and dry complete :)

There are no hard and fast rules in my household for what the dogs eat with two exceptions, [in no particular order ;) ]
(1) they must look healthy on it and
(2) they must ENJOY it!

If you're uncomfortable about diving into an entirely home prepared diet don't do it - I originally looked into it as I had a dog which was not doing well on commercial foods and have since found that coats, muscle tone and teeth are greatly improved in all the dogs :)  That said many a dog is raised happily and healthily on manufactured completes - although TBF I think research should be done by owners on the vastly differing quality of these as IMO (and clearly by the reaction of my dogs!) a food consisting mainly of cereal is less appetizing and species appropriate :)  That, however, is a judgement call and a whole new debate.

If you're interested in following a raw/home diet then perhaps consider joining the Britbarf Group for advice and differing approaches/results :)