i have recently tried to start a barf diet with my dogs, this is becuase it is well liked by many many other dog owners and errr... well its cheaper!

now in the past ive offered raw pig trotters and they didnt like them so i thought i might be overfacing them (even though they are giant breed) and start small. so i bought 2kg of chicken wings to see.

this is what happened.....

angel - took it greedily and then realised it was raw and spat it out then walked out the room in disgust....
tilly - took it and ate it thankfully....
oliver - took it with less gusto and tried to eat it, put it in his mouth, spat it out, guarded it for about 10 minutes then decided the sofa was a better option...
yoko - WOULDNT EVEN OPEN HER MOUTH!! she moved her head side to side when i put it near her.....

has anyone else had problems feeding raw?

were the wings cold? they might not like that, try leaving them to warm to room temp. how are they with raw meat and not bone?

i had bough them from the shop so obviuosly in a chiller but it had taken me at least half an hour to get home so not room temp but not cold.

wont touch liver, kidneys etc...
the only raw meat they enjoy is the packets of tripe you can buy from the petshops and thats when its mixed with kibble.
its very strange i must say as they ARE DOGS and i would have thought raw meat would have been super yummy.

maybe you need to introduce it slowly. do they eat recreational bones? i must say i had no problem introducing our boy (except he doesn;t like lamb or kidney). how about the big value or smart price turkey drumsticks you get in asda or tesco? much more meat so they might be keener to start?

well i had tried trotters ages ago which were ignored until i cooked them
so i got the 2 kg of chicken wings thinking it would be slowly slowly as they are small. just no interest with 3 of them.
yoko kept her mouth firmly closed and moved her head in a different direction and almost grimaced when i put it on her lip?

odd very odd dogs

lol. think they might be telling you something then. you can always sub the bone with bone meal etc if they will eat the meat but they will need offal as well.

hmmm might try minced chicken carcasses and minced tripe from the butcher.
i will only get small amounts though as they have shown me how they feel toward it.

i just cant get my head around the fact that so many other dogs thrive on it and mine wince away from a mere chicken wing

you must just feed really tasty kibble. of have the doggy equivilent of a friend of mine who won't eat soup (apparently it smells funny) and lives off pickled onions and cheesy pasta.

pickled onions and cheesy pasta sounds nice to me...is that wrong?? hmmmm even better pickled beetroot.

vegetables are a wonderful thing!! lol this friend is heavily pregnant and i worry for her vitamins

hmmm im not pregnant so that does make me odd too.

A chicken wing seems a bit small to feed to a great dane IMO.  I would have thought a dane would be eating something vaguely mini poodle sized? Not that I'm offering you mine, yet ;-) 

Have you tried to part cook the food?  It's very possible that they just aren't used to it - we've got a dog that will sit at the oven door watching and drooling as the roast cooks, cooking makes it smell much more appetising.  Have you tried playing fetch with the bones in the garden?  Playing with the food might encourage them to eat it more :-)  I do so love playing on their insecurities :"Well if you don't eat it Tina will!" works like a charm.  And I think the things like kidney and offal (or should that read awful) take a bit longer to get them onto anyway.

Perseverance and patience are two words that crop up a lot when you have dogs I've found :-)

> Have you tried to part cook the food? 

nooooO! this is very very dangerous with bone

Mmmmmm soup!!! Nout wrong with soup.  Pickled onions on the other hand... bleh!

nooooO! this is very very dangerous with bone
But it's not all on the bone though I don't think?  And you would only be heating it up really - not cooking it right through so as to make the bone splinter.

well they luuuuuuuurrrrrvvvveeee cooked meat. i have been known to roast a chicken and pull off the meat or whetever meat it is.
(not pleasant as im a vegie)

i will however try playing with it, seperately of course as im sure if they like it or not there will be arguments, thanks

> A chicken wing seems a bit small to feed to a great dane IMO.  I would have thought a dane would be eating something vaguely mini poodle sized? Not that I'm offering you mine, yet ;-) 
>
>

think the hair might choke them........ :(

My mum used to feed our dogs on Chicken Mince and Tripe.... I can still remeber the smell to this day... EWWW!!!  going in and coming out :-O

my two gsd's took to raw overnight but my older dog looked horrified with chicken wings to start with. I tried flashing them just to get them going (do not cook them, just a quick blast!) and we were away.  If dogs have been fed kibble they have got used to that and raw although as natural as you can get just may seem strange to them at first.  Good luck

My bitch wouldnt touch raw at first- I then quickly browned the top of the chicken wings in a frying pan to make them smell a little better and she absolutely loved it after that!

how old are they? as our dogs have eaten barf since pups but we got a new dog the other day that is two and a half, has never had barf and she wont touch it

angel - took it greedily and then realised it was raw and spat it out then walked out the room in disgust....                                                                           7 YEARS OLD
tilly - took it and ate it thankfully....                                                                                                                                                                          4 YEARS OLD
oliver - took it with less gusto and tried to eat it, put it in his mouth, spat it out, guarded it for about 10 minutes then decided the sofa was a better option...        3 YEARS OLD
yoko - WOULDNT EVEN OPEN HER MOUTH!! she moved her head side to side when i put it near her.....                                                                                    NEARLY 2 YEARS OLD

my two gsd's took to raw overnight but my older dog looked horrified with chicken wings to start with. I tried flashing them just to get them going (do not cook them, just a quick blast!) and we were away.

This is exactly how I got mine started, flash the wings under a really hot grill or in a really hot fry pan
mine have never looked back and will now eat any raw meat at all, go lightly on the offal to begin with
it can give them loose motions if too much if fed in one go