Hello again everyone

As I'm sure you're all fed up of hearing, I'm getting a dobie pup in three and a bit weeks (soooo excited!). Ultimately, I'd like to feed him a diet as closely aligned to BARF as possible, but was wondering whether there were any "convenience" versions of this. Looking at previous Champ-dog posts and research on the internet, the best bet seems to be Naturediet, which suits most of my requirements (ie no artificial flavours, colours, preservatives, ground bone meal etc). I was just wondering whether anyone had any views on whether this was about as close as I can get to BARF, or whether there are any other options.

If we are going to feed pre-frozen food we are going to have to get another freezer.

Can someone also advise whether the ground bone meal in Naturediet helps to keep the teeth relatively clean - or whether we should consider supplementing it with another balanced but hard feed to accomplish this?

Thanks

Jo

I believe there is a freeze dried version of BARF which may suit you but can't for the life of me remember where I saw it sorry!
Bec

AMP (Anglian Meat Products) does a lot of stuff with the raw - meats, veggie mixes, mince. I'm just new myself to any kind of raw thing, but if I were going with a bone meal product I would probably supplement (as I'm doing now actually) with raw marrowbones and knuckle bones for the teeth.

Wendy

Have a drive through to Sedgefield Jo and check out Bolams. They make their own fresh dog food which is really good with veggies etc.. they also do minced chicken carcasses amongst other things.
They sell lots of roasted bones but if you ask the butchers behind the counters they will get you some fresh marrow bones out if they have any (they're free!)
Their rib eye steaks and T bones are lovely and they also do the nicest bacon :)
Lara x

Jo

Have just started Min our oldie on Nature diet lite and so far so good. It has improved her poos and wind (colitis) and she loves it. It worked out at about 48p per 390g pack buying 4 trays of 18 packs per tray ordered directly form Nature Diet. Have had a quick look at Natures Menu and looks like a very similar type of food and it says that it is 62p per 395g pack. Whether this would come down the more you buy ?

We are waiting to see what Min is like over the next couple of months before we make a descision on changing the other two to it as they are thriving on JWB and do not see a reason to change them unless we can see the difference in the condition to Min does continue and also the increase in cost to weigh up. We may do as some other people do and do half and half for them.

We feed raw carrots and also apples and they also have raw hide bones which we always give under supervision which helps with their teeth.

Lucy

Hi,

We use the AMP BARF meals as well as their mince and make our own, depends how much time we have, we also use Naturediet sometimes.

The AMP BARF meals are great and the dogs love them. :)

manda
X

We feed Max Natures Menu made by AMP which is a pre-packaged BARF food with a 9 month shelf life (the un-frozen version), its cheap and delivered to your door. http://www.naturesmenu.co.uk

How much is it? I have never managed to find price lists on the site????

I think its 62p per 400g meal, Max gets 800g per day. Or there is the cheaper frozen version at 45p per 400g block but you will need a freezer to store it and the minimum order is about £45. We tend to get 10 boxes of 12 packs per delivery. Theres other stuff to buy like chicken wings, tripe sticks, all sorts of stuff. I think they do dried kibble and meat chunks. Contact them and they should send you a price list. You will find a contact Amp button on the site for email or telephone numbers.

Fresh marrow/rib bones are good for keeping teeth clean. ground bone meal would not. Perhaps you should also consider joining Britbarf forum (theres no cost) and see what other barfters feed and they can give you their opinions as to an alternative although I personally do not consider there is one - barf is barf. Ive fed raw (along with either Natural 19 and/or Natural Choice health meal) for many years and the dogs look great - no vet bills etc!!

Large recreational bones, like marrow bones, beef ribs, lamb shanks, etc, that the dog cant entirely eat will help clean the teeth, but also, a lot of the teeth cleaning in the barf diet comes through dogs chewing through raw muscle and connective tissue, so for this, i feed chicken wings and carcasses.

Dry feed, biscuits etc, wont clean the teeth at all, despite what the makers claim! (if you doubt this, go eat a really hard biscuit, a ginger nut or something, an see how clean your teeth are after!)

Em

Thanks for your comments everyone - very helpful!

Jo