I have seen (with some relief !) that there are still some people who still feed their dogs one barf meal and one kibble meal per day.

I am feeding Polly kibble in the morning (about 9am) and raw in the evening (about 8 pm).I think this is OK from the digestive point of view, kibble taking longer to digest than raw. I feel happier combining the two systems for various reasons. The kibble is from a Swedish company, Bozita, I don't know if it's known at all in the UK but it's considered a good brand here in Germany.

However, I am still very much a newcomer with raw and would love some tips from others feeding in a similar way. E.g. how often large bones, chicken, lamb, green tripe, veg, grains, dairy produce and also if it is necessary to feed additives if the dog is still getting a complete food - vitamins and kelp and such. I can provide plenty of veg as I have everything imaginable in the garden.

I am trying to get hold of the book "Give your dog a bone", but I presume Dr.Billinghurst will not take into account part time barfers.

I have gone through quite a lot of stuff in this forum and similar ones in Germany and gleaned some really good advice with regard to barfing in general. Sorry if this is repeat stuff!

Thanks for any help you can give me here !

Carol Schaefer

Hi Carol

I'm what you term a 'part time barfer' LOL. That's a good way of putting it. I feed James Wellbeloved in the morning and raw in the evening. Because I feel most of their vitamins etc are already in the complete food I don't supplement with anything except Halibut Liver Oil capsules - which I always supplemented anyway. The JWB already has a lot of the stuff that most Barfers/rawfers supplement with. I've been doing this since about May and the girls have never looked better. They get their morning meal any time from 5:30-7am and their evening meal about 7pm. They have their dry food down and available till their evening meal time if they haven't finished it. Usually they will do a bit of munching about 3pm. It then comes up after they've eaten their raw meal for an hour or two. Occasionally they might have a bit of a crunch before bed. I figure for the little bit they eat closer to the raw meal it won't hurt them. The bulk of the meals are separated by at least 12 hours.

I give them a big knuckle bone each about once a week or so and they work on that for their teeth for about 4 days and then I toss them (the bones stay outside - I can't stand the smell in the house:( - though if it's raining I get the yukky dog blankets and let them have them in the house for a little while if the most of the stuff has been chewed off them).

Mostly what I feed them in the evening is either chicken wings or carcasses. With the size of my two they either get 2 wings or 1/2 carcass. For three days every couple of weeks they get ground AMP mince instead which at the moment is either chicken, beef or tripe, though we will use the rabbit etc. It's just the rabbit doesn't seem to come in the freeflow and I prefer the consistency of their freeflow to the blocks. The blocks thaw really mushy.

So far so good. They just had their half-yearly check up at the vets and we were told they were in fantastic condition, so we must be doing something right.

Another good book to try to get is K9 Kitchen by Monica Segal. She incorporates Raw / Cooked etc. She also is on the k9kitchen yahoogroups as well. They are tolerant of those of us who are 1/2 and 1/2's. Also BritBarf is quite accepting of this as well.

Wendy

Funny enough I a half BARFING my lot too!

They used to get 200g of a complete. they now get 100g and around half a pound of Raw.

They get chicken mince i day, Turkey necks another, Carcasses, and other 3 days it is Kidney/Liver and crushed veg, Beef and Tripe, Lamb and Trpe. One day a week they get all sorts. I keep all the leftovers and add an egg or various other ingrediens like coittage cheese, anything that may be required less often than on a weekly basis.

I do also add a vitamin andd mineral supplement called Vitamin 2000 by the Animal Health company distributed through my meat supplier. I add it at half the rate recomended for their size.

I know a few others who opt to feed this way, and have doen for some time.

I have wanted to for age, but really don't have room for a dog freezer, but finally found a little space for the smallest size chest freezer (holds about 90lb of block meat) in the dining room.

Where do you get your turkey necks from? I've tried all the local butchers etc, but no one does them.

Wendy

TPMS do them very large and meaty, weighing about a pound each. They are £1.25 per 2.5kg.

Thanks! I'll have to see if they deliver down my way - I think they don't though:(

Wendy

Where are you to, as my freind with a couple of others gets them to deliver to Monksilver, near Taunton/Minehead in Somerest.

I'm in Poole, Dorset. I think from discussions on one of the raw lists I'm just outside of their area. But if you know otherwise please tell me:)

Wendy

Thanks very much indeed for your replies - I was beginning to think I was the only one feeding half and half !!
What lovely dogs you both have - if the system works for them, I'm sure it will work for us. I have a lab/b.collie mix from the shelter, she was originally from Crete, we assume living on the streets there.
I will be picking up my first lot of chicken necks on Tuesday- but at twice the price you pay for your turkey necks ! Maybe they'll deliver to Germany LOL.
Up to now Polly's been getting beef or green tripe (lovely stuff !) and she has had 3 days of chicken wings so far. Oh yes, and a small rabbit, caught herself last Thursday. It was in the grass about 2 metres from the path, one jump and she had it. If she finds ANYTHING edible outside I cannot get hold of her, in the house she responds to drop and I can take anything off her (even bones) and she will even leave a dish of tripe on command. But outside, no way. Doesn't run off but is always just out of reach. I think it's the street dog and lab in her. Oh well.
She eats everything I give her all at once and immediately. We NEVER have half empty bowls of anything !! I think we are going to get on very well with our part-time barf system.

Regards from Germany

Carol

Hi Carol

I would love to feed mine barf full time, but when I tried I was spending more time preparing food for the dogs than I was for the family! It just wasn't practical. Mine love being on a half and half basis, and look fantastic on it too :)

C :)

Hi Chloe

Is there any way of seeing pictures of your Danes? I've been following the story of Willis and am surprised to see you've classed him as being a half BARFer - there ought to be a new word created for his type of diet!!!

Almost took a Dane but although we've got what may be classed as a big house and gardens the dog dwarfed each room!! He was an rspca rescue dog - very neglected, very underweight and so, so depressed but it wouldn't have been fair to him for us to try to keep him. Got at the old heart strings though.

Hi

Sure - go to my profile and click on my site :)

It can be like having two horses in your house, and when they have a scrap it shakes the house to the very foundations! I wouldn't be without them though - they are both flat out (on my bed) at the moment :rolleyes:

Its a big thing to take on a rescue dane, I recently picked up an abandoned one from my local pound and took him to Dane Rescue, I have never seen a dog so thin - he was starving and weak - I had to get him a burger from McD's to get him to make the effort to get into the fosterer's car :(

C

Hi Carol,
Mine are half-and-halfers as well, and they are thriving! Mind you, I eat processed food as well as 'proper' home-cooked food, and I'm healthy too.
:)

I do feel that some BARFERS are somwhat zealously evangelical about it, and beleive that commercial completes were spawned by Satan. I know they are produced to make money out of feeding pets convieniently, and the vast mjority of pet sogs will fare better on a complete that on scraps fed in an unbalanced way which is what they would get if there were no dog foods.

Many people do not have the nutritional knowhow to attempt to feed naturally, many would not wish to deal with the raw ingredients, and done badly the dogs would probably be worse off than on complete.

There will be occasions when I would need to use complete, and prefer my dogs were used t eating them, so I have compromised using good completes, as they are complete, and also feeding a blanced variety of raw to give them the other half of an also complete balanced diet. Can't see why they can't benefit from both.

I think very much the same way. I don't expect the people who dog sit for me to be comfortable holding a carcass for my girls, so I want the dogs to be happy enough with complete 2x a day when necessary. Now actually my sitters said they will feed them anything I ask, so I'll get them to do mince in the evenings, but it's still good to know that the dogs will eat (and enjoy) their complete.

Wendy