I Have finally moved my two Dogue De Bordeaux over to a BARF (Bones and Raw Feed) and am currently feeding my 60 kg dog -

- 3kg raw, beef, Chicken and or Lamb
- I cup of wholemeal biscuit (no meat addatives or any addatives or preservatives).
- 2 Multivitamin Tablets
- I cup Liquidised veg (i.e Carrot or cabbage)

every day, split into 2 meals.

And my 50 kg puppy (9 months) get's the same only 2.5kg of meat (should be 5% of bodyweight each day).

Can anyone reccomend, and other varieties of food, I know that I can feed some fish, i.e. tuna and pilchards, and I am hunting high and low for tinned pumpkin, which is meant to be good for the stools (all fibre). I live in Chineham (Basingstoke) Hants and would welcome any advice or help on keeping my boys in tip top condition.

Thanks

Sarah

You could join the barf groups
ie britbarf.
I think I remember being told we cant get tinned pumpkin
in the UK,I might be wrong but it does sound familular....familulir...famil...... oh you know what I mean :-)

You can't get canned pumpkin??? However do you make yummy pumpkin pies or cookies without the fuss (sorry: tarts or biscuits --correct translation??) ;) I'd be in trouble in the fall. I love pumpkin products..just not the mess of pulling apart the beast.
If this is true & you really would like some, I could always send by mail from here in Germany :D :D
toodles

hahaha that might have to be arranged !!! We only get them in the UK around halloween, to hollow out and make faces with!

LOL ... I know what you mean .... do you have a URL for any UK BARF groups?

Hi Carolyn thanks for the britbarf I havn`t seen that one.
Christine
ps I take it you feed natural then?
Christine

For all I think Sainsbury is now doing canned Pumpkin. My mother found it at the weekend. She likes Pumkin pie..:-))

PS I would check before making the trip if that is all you are going for.

Pam

Yes, Sainsbury's is stocking tinned Pumpkin :-)

Thanks Leigh I had visions of someone trailing to Sainsburys and not finding it..

I may have got a bashing LOL

Pam

I have missed what this was for, but it is often recomended to feed as a bulk ingredient to dogs on a reducing diet. seems very popular with US Nor. Elkhound owners!

Pumpkin is full of vitamins and roughage. It is used to *bulk* out meals for dogs that need to lose weight. I was recommended it to help with Bagders diarrhoea, but be warned to much pumpkin can also cause diarrhoea. You need to opt for the non sweetened variety if you buy it in tins. I was very surprised but my dogs loved it :D

Hi Sarah excellent news!! I put fresh pumpkin into the liquidiser so you could try that & I give them fruit as well. I also give them fresh sardines, trout,mackeral,pigs feet & pork, turkey wings & necks & chicken wings & backs.I also give them vit E & C. And don`t they just love it? No probs with eating & normal stools everyday!
Christine

Now that's an idea ... what other fruit do you feed? Oh god yes, they are queing up by my side for their breakfast and dinner meals, something they never did on complete. I guess I was just being lazy, but in actual fact it isn't that much more work to feed Barf. And my bays are very happy, and I have clean bowls every time! Red my youngest had an anal gland drainage problem, and that has been totally sorted, no bad breath, white teeth and stools that are hard, and barely smell, not sloppy stinking dark stuff that came with the complete diet! I am 100% converted! LOL

Sarah I get whats ever on offer at the market or shops, & whatever i get from the garden! If its something they havn`t had before then I start them off slow & gradually increase it. They had a glut on kiwi fruit the other day & today I have put 3 in with the veg.I have had a few boarders with colitis problems & anal probs that cleared up when their diet was changed to natural!
I also give them eggs & yoghurt & I put garlic in every day.Try them with a variety & see how they get on.
I`ve got labs & they don`t want to leave the bowls when they`ve finished, they lick up every last morsel. They & me both are very happy with it.

I cant wait to start. Wanted to start a while back but personal probs kept me too busy to read up on it properly. I will now have to wait til my books arrive (one being Give a Dog a Bone - 3-5 week wait though from Amazon). I have an 8 month lhasa apso and a 14 weeks tiny shih tzu (just under 2 kgs in weight) so cant start without the books cos not sure how much to give them (and Barney is still overweight at the moment so cant wait to start him dont know about kilos but he weighs 22 lbs). Frightened to give chicken wings to a little dog like Molly (or Barney for that matter). So any tips before my books arrive would be wonderful. Have had a lot of help from Mari too ( thanks Mari xx) but still not sure about bones and small dogs.
Regards Gina

Hi Gina you can start them with chicken or turkey necks.

Hi Gina you can start them with chicken necks.My books took ages to come so I started without them. Get them on the raw meat & pureed (raw) veg. Just do it & have confidence in yourself, it will be better than the dry for sure.You are aiming to give them a balanced diet over a lifetime, NOT a daily balanced diet. Mari will help & so will I & I KNOW there are other people out there who will jump in to help also,just DO IT & give us a shout if you need help or advice.
Christine

Christine

was interested to see your info on boarders with problems.
Two of mine had constant problems on dried food with diarrhoea and it only cleared up on a natural diet.

put them back on dry food for one day and it comes back
:)
Theresa

Hello Sarah,
We fed our pyreneans on a natural diet many years ago, until
we had a problem getting bonemeal.Results were excellent, coats were alive, dogs were alert,never any digestive problems, and had long lives.
We added sunflower oil (1- tbs), and bonemeal and small amount of coarse bran. Our meat came from the abattoir, mixture of lamb (fit for humans) and lights. You don't say what % of fat is in your
meals, that's important. We gave vitamin supps every 2nd day, and
natural supps - garlic, seaweed etc on alternate days.
We always fed our biscuit seperately from the meat and
always before noon. Dogs were fed meat 5 days per week, totally
fasted from Fri night till Sun morning ( sounds hard, but they're fine, and let's face it , dog in the wild doesn't catch things for days, they're
designed to fast without ill effects). On Sun we gave eggs (always
cooked) and biscuit or fish.
Felt that your meat ratio was a bit high, but depends on how
much is fat, our pyreneans are big boys and girls and their total intake
per day was only 2 1/4 Lbs.
Have you read- the Complete Herbal Handbook for the Dog and
Cat by Juliette de Bairacli Levy, full of interesting advice on natural
feeding. I read that and some other conventional dog nutrition books
and based our diets on that.
Can you tell me where you're getting your natural biscuit from, having problems finding some, and am putting our dogs back on natural diet
as proprietary foods are not agreeing with them.
Thanks and good luck
Emmi

There is a holistic meal sold, made in somerset. It contains grains and alfalfa etcx, so is a bit green to look at. My friend feeds it as part of her natural diet. It is expensive, but she feels is a good adition at times when other veggies hard to get. I would think it a very good part of a meat and biscuit diet!

on seperate days to my barf mix i either add. raw egg with the shell,herring (cheap in aldi),natural yogurt,cottage cheese,mollasses,banana and tuna.works for me.i also use flax seed oil everyday in the feed.

Hi Emmi,

>Can you tell me where you're getting your natural biscuit from, having problems finding some, and am putting our dogs back on natural diet.....<

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I feed my dogs Natural Choice Wholebake and am very pleased with it. Their web address is:- www.holisticdogfood.co.uk
Liz

Hi Liz, could you tell me if natural choice is gluten free,i have looked at the website but ingredients are not listed. Thanks

Doesn't say so on the sack. I have used it for about a year and am very pleased with it. The dogs love it. I don't use it all the time, about 50% when I haven't had time to cook rice.

Daisy

i always worked it out at 20% of the dogs bodyweight per week for meat and bones and my dogs look spot on with that.that would mean your 60kg dog should get 1.7 kg per day and the pup 1.5 kg.

Dear Cooper,

I've jsut begun to get our 14 week old glodie retiriever puppy onto BARF/natural feeding and am getting confused as to the ration of meat and bones to body weight. Is it 10%/ 15%/20% or what?
I have ordered Grow Your Pups On Bones but some info in the meantime would be great.
Sunny weighs in at 11.5kgs

Ruth

I have my goldens on BARF and I play it by ear regarding what they eat.
They have various things to eat which includes a veggie slop which consists of raw carrots, spinach ,brochlli,carrots, natural youghurt, eggs{free range with the shells thrown in} pilchards a little liver sometimes, honey, basically anything raw.
they love it and their coats have changed soo much for the better.

Hi Cooper,

Going by your calculations, I,m feeding Sunny way too much!

At 12 kilos he would be getting 2.5 kilos of meat and bones per week....is that right?! What about all the other stuff that goes with it?
He'd eat non stop but then he is a retriever.

Ruth

What I believe you diet lacks is offal meat - heart, liver, tripe, kidney, brains, whatever ! I feed my 9 Pugs a BARF diet that consists of 75% raw meaty bones (chicken necks mainly), 15% vegetables and 10% offal (or muscle meat or eggs). Plus the supplements (salmon oil and kelp mainly).