Barf and veggies

[kaz4t]

Hi

I have read most of the humungous Raw food thread but I thought I would start a new thread for couple of questions

We are feeding our dogs Canine country or Dr Billinghurst BARF - they are 16 week old springer spaniel bitches and weigh 10.6k, both the same!

they get approx 200g each for breakfast a chicken wing for lunch and then 200g BARF in the eve. If I think they are really hungry I add beef or chicken mince to the BARF

they also get chicken necks, turkey necks, lamb flaps and brisket bone for one of the meals a day instead of the wings

On advice, I am stearing away from any bones that cannot be eaten entirely to avoid any squabbles over bones.

Question - what other bones can I buy that they will be able to eat for a meal?

Question - can I add veggies to bulk out thier meals, if so how? raw? cooke whole, cooked mashed?

I am avoiding beef at the moment to see if this stops thier itchy skin. Somebody recomended giving them a tin of sardines once a week to help thier skin.

thier skin just seems dry, they get dandruff.

I gave them a whole carrot each today, more to occupy them than for thier diet, they did really well but they kept swapping over, they had a few little growls at each other but they came to nothing and then they swopped over. There was a more serious growl and a warning snap (in the air) but no biting so I took the carrots away from them both.

Question - how can I get them to eat together without swapping or trying to nick each others food? or is that unrealistic?

Question - can we give them a high quality kibble some days and BARF the other days?
I am asking this because at the moment it seems quite expensive to feed them the BARF it costs me $6 for a kg of the canine country - they eat at least 1 kg a day between them plus a meal of bone, chicken neck/wing or lamb flap. Chicken wings are $3 kg which is about 6. The Billighurst BARF costs $18 for almost 3kg.

I would be very grateful for any suggestions of further reading, books, websites etc

thanks in advance for all your help and advice.

Karen

[Nettle]

In no particular order:

Always feed them well apart, even with the carrots, separated by a physical barrier so that there is no risk of any disputes. With two bitches you are riding for a fall anyway, so management is the key, because once they start fighting, they will not stop - so never give them the slightest chance.

Vegetables are best liquidised raw or lightly cooked, but even well cooked is better than no vegetables. They can chew on raw cauliflower, cabbage, those kind of veggies, to occupy their teeth when they need to, and to give one something nice to do while you are training the other.

I can't comment on the kibble because I do not know what is in it, but dogs are very adaptable, so if you have kibble days and barf days, they'll manage okay. It won't help the itchy dry skin, though. Do you bathe them a lot? How bad is the skin?

[Leigha]

Something that might help lessen the cost of the raw food diet (something I learned from a friend of mine who does this with her people food--and I've started doing it as well) is to find out when your grocery store does their meat markdowns. Generally towards the end of the week, middle of the month, end of the month and buy your meat then. They mark it down because by law and health codes they can't keep it but for so long, but buy it on the mark down, take it home and freeze it. That way the meat is cheaper and when you pull it out to eat it, it's still perfectly safe to eat

For veggies to their diet--the best thing we did that we learned (from Ems I think) is to put the veggies in the food processor (or blender) raw, make a mush with them, they can be all mixed up, and then put them in ice cube trays that go in the freezer. You easily have a few weeks worth of veggies at your disposal, and you only have to mess up your kitchen once. Our veggie cubes had spinach, carrots, celery, apple, pear and a few other things that I can't really remember. A little bit of garlic can go in the cubes. I opted not to after the first try because my house stank from the food processored garlic (which is odd because I REALLY like garlic).

[kaz4t]

Thanks for the replies

I cooked a load of veggies up a week or so ago and froze quite a bit, so it is good clear up my confusion and now I can do a batch of raw processed veggies to add to thier food.

to be honest the cost is not really a problem for us but I did think that feeding raw would be about the same or cheaper so I thought maybe I was doing something wrong.

but I guess that they are in a period of growth and they will end up eating a bit less?

We do feed them apart but not separated by a physical barrier, we tend to put them about 6ft or more apart and tail to tail, the bones meal is a bit more difficult because they take it from the bowl or my hands and go off to different areas of the yard and they usually end up about 10ft apart but able to see each other. They often finish around the same time and then lick each others faces, check out the area where the other one fed and then just mooch about as usual. If they do not finish together the one who has finished will approach the other one, who will growl a little. When this happens we remove the one who has finished.

thanks again for your help and advice

Karen

[***Melissa***]

I may be a little late, but still wanted to share what I do

Regarding the veggy mix, I do the same as Leigha - blend everything together, and freeze in ice cubes. I use the same ingredients as Leigha too, sometimes add something else, sometimes without something. Always the spinach though, this also make up most of the mix. Oh, and all the veggies I use are raw.

I have heard somewhere that if you add a bit of apple cider viniger to their food it will help with dry skin (although I'll wait for Nettle / Emms or someone to give you thumbs up on this before actually doing it, b/c I forgot where I have heard it ) Also, I add a little olive oil to my veggy mix - I'm wondering whether this will also help with dry (or itchy) skin?

My two love raw carrots & brocolli. And I'm lucky, b/c it doesn't really give them runny tummies

I know a lot of people feed their dogs seperately (with closed doors between them), or else hell will break loose...I feed mine seperately (also with closed doors between them) b/c either one of them will stop eating his/her own food, go over and "help" the other with his/her food, and when one bowl is empty they will together go finish the other bowl So at least they are okay with each other as far as sharing goes, but I don't allow it for two reasons:
a) I can't monitor who actually gets how much food
b) Even though they absolutely don't seem to mind to share (actually they SEEM to prefer to share ), I don't want a day to come where either of them decide that enough with the sharing already, and get "aggresive" towards the other

And even IF (b) may never happen, it's important for me to know how much who is eating. Bibi eats a lot faster than Striker, so she will obviously end up eating more than him if they share.

I was also playing with the thought of feeding high quality kibble a while ago - not as a rule, but for times when we visit family for a weekend and we take Striker and Bibi with, or when we go camping...it will be much easier to feed kibble in stead of raw in times like this...I haven't decided yet though (and will come and ask here first before I actually do it)

[Leigha]

I had to feed mine separated by a barrier as well. Bruiser ate outside in front of the door (it's mostly glass so I could stand in the corner of the kitchen and see all three dogs. Lu ate under the breakfast bar, and Kole at in the kitchen area and was gated in.

Cost initially wasn't a factor for us, 'til we got our surprise-pregnant rescue. She's eating us out of house and home (almost literally) so we've put everyone back on a high quality kibble until we get the puppies out of the house. Once puppies have found a home we'll put them all back on raw. At least that's the plan.

[emmabeth]

I reckon on a raw diet made from some commercial pre packed raw frozen minced/chunked meat, home sourced blended veggies, offal and poultry from a local market, and then big bones free/cheap from a local butcher, works out about the same price as some of the Premium brand dog kibbles...

I certainly feed my five dogs cheaper on a raw diet than I would on kibble. It does depend on how you are buying the food though, if you are relying almost entirely on a commercial product, (I do... but i get a trade discount due to how much i buy!) then it can work out expensive!

I know people who do it for very little indeed - but they buy in bulk, source butchers 'waste' (its not nasty its bones and offal and meat scraps that would otherwise be disposed of at a price) cheap or even free, ditto for veggies, many market stalls and stores will offer green leafy bits for nothing or very cheap .. usually marked up for rabbits/guinea pigs though.. Some people supplement their dogs diet with what they get from hunting and even road kill (heck some people supplement their OWN diet with roadkill!).

So it depends really on how much you want to spend versus how much effort you want to put in.

[Leigha]

J never kept up on his end of the deal with contacting butchers and all. We have several local butchers (we have tons of hog farms, turkey farms, and cow farms) so if he'd have done the leg work it probably would have worked out cheaper for us. But we ended up buying everything from the grocery store which was stupidly expensive. I'm hoping after May when the wedding is over and our house is back in order I'm planning on getting us back into it.

(And I know it's very snarky of me to say "well he didn't do what he was supposed to" but I'm really big on doing what you say and following through with things, and he didn't, so I left if alone for him to do)

[kaz4t]

Well the raw carrot did not seem to have any adverse effect on them so I will do that again, good for them while they are teething I think.

I will investigate the butchers for thier waste, I have not gone near the awful offal and I think I may just trust that they will get what they need in that respect from the commercial stuff?????

the cooked veggies do not seem to be affecting them either so I will use up what I have frozen and do up a load of raw frozen cubes

the pups are exactly the same weight at the moment and I think that is because we have been monitoring them eating out of thier own bowls and putting the fast eater inside to let the slower one finish, so we know they are eating the same now.

I forgot to say that we are giving them probiotics as I we were told that the stomach can get unbalanced with the kibble

at the moment they seem extra hungry, but then I suppose dogs are always hungry!!! so they are having

8am 230g Dr Billingtons and about 80g cooked veg or large spoon chicken mince + probiotic

1ish chicken wing and a couple of chicken necks

7ish same as brekky

treats are dried liver

Are them cuts of pork that they can eat bone n all? I buy lamb flap which they really like

NETTLE - they have had 2 baths so far a few weeks apart and we used oatmeal shampoo, thier skin is not that bad but it is flaky, small dandruff like flakes and the scratching seems to come and go.

[Nettle]

The baths shouldn't be causing a problem, then. Try giving them some really fatty meat, or else add a tablespoonful of olive oil to one of their meals. Make sure it is followed by time when they can go out as they need, because sometimes bowels get a bit lively afterwards! Or you can try some sardines in oil or tomato juice, but not the ones packed in brine. Split a tin between them as an addition to the meal.