Opinions on this BARF diet?

I'm thinking on feeding my dog Tete BARF diet for his conditioning, ill be able to get almost for free (few beers for my friend ) chicken skeletons, skin and fat, liver and beef heart.

So the diet would be this, i need advice on how much and if i can feed him this mix every day or i should split some ingredients on different days.

Ingredients:

-Lentills.
-Spinachs.
-Kiwi.
-Chicken skeleton(chest), legs, skin and fat.
-Liver.
-Beef heart.
-Whole boiled eggs.
-Atum in conserve.
-Olive oil.

And another question, should i add some human use multivitamin to the diet?

How about TROFALGON as supplement for b12 and better protein assimilation?

Any important ingredient missing?

Thanks in advance.

 

I am pretty new to the whole barf diet but i keep it real simple. This link taught me a lot. I dont think you need to boil the eggs, just throw it in raw shell and all
http://leerburg.com/feedingarawdiet.htm

 

I'm a little curious about the lack of supplements in the diet honestly. Every BARF or Prey Model diet I've researched has called for supplements or extensive variety in meat sources to cover all needs.

If you want to bear with me, I can copy over a ton of information for you from my other internet community's pet food wiki. We are in the process of making a pretty comprehensive food wiki and have some good basic info on BARF and Prey model diets that I think would help you.

You can get away without supplements if you do a prey model diet correctly - but I notice you are not really varying your meat sources, so I would think you should be supplementing.

 

Part I - BASIC BARF INFO

Countless dog owners have witnessed the benefits of feeding their dogs a home-prepared diet, such as cleaner teeth, brighter eyes, thicker and glossier coats, more lean muscle and less body fat, and better energy level — hyper dogs often become calmer, while couch potatoes may become more energetic.
When I first began to consider feeding my dogs a homemade diet, one of my biggest concerns was the fact that I am not comfortable in the kitchen. I don’t really cook for myself, so the thought of preparing meals for my dogs was overwhelming. Once I started, though, I was happy to discover that it was not as much trouble as I had feared – in fact, it was quite rewarding. Dogs are usually so appreciative of everything we offer that it makes meal time a real joy. I feed a great deal of variety, yet my dog Piglet tells me that each and every meal I put in front of her is her absolute favorite, and she devours it, practically licking the finish off the bowl (I call it “checking for molecules”). How can you resist something that makes your dog so happy?

Raw Meaty Bones
Most of us who feed a raw diet to our dogs include whole raw meaty bones (RMBs), animal parts that are at least half meat but also include bone that is fully (or mostly) consumed. This is in contrast to recreational bones, such as knuckle and marrow bones, which usually have little meat and where the bone itself is not eaten.
RMBs that are commonly fed include chicken necks, backs, and leg quarters; turkey necks; lamb breast and necks; pork breast (riblets) and necks; and canned fish with bones, such as jack mackerel, pink salmon, and sardines (preferably packed in water rather than oil). Raw fish can also be fed, though some may harbor parasites (freshwater fish are more likely to have problems than saltwater fish). Never feed raw salmon or trout from the Pacific Northwest (California to Alaska), as this can cause a fatal disease called salmon poisoning in dogs. Cooking makes salmon safe to eat; canned fish is cooked, so there’s no concern about salmon poisoning from canned salmon.
It’s not always easy to find RMBs. If you ask your local meat manager or butcher; they will often be able to order them for you, though you may have to buy a case at a time. (Most of us who feed our dogs a raw diet have purchased a separate freezer to help store their food!) Ethnic markets often have a wider selection than grocery stores do. There are a number of raw food co-ops and groups who share information and to buy in quantity directly from vendors, both to lower the cost and to gain access to a wider variety of foods. If there is no group in your area, you might consider starting one.
You can keep costs down by buying in bulk, looking for sales, and buying meat that is close to its expiration date and marked down. It helps to develop a relationship with your suppliers, who may be willing to save bargain-priced meats for you.
RMBs should make up 30 to 50 percent (one third to one half) of the total diet, or possibly a little more if the parts you feed have a great deal more meat than bone (e.g., whole chickens or rabbits). The natural diet of the wolf in the wild contains 15 percent bone or less, based on the amount of edible bone in the large prey they feed upon. While a reasonable amount more won’t harm an adult dog, it’s not needed and reduces the amount of other valuable foods that can be fed.
Too much bone can also cause constipation, and the excess calcium can block the absorption of certain minerals. The stools of raw fed dogs are naturally smaller and harder than those fed commercial foods, and often turn white and crumble to dust after a few days. If the stools come out white and crumbly, or if your dog has to strain to eliminate feces, you should reduce the amount of bone in his diet.
Most dogs do fine with raw meaty bones, but a few may have problems, including choking and (rarely) broken teeth on the hardest bones. In my experience, turkey parts are associated with the most problems, though many dogs eat them regularly with no trouble.
If you are concerned about feeding whole RMBs, there are alternatives. You can feed RMBs in ground form, either by purchasing them that way, or by grinding them yourself. You can buy a grinder for around $100 to $150 that can handle most chicken parts and possibly a few other kinds of bones. More expensive grinders may be able to handle bones that are somewhat harder, but they all have a similar chute size, which makes it difficult to fit in larger parts. Note that none of the makers of these grinders claim their products have the ability to grind bones.
Another option that I use for my older dogs, whose teeth are too worn to be able to chew bones properly, is to cut up the parts into bite-sized pieces using Joyce Chen kitchen scissors, which have worked better for me than poultry shears. These scissors handle chicken parts and lamb breast easily (except for the hardest end of the ribs).
For harder bones, such as turkey, pork and lamb bones, you can use a hatchet, or a cleaver that you hit with a mallet (which is safer than swinging the cleaver). While ground and cut up RMBs will not provide the same chewing pleasure or dental benefits, many people who feed ground RMBs report that their dogs’ teeth stay cleaner than when they fed packaged foods, probably due to the lower carbohydrate content of the diet.
You can also feed larger, harder bones with a lot of meat on them; just take the bone away when your dog is done removing the meat. I have done this with beef rib and neck bones; people with large dogs use bigger bones. There is still some danger of broken teeth, but less than if you allow the dog to continue to chew on the bone after he's eaten the meat (bones also dry out and become harder over time).
Remember that if you feed a diet that includes 30 to 50 percent RMBs, there is no need to add calcium supplements.

Organ meat
Organs are an important part of a raw diet. Liver and kidney in particular are nutrient-dense and provide a great deal of nutritional value. These foods should make up 5 to 10 percent of the total diet. Note that they may cause loose stools if too much is fed at one time. It’s better to feed smaller amounts daily or every other day than to feed larger amounts once or twice a week. This also spreads out the nutritional value, allowing your dog to receive more benefit.
Heart is nutritionally more like muscle meat than organ meat, but it is rich in taurine and other nutrients. If possible, make heart another 5 to 10 percent of the diet. More can be fed; just remember that too much can lead to loose stools in some dogs.
Other organs, such as spleen, eyeballs, sweetbreads (pancreas and thymus glands), brain, etc. are nutritious and can be added to the diet in small amounts.

Muscle meat, eggs, and more
The rest of the diet will be made up of muscle meat and eggs, along with dairy products and other healthy foods.
Muscle meat consists of all meat that is not considered organ meat. Feed muscle meat from a variety of sources, such as beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and turkey. Muscle meat can be fed ground or in chunks. If you have difficulty feeding much variety in your raw meaty bones, you can make up for it in this category. For example, if your raw meaty bones are mostly poultry, then you can feed beef, lamb, and pork muscle meat. Never feed more than half the total diet from a single protein source, such as chicken.
Eggs are an excellent source of nutrition. They can be fed raw or cooked; cooking actually makes the whites more digestible. You can feed as many eggs as you want, as long as you still feed lots of variety.
Dairy products, such as yogurt, kefir, and cottage cheese, are well tolerated by most dogs and offer good nutritional value. Yogurt and kefir have the added advantage of providing beneficial bacteria (probiotics). Dairy fat is a source of medium-chain triglycerides, a form of fat that is easier to digest for dogs with pancreatic disorders and other forms of fat intolerance.
Green tripe, which is the stomach lining from cows and other animals, is an excellent food for dogs, but be warned that it smells awful – at least to us; dogs love it. Nutritionally, it is similar to muscle meat. Green tripe can be purchased only from sources that sell food for dogs; it cannot be sold for human consumption. The tripe that you find in your grocery store has been bleached and treated, and does not provide the same nutritional value as green tripe.
It is also fine to feed healthy leftovers (food you would eat yourself, not the scraps you would throw away) to your dog as long as they are not too great a percentage of the diet – 10 to 20 percent of the diet should be okay.


​

 

PART II - BASIC BARF INFO CONTINUED

Vegetables, fruits, and grains
Feeding vegetables, fruits, and grains is optional, as dogs do not require carbohydrates in their diet. Even though these foods would make up a tiny percentage of the natural diet, they provide some nutritional value, especially trace minerals and phytonutrients from leafy green vegetables.
If you feed veggies, they need to be either cooked or pureed in a food processor, juicer, or blender. Whole, raw veggies are not harmful, but their cell walls are not broken down during digestion so they provide little nutritional value to dogs. Most veggies have few calories, so they should be added on top of the amount of food you feed, rather than calculating them as a percentage of the diet.
Good veggies to feed include broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, all kinds of leafy greens, celery, cucumber, bell peppers, zucchini and other summer squashes, carrots, and more. You can mix up a large batch and then freeze them in ice cube trays or muffin tins for easy meal-sized portions.
Steaming is the best method to cook fresh or frozen veggies. You can add the water used to steam veggies to the meal, as it will contain the minerals that were leached out during cooking. Small amounts of leftover meat juices, drippings, sauces, and gravy will make this into a savory soup.
Some dogs enjoy vegetables, but others refuse to eat them no matter how they’re prepared. If your dog won’t eat vegetables, or if you prefer not to feed them, you may want to add a blend of kelp and alfalfa, or a green food supplement (more on this below).
Fruits such as apples, bananas, papayas, mangoes, berries, and melon can be added to the diet in small amounts. Don’t feed grapes or raisins, which can cause kidney damage in some dogs.
Grains, legumes, and starchy veggies, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes and winter squashes, are a source of inexpensive calories, but don’t provide as much nutritional value to dogs as foods from animal sources do. These starchy foods need to be cooked in order to be properly digested by dogs.
Many health problems can be caused or exacerbated by grains and other starchy carbohydrates. If your dog is overweight or suffers from allergies, arthritis, seizures, chronic ear infections, incontinence, IBD, or other digestive disorders, you may want to try feeding a diet without these foods to see if your dog improves. If you decide to feed them, it’s best if they make up no more than 20 percent of the diet.
Potatoes (not sweet potatoes), tomatoes, peppers (all kinds), and eggplant may aggravate arthritis pain, but are otherwise fine to feed. Grains and starchy veggies may also aggravate arthritis and other forms of inflammation.

Fresh food supplements
Healthy dogs that are fed a wide variety of appropriate foods should have no need of supplements, but there are several fresh food supplements that may provide additional benefits when added in small amounts:
· Fish body oil, such as salmon oil, provides beneficial omega-3 fatty acids that help to reduce inflammation and regulate the immune system. Sardines can also be fed to provide these omega-3 fatty acids. However, you must add vitamin E to the dog’s diet whenever you supplement with oils, to prevent the body from being depleted of this vitamin over time.
· Sea blend, green blend, or kelp/alfalfa mixture supplies trace minerals. These are especially good to add if you don’t feed green veggies.
· Organic (unpasteurized) apple cider vinegar provides some trace minerals and may possibly offer other benefits.
· Raw honey has antibacterial properties and offers a variety of nutritional benefits (see "Bee Products have a Special Meaning for Dogs," September 2007).
· Fresh crushed garlic has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties, as well as other benefits, and may help to repel fleas. Give no more than 1 small clove (one small portion of the bulb) per 20 pounds of body weight daily, as high doses can cause anemia.
· Ginger is good for digestion and may help with inflammation.
· Nutritional yeast is an excellent source of B vitamins, along with trace minerals.
· Dark molasses can also be used in small amounts as a source of trace minerals.

 

PART III - SAMPLE BARF "MENUS"

The idea of cooking for my dogs turns me pale. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with cooked diets, or because I’m worried about doing it right, but for one simple reason: I hate to cook.
Had my only option for feeding my dogs a homemade diet been cooking their food, I’m afraid they’d still be eating out of a bag. But the idea of a raw diet, once I wrapped my mind around the concept of feeding bones, seemed, if not exactly simple, at least feasible, given my limited kitchen skills.
I’ve been surprised to learn that there are many people like me: we don’t cook for our families or even ourselves, but we feed our dogs a homemade raw diet, and actually enjoy preparing their meals.
Feeding a raw diet is quite simple, especially once you have a system in place, but like anything else new, it can seem very complicated when first starting out. I hope these sample diets will be helpful to newcomers considering feeding a raw diet, and that even those who have been doing it for awhile may learn some new tricks to make the process of finding, preparing and storing food simpler.

My dog’s diet
In 1998, I began feeding a raw diet to the three dogs I had at the time. While getting started took a lot of planning, the routine I’ve worked out makes it simple for me to manage now. Piglet, my 15-year-old Chinese Shar-Pei, weighs 35 pounds, and is relatively inactive due to her age. She ate more when she was younger, and I gave her more fat. Here’s what I feed her now:
Breakfast (3 ounces, plus dairy and veggies):
* 1 large egg alternating daily with 1 to 1½ oz liver or kidney
* Muscle meat, heart, green tripe and/or healthy leftovers, enough to equal 3 oz total food (including egg/organs)
* A spoonful of yogurt or cottage cheese (I use low-fat or nonfat varieties these days)
* 3 to 4 oz veggies, alternating daily between steamed veggies and pureed “veggie muffin” (described below)
* [Note: Since this article was published, I have changed to a 3-day rotation, using around 3/4 oz (dry — rehydrates to about 3 1/2 oz) Preference from The Honest Kitchen for the third day, combined with 1 large egg and 1 ounce muscle meat, plus yogurt.]
Dinner (4 ounces):
* Mon/Wed/Fri: rotate among chicken necks, chicken backs and lamb breast (with skin and visible fat removed)
* Sun/Tues/Thurs: rotate among different ground products, ranging from raw meaty bones only to complete diets
* Saturday: canned fish, alternating between jack mackerel and pink salmon, or occasionally sardines
Dietary Supplements:
* 2 high-potency fish oil gelcaps (I give high doses due to her arthritis)
* Antioxidants (Vetri-Science Cell Advance 880, Thorne Veterinary Small Animal Antioxidants, or Thorne Veterinary Immugen)
* B-50 vitamin complex
* Splash (1 tsp?) of organic apple cider vinegar
* 1/8 tsp green blend (usually Berte’s Green Blend, also trying Invigor from The Honest Kitchen)
I do not package food in meal-sized portions. Instead, I divide food up into amounts that will last around one to three meals, and freeze. I store most food in Ziploc-style freezer bags that I wash and reuse. Each time I feed a meal, I move anything that I will need for the same meal in two days from the freezer to the fridge. When I run out of one food, I start on the next, so meals are often a mixture of several different kinds of food.
“Veggie muffins” are prepared in large batches that last a month or more. I puree a mixture of various fruits (apple and banana, sometimes others as well), vegetables (lettuce, celery, cucumber, zucchini, dandelion greens, arugula, etc.), and herbs (always ginger and garlic, usually along with parsley or cilantro) in a food processor, then spoon the mixture into a muffin tin and freeze (you can use ice cube trays for smaller servings, but Piglet loves veggies). Once frozen, I transfer the veggie muffins to freezer bags.
Steamed veggies are usually frozen broccoli or sometimes cauliflower or winter squash. I save any leftover sauces, gravy, meat drippings, chicken carcass, etc., and add them to the water that I use to steam the veggies, then pour the water over the meal to make “breakfast soup” (any bones are removed first).
Eggs are soft-cooked using microwave egg cups. Pills are given dipped in a bit of cream cheese or peanut butter.
The ground mixtures I feed are primarily a source of bones that my dogs would not otherwise get, such as beef, pork and venison.
I helped to start a raw food co-op in my area that allows us to buy directly from vendors at lower prices and gives us access to foods not normally found in stores (though stores can often order these products for you). I get all my raw meaty bones from the co-op, along with beef, lamb and pork (ground, trim, heart, cheeks, liver and kidney). I have a small 5-cubic foot upright freezer that allows me to buy in bulk.
Piglet’s teeth are too worn to chew raw meaty bones (RMBs) properly, as she can’t shear off pieces small enough to swallow, so I cut her RMBs into small pieces using Joyce Chen scissors. I weigh all of her food using a postal scale, as otherwise she gains weight.
I used to give Piglet beef rib bones for recreational chewing, but she eventually broke a couple of teeth, so now I use chicken feet and bully sticks. Bully sticks, also called beef, steer or macho sticks, or pizzles, are made from beef penises (stop giggling). Dogs love them, they last a long time, and they're readily available.
At the time I made the switch to feeding a raw diet, my oldest dog was 13, and had suffered from allergies all his life. He became completely allergy-free within three months of starting the raw diet. A second dog prone to allergies improved, but continued to have some problems. Piglet was also able to come off all arthritis medications for several years, though she is back on them now. All of my dogs have loved raw food and never experienced any problems with it.

 

PART IV - SAMPLE BARF "MENUS" CONTINUED

Each dog gets the following supplements daily or as noted:
# 400 IU Vitamin E
# 1 Tbsp wild salmon oil
# 1,000 mg Ester C
# B-complex vitamin
# Liquid trace minerals (1 drop three times a week)
# Probiotics (two or three times a week)
# Alfalfa tablets or a teaspoonful of liquid chlorophyll (three times a week)
# Wheat Germ (just a sprinkle now and then)
# Zinc supplement: one capsule with 15 mg zinc and 2 mg copper split between the two dogs once a week
I purchase my meat monthly in bulk through a dog food co-op. I also buy meats on sale at various grocery stores. I typically grind most of the meat when I get it and then put it into 2-pound plastic yogurt containers that are easily frozen. The RMBs go in one section of my freezer and the ground meat goes in another section, so I don’t need to mark the containers. I take out a few containers and let them defrost to feed as needed.
I use between 90 and 120 pounds of meat per month. I have a freezer in my garage as well as an extra refrigerator that comes in handy when I need to defrost food in bulk, for repackaging.
My dogs are very healthy – their coats shine and they smell good. Their teeth stay clean, and typically the only time they go to the vet is for regular check-ups.
Our comments: I have seen the American Eagle grinder in action, and it is awesome. The more powerful, stainless steel grinders are expensive, but they make the job of grinding much easier, particularly if you have a lot of food to process. Try to find one with a reverse switch, as this one has, which also makes a big difference.

The right tools
Shari Mann, of San Francisco, has fed her dogs a raw diet since 1993. She has an active Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Meg, who just turned five years old — and she just got a Bull Terrier puppy.
Meg weighs a lean 25 pounds. She eats 9 to 10 ounces of food daily, divided into two very unequal portions: about 1 ounce for breakfast, and 7 to 8 ounces for dinner, with the rest coming from snacks and treats.
Breakfast is home-ground beef, pork, or lamb rolled into balls containing pills: 500 mg Vitamin C, and 100 to 200 IUs vitamin E. She loves to work for her food, so these are fed as training rewards.
After her three- to five-mile daily exercise, she gets a quarter-ounce cube of cheese or meat, or maybe raw beef liver.
For dinner, we work in variety. The one constant is a chicken foot with each evening meal, which she eats first. She gets at least two different kinds of animal protein (meat, meat mixes, raw meaty bones, eggs or fish), and either goat milk yogurt or green tripe. I add one gram of salmon oil with dinner each night.
I'm fortunate to be able to order most food from the SFRaw co-op. I buy some items from the grocery store as well, such as canned mackerel. Eggs come from my friend's organic chickens.
Raw meaty bones are turkey, duck, chicken or pork necks; chicken backs; or pork ribs. She does not like large chunks of food, so I cut them up with a meat cleaver, or I use my Estwing kindling axe and a chopping block for pork neck bones. When chopping, I keep my unused hand behind my back, and make sure there are no dogs around. Any sharp bone edges can be smashed with the flat backside of the axe.
The main meats I use are beef, lamb, and pork, cut into half-inch cubes, as well as turkey heart and gizzard, and canned jack mackerel. She gets bone in the evening meal only once or twice a week (she doesn’t really like them that much, unlike prior dogs I’ve had); the rest of the time we use powdered eggshell calcium, about ¼ teaspoon per meal. She gets tiny snippets of raw beef liver or Organ Blend from greentripe.com.
I grind mixes for the dogs that include meat (beef heart, pork roasts, London broil, or leg of lamb) and organ meat (beef liver or kidney). This is especially convenient to feed on trips to our vacation cabin.
I chunk or grind meat when I get it, and freeze in Ziploc containers, sometimes removing the frozen "block" and bagging it, to free up containers when I’m short.
I buy whole beef livers and kidneys from the co-op, which I partially freeze for slicing ease. I use my Tilia FoodSaver for the organs, since it preserves the food value longer.
Meg gets no grains or veggies on a regular basis, as she doesn't like them (I fed veggies to prior dogs who enjoyed them). I add a tiny sprinkle of kelp powder to her evening meal. Now and then, I’ll add fresh crushed garlic, herbs or bury some veggies under her yogurt.
Treats are most often dehydrated meats, such as turkey heart, London broil or beef liver, which I make myself in my L'Equip dehydrator. I also mix an equal amount of beef liver and canned pumpkin in the food processor, then bake it, and serve that as treats.
My new puppy has been fed Halshan’s ground chicken and ground turkey (with bone), and Honest Kitchen Embark (approved for puppies) by her breeder. I’ll continue with similar foods, plus fresh raw goat milk. After a few days I'll start gradually adding my usual variety, including small amounts of veggies and fruits (apples, bananas). I'll start her on chicken feet to see how she handles raw bones (whether she is a chewer or a gulper). If she can't handle bone just yet, I'll grind it for her. I'll give salmon oil, vitamin E (100 IU), and a B-complex vitamin every couple of days.
Comments: Having the right tools can make the job much easier. Shari’s grinder, dehydrator, hatchet and Tilia FoodSaver simplify preparing and storing healthy meals and treats.

Lacto-fermented what?
WDJ’s longtime contributor CJ Puotinen, who lives in New York, describes the diet she uses for Chloe, her 3-year-old, 75-pound Labrador Retriever:
I feed Chloe pasture-fed organic meat, poultry, and eggs from farms here in New York and New Jersey, with occasional raw goat milk cheese from the farmer’s market or health food store and goat milk kefir that I make at home. I also make lacto-fermented vegetables with finely shredded carrots, sweet potatoes, ginger and other root vegetables. Lactofermentation predigests vegetables, increases their vitamin content, and provides both probiotics (beneficial bacteria) and prebiotics (foods that feed beneficial bacteria).
My first pet nutrition mentor was Juliette de Bairacli Levy, whose Complete Herbal Handbook for the Dog and Cat introduced her Natural Rearing philosophy. I started following her guidelines 20 years ago with our cats and then with our first Lab, Samantha.
Levy believes that meat fed in large pieces exercises stomach muscles and helps prevent bloat and other digestive problems, so Chloe never gets ground meat. Whenever we buy a side of beef, we have it cut to order with the maximum amount of bone on the meat, whole or cut into large chunks, and wrapped in 1- to 2-pound packages.
Chloe gets more chicken and beef than other meats because we have such good local suppliers. She also gets lamb, goat, turkey, venison, or bison. Once in a while she gets wild-caught Pacific salmon, and I do cook that to prevent salmon poisoning. Chloe’s recreational bones are usually beef, lamb, goat, or turkey.
I try to provide raw meaty bones at least every other day because if Chloe goes for several days without any, she will have a loose stool with mucus when bones are reintroduced. Many people say that they can't give their dogs raw bones because they get diarrhea. This is not unusual – it takes the digestive tract a while to adjust, which is why it makes sense to start with small amounts of bone, or to take the bone away after a few minutes and give it back to the dog the next day for a few minutes more.
Whenever we run out of raw bones and then get a new supply, Chloe has loose stools for a day, and then they become small, hard, and chalky, like plaster. In my experience, bone-fed dogs seldom have anal sac problems.
Both Samantha and Chloe have thrown up lamb bones, especially from shoulder cut lamb. This usually happens the next day, when the bone fragments are etched and eaten away by stomach acid. Chloe does a better job of chewing small bones so she throws them up less often than Samantha did.
Chloe’s dinner usually starts with 2 or 3 tablespoons of lacto-fermented veggies, 1 to 2 tablespoons coconut oil, a tablespoon of shredded dried coconut, a teaspoon of cod liver oil, and a little fresh organ meat, such as liver, if available. If she's getting an egg or cheese that day, it gets mixed with the veggies.
The meat or poultry comes next, fed in her crate on a towel because of the mess it makes. She gets raw meaty bones at least three or four days a week. If she gets meat without a bone attached, she'll get an after-dinner bone to chew on. I use raw marrow bones for that – once she cleans them out, I fill them with raw goat cheese. They seem to last forever.
I put Willard Water concentrate in her drinking water and often add a splash of it to her dinner. Her other supplements are Standard Process Canine Whole Body Support powder and Seacure powder, both of which help the vegetables taste better.
Chloe gets between 1 and 1½ pounds of meat and raw meaty bones per day, usually fed in a single evening meal. Lately I've been giving her a cup of fresh goat kefir for breakfast, which I plan to continue as she has become fond of kefir, and it's so good for her. I generally feed a light evening meal with eggs and/or raw dairy or kefir on Saturday, and then fast her (water only) on Sunday.

 

PART V - SAMPLE BARF "MENUS" CONTINUED

When Samantha, was young, I always thawed her frozen meat in the fridge, then warmed it in hot water to a fresh-caught-game temperature. One day I was interviewing a woman who raises pasture-fed meat about how healthy her dogs were on their raw diet, and she mentioned that everu day she tosses each dog a piece of frozen meat for dinner. I was shocked, but she just laughed and said it slows them down, they can't swallow it all at once, it keeps them busy, and they do just fine. She was right, and now Chloe gets about half of her meat frozen.
Chloe was weaned on kibble, but it didn’t take long to switch her to raw food. Less than a week after we brought her home at eight weeks, she was eating 100 percent raw and has been ever since. She sometimes gets grain-based treats from friends or vets or trainers, but most of her training treats are freeze-dried liver, lamb lung, turkey hearts, or other low-carb or no-carb fare.

Even toy breeds can eat bones
Randall Mackie, of San Francisco, has fed his 7-pound Yorkshire Terrier, Pumpkin, a raw diet for eight years. He explains why and how:
I started feeding a raw diet when Pumpkin, who was a puppy at the time, just wouldn't eat kibble, canned, or any other processed foods. She also had several bouts of serious gastrointestinal problems, one of which landed her in the pet hospital for several days. Within a month of switching to raw, she had gained weight, was more active, and she had no further digestive disorders – ever!
I feed muscle meat for her morning meal, and raw meaty bones for dinner. I don’t worry about balancing each day’s meals, but believe in the concept of “balance over time.”
A typical morning meal is one ounce of meat, usually beef stew meat or beef heart, but I vary this with chicken or pork meat, chicken hearts, chicken or duck gizzards, and whatever else I can find at the Asian markets here. Every few days, I add a small amount of cooked beef liver (she gets the runs with raw liver, even in tiny amounts).
Her favorite evening meal is a 1- to 2-ounce piece of pork neck bone. She loves these, and even if she can't completely consume them, they give her lots of chewing pleasure. I used to use a meat cleaver to chop them up, but I found an Asian market nearby where the bones actually come cut up in the perfect size for her. I find that she can generally consume about ¼ to ½ of the bone. Some nights, she gets chicken necks or chicken backs instead, and about once a week, she gets jack mackerel for her RMB meal. Pumpkin is good about not gulping, but I still split the chicken necks lengthwise, then split them again, and I hold onto them while she eats them. I also mince up the chicken backs before I give them to her.
A couple of days a week, Pumpkin is fed pre-made raw medallions from Nature's Variety, when other family members are caring for her.
Finally, she gets table scraps, cottage cheese, yogurt, cheese, etc. – almost anything I eat, she will eat, except for veggies and eggs. I’ve tried and tried to get her to eat those, but finally gave up. Sometimes she'll eat bits of fruit (apple, melon, etc). And she loves vanilla ice cream!
For treats, I primarily use EVO kibbles. I've even fed EVO at times when I didn't have anything thawed for her.
The only supplements she gets right now are fish oil and sometimes vitamin E, both of which I mix in with the cooked beef liver she gets in the morning.
When I first started feeding raw meaty bones, Pumpkin didn't quite know what to do with them, but she picked up on it quickly. In the beginning, I held the bone to help her get started, and now that's part of our routine. I'll hold the bone for a while, then after a few minutes I'll let her take it away from me, and she'll go and chew on it for a good long while.
Comments: Many people think that toy breeds cannot handle bones, but Pumpkin would beg to differ! Small dogs seem to be more susceptible to esophageal damage from bones, so be sure your dog chews them up well, or help out by holding onto the bones (if your dog doesn’t object) or cutting them up into pieces too small to cause choking, or grinding them.

Mass production for big dogs
Bridget Moran, of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, is a Rottweiler breeder and Bravo! retailer who feeds a whopping 12 pounds of food a day to her six dogs (including one foster and the Hurricane Katrina rescue she adopted), ranging in age from 2 to 11 years old, and weighing from 67 to 115 pounds. She reveals her system for feeding so many big dogs:
I feed raw meaty bones (RMBs) in the morning and muscle meat in the evening (or occasionally vice versa), for a total of 6 pounds of food each meal:
Morning meals may be composed of:
# Pork rib tips
# Chicken quarters, or chicken necks with added chicken hearts or gizzards
# Venison, lamb or duck necks
# Turkey necks, or turkey backs with added turkey hearts
# Chicken breast meat with bone
Evening meals:
# Chunked pork heart (cheaper than beef heart, which one dog doesn’t like)
# Ground turkey, beef, venison or buffalo
# Tripe, always mixed half and half with another protein
# Chicken hearts and gizzards, or turkey hearts
# Jack mackerel (canned)
Supplements:
# 50/50 mixture of Berte’s Immune Blend and Berte’s Green Blend
# Salmon Oil
I buy pork rib tips, chicken quarters, chicken necks and pork heart in bulk from a restaurant food supplier that delivers near my house. I purchase turkey backs from the local grocer. The rest of my products are from Bravo.
I split the food unevenly between my six dogs, adding muscle meat to RMB meals when needed to get the proper amount of food for each dog, or if stools seem too dry. I weigh all my dogs’ food, to help me get the amounts right, and mix and match proteins at will. I have been very lucky and have never had a choking incident (a friend lost her dog, a full sister to one of mine, to a turkey neck).
I use Bravo! Blends, which have meat, bone, organ meat, and veggies, a few times a week to supply the bulk of my organ meat, or I add a handful of Bravo beef liver cubes to either meal. Once every month or two, I feed the more expensive exotic ground raw meaty bones from Bravo, such as elk, ostrich, or quail, for variety.
When I have a foster dog who needs to gain weight, I add a cup of high-quality kibble, such as EVO, to their raw food. The added carbs help to provide some padding over their ribs.
When I first started feeding raw in 1999, I would mix about 15 pounds worth of ground beef, veggies, organ meat, etc. and freeze it into patties. It took me about two hours to mix up this concoction, which would last one dog two weeks.
When I switched a second dog to the raw diet, those patties only lasted a week, and I knew I had to find another way! Other raw feeders all gave me the same advice: freeze about a day’s worth of food for all dogs in one container, then divide it up at mealtime.
Here is the system I use now. At an office supply store, I buy unscented garbage can liners for around $10 for 10,000 bags. These bags are not freezer-weight, but the food does not stay in the freezer long.
I split each case of food into bags containing enough for a meal for each of my dogs, plus a little extra. If I have time, I cube pork heart or beef heart, or grind muscle meat, and put about five pounds each into rectangular Glad or Ziploc containers (this shape works best for maximizing freezer space).
I have a 22-cubic foot chest freezer. With chest freezers, it’s helpful to know approximately where everything is, so I made a wooden divider that splits the lower half of the freezer into thirds, allowing me to put 40-pound bulk cases on top. The divider also lets me stack and retrieve Bravo rolls more efficiently. When I put food into the freezer, I alternate between muscle meat and RMBs, making it easier to get to what I want. I’m also careful to shift older food to the top when I fill my freezer up again.
The first dog I switched to a raw diet was my 11-year-old male who was very lame, but could not handle any pain medications. After a few weeks on the raw diet, he started putting weight on his bad leg, and was soon trotting around and retrieving balls. He lived almost another year before I lost him to cancer of the spleen. The vet and I were totally amazed, and I was a convert from that point on.
Comments: Feeding a raw diet to so many large dogs can seem overwhelming, but once you have a system worked out, it goes quite smoothly.

 

PART VI - PREY DIET & SAMPLE MENUS

A “prey model” diet
One style of raw feeding called “prey model” advocates feeding a diet based on whole prey and excluding anything else. This is based on a desire to mimic the diet of the wolf in the wild. Ginny Wilken, of Alameda, California, describes the prey-model diet she has fed Tomo, her 11-year-old, 85-lb American Staffordshire Terrier, since he was four years old:
Tomo had three surgeries for hip and knee problems when he was young, prompting me to seek options to help him. I started with a Billinghurst-style raw diet, which soon morphed into a prey-model approach.
“Prey model” is a concept with wide latitude. Tomo is not fed a strict prey model diet; I’ve tailored it to meet his individual needs. I think this diet is well suited to folks with moderately good access to meat sources.
Tomo is a low-activity senior, an easy keeper with definite preferences. He enjoys food, but sees a meal as a social event, and is always happier to eat if someone is watching or sharing. This is sometimes a challenge, as he will turn down "difficult" meals at home alone that he will gladly tackle in "public."
Here are his diet items:
# Pork neck bones (whole split necks), ribs, shoulder, and shanks
# Turkey parts, including unattached necks
# Chicken and duck (whole or half)
# Lamb necks (whole), heart and kidney
# Goat (six-way cut)
# Meaty chunks of beef, lamb, pork and venison
# Raw eggs, free-range (home grown)
# Organic or natural beef liver, heart and kidney
# Green tripe, cow gullets and tracheas (from greentripe.com)
# Chicken feet
# Pork brains, spleen and pancreas
# Whole small fishes, like smelt or sardines
# Intact heads or whole animals, when available
# Homemade soups from all varieties of bones
# My table scraps or "shares," just meat, fish and vegetables (only broccoli and greens, and only with fat on it)
# Timberwolf Salmon oil
I buy food from butchers, Asian markets, or wholesale from packers and ranchers. All our food is from quality sources, and much of it is organic or naturally raised.
These days, Tomo can’t skip meals, as he needs to take a number of supplements twice a day, including antioxidants for his heart, anti-inflammatories for arthritis, and thyroid medication. He gets pills in slices of meat or handfuls of tripe or ground beef, usually when I am eating, to make a treat out of it.
Tomo is a very careful chewer, but large pieces may come up and go down a few times to get chomped just right. He has never choked on food. I don't fast him, but I do feed a bountiful day, followed by one or more lean days. He averages 1½ pounds of food a day, with a higher percentage of bone than is common with a prey-model diet. This regulates his digestion, which tends towards quick and loose.
I saw lots of positive changes. First, he ate, without being picky! Then I noticed that fleas no longer bothered him. His skin and ear problems cleared up quite a bit, though not entirely. His breath and coat improved, and his digestion became much more consistent. He became less manic, and easier to train and handle. His hips seemed to bother him less. Eight years later, I’m still very happy with his diet.
Comments: It’s important when following the prey-model style to feed a wide variety of foods, as shown here, not just meat and bones, and not just one or two meat sources. Tomo’s diet also demonstrates how supplements can be used appropriately.
​

 

Read this before you feed BARF it talks about the Myths created by the BARF diet
http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/barf-myth.html

 

Interesting article but I don't agree with a lot of their points - namely the section on allergies and on bones. I also disagree with their claims that people are only feeding raw diets because they think their dogs are wolves.

I disagree with them saying that the majority of people who feed raw cast aside greens and veggies as well - the diets I posted very carefully think out multiple sources, and each have sections on veggies and grains. In fact, one of the main raw diet principles is that you should feed veggies and grains because if your dog was catching its own food it would be getting veggies and grains by digesting the flora in the gut of its prey.

By the way of course a lot of BARF people do not feed their dogs whole prey - that is not a BARF diet. There is a whole other diet for whole prey - called the prey model diet. Why would you feed whole prey if that is not the basis behind the diet? I feel like the author here touched on one segment of a certain diet technique (because not all BARF diets are even the same...) and did not bother to research any of the hundreds of other raw diets and theories out there. They then went and found articles that apply to that one section of diet.

Also if someone is feeding a raw diet and not giving supplements they are just being negligent - so the whole paragraph about nutrient levels and dogs not getting what they need has to do with stupid people who choose not to do their research.

I don't know - I think the article was interesting but extremely biased. They generalized one type out of the hundreds of raw diets out there and made some very blanket assumptions. Pretty much everything I read in that article was already things I already knew, and that most people I know who feed raw already take into consideration in the diets they feed.

It is also a huge generalization to say that everyone feeding a raw diet is simply obsessed with their dogs genetic relationship to wolves. Feeding a raw diet is simply cutting out the kibble making middle man when done properly - it is feeding an omnivore what it was naturally made to eat, meat, veggies, and grains in their normal form.

 

I'm also curious to know why the article treats the BARF diet like it is an internet fad. It was not made up by some random house wife, it was created by a veterinarian - Ian Billinghurst after extensive research. Just because some folks who shouldn't be planning animal nutrition have made their own variants of this diet that may not be nutritionally sound does not mean the development of the original diet concept was thrown together by a nut on the internet.

 

Thanks very much for the info!!

I been studying this diet for a while, and now that i can get this meat and rest of chiken with other organs almost for free i want to give a try.

The reason i choose spinachs,lentills and Kiwi as veggies/fruits are because the nutritional properties seems to complement each other. I also planned using apple cinder vinegar, yogur, honey on small dosis since its a "keep" diet.

Now i need to experiment the correct dosage of every ingredient but this info was very helpful and more or less is what i thought.

I plan on including other meat types like pork,lamb and turkey but so far i would focus on chicken and organs.

Multivitamins is on my list too, and b12 (i found TROFALGON is spanish name for b12) too.

Any other commens welcome!

BTW, i see most people use fish oil. Here in Spain we have what we call "liquid gold" that is Olive Oil, very good for the coat and good fats, Atum in conserve is a good and cheap source of protein and omegas too.

 

I think the bolded statement is pretty generalized as well. It's all based on what works for each dog and the owners preference and beliefs. I fed my own version of prey model raw for several years and it was the healthiest my dogs have ever been..no veggies..no supplementation aside from the occasional oils.

There will always be people who believe dogs are omnivores and those who believe they are carnivores. I chose the prey model diet because I had 2 dogs with extreme grain allergies and they wouldn't touch veggies with a 10 foot pole, so I figured I'd give prey model a shot and see how it went. Couldn't have asked for better results. With good quality meat, proper ratio's of organ/meat/and bone and varying the meat regularly, they thrived. I'm sure there are plenty of dogs out there who are the opposite but all I'm saying is it is a matter of opinion and what works for you and your dog.

 

Bah that was my bad and a typo - should say anyone feeding a BARF diet, not a raw diet, as that is what the article was about in particular.

You are right whole prey model can be done without supplementing, usually the only supplement in a well planned out whole prey diet is occasional fish oils like you mentioned you feed - and like I mentioned in the prey model diet sample menu. Your dogs will get veggies and fruits from the gut of their prey to "round things out" any way when you are feeding a whole prey diet. BARF generally needs supplimenting because dogs are not getting all the internal organ meat and benefits from it.

I should mention I feed my dog a mix of kibble, raw bones, and whole prey. I've done it with every dog that crosses my door.

Random observations make you notice each dog has their own eating habits. Dexter's favorite snack was whole baby rabbits - he'd eat them like little chicken nuggets, one bite and gone. Meiko, my Akita, won't eat prey or raw unless it is heated to natural game body temperature - it has to feel like it has recently been alive for her to want it. Dexter would eat his raw stuff frozen sometimes for variety, he could have cared less about temperature. Boogeyman, another pit I had went apeshit for deer legs (my family hunts). Everyone has their favorite.

I've also raised ferrets on prey and raw model diets. Kubrick my last ferret loved to try to stash away the bones and hide them from me.

My Akita is also severely allergic to grains and I agree that dog's don't need them. I feed grain free.

Aside from the nutritional benefits - I prefer whole prey model to BARF because it makes the dogs work for their food. They have to hold down their meal, stabilize it, use jaws muscles for tearing and feet for holding that they normally would not with a bowl of kibble. Getting a meal becomes a mental and physical workout in addition to just chewing and swallowing. Watching a dog mentally plan how to dismantle a deer leg or a whole chicken is quite entertaining.

 

Thanks Adivina for the article. Where did you get it?

 

Myself and a few other members of another pet forum run a pet nutrition wiki.

http://premiumpetfood.wikidot.com/

I'm actually gonna bug my friend who admins the wiki to come join up. She has lots of prey model feeding pictures too.

 

Do not feed raw pork.
I agree with raw food, I disagree with all the barf proposed supplements and combinations. It looks to me like the general trend for supplementing humans with vitamins etc. which I don't like to the extreme it is promoted today in USA and the rest of the world. If you look around this forum you will notice most people keep it simple.

 

I have question; does anyone use the honest kitchen meal, and mix them with other raw ingredients. I am looking at doing this exclusively due to being away so much, and the wife is very busy with medical school. I want it to still be very healthy. I use salmon oil, and an anti ox from honest kitchen as well. I want to do this right so all advice will be taken seriously, and appreciated.