BARF Diet--Bad Name, Good Diet

[Sangye]

Okay, I'm starting a thread about feeding a raw food diet to dogs and cats. Where should we begin?

[crackers]

ok sangye from the previous thread i can't comment on cats as regards the BARF diet(it is an unfortunate name,sounds like something from the simpsons,)but i suppose the supermarket bit is personal choice for her.where she lives is a more agricultural lifestyle with tradtional butchers who prepare the meat themselves rather than supermarkets where it is prepacked.for anyone who doesn't know what the BARF diet is,it's raw meat even chicken and bones.but it has to be raw.
john.

[Sangye]

I'd rather have butcher shop meat, too, but I can make do just fine with supermarket stuff. Sometimes I have to ask the supermarket butchers if they have any organ meat or certain bones. They have a lot in the back. Grocery stores in Hispanic neighborhoods tend to have more organ meats and bones in the store, since Hispanics cook with them more.

My dogs eat raw chicken thighs each day-- 3 crunches to break the bone and swallow the whole thing. Takes about 20 seconds to devour a huge thigh. I'm used to it, but when friends see it for the first time they're totally shocked.

I like to give them beef vertebrae when I can get them. They eat the whole bone, but it takes longer than the chicken thigh. Really exercises their jaws, makes them happy and cleans their teeth so they look like this

[elephant]

Sangye how do you get them to eat veggies. Long time ago I tried to feel my Lab carrots/ broccoli and he spit them out! Was wondering if was looking to put some salad dressing on it.

[katwoman]

My cat gets a raw chicken neck every second day, they look disgusting but he thinks they are fantastic and chomps them down in a matter of minutes, unless of course there are visitors in my unit and then embarrassingly he runs around the unit with it in his mouth (I gather he thinks that one of them may want to steal it if he leaves it in his bowl).

Raw bones are great for our pets teeth!

[Sangye]

Elephant, when feeding a raw diet, you're trying to reproduce eating a prey animal in nature. Prey animals are able to break down plant cell walls, but canines and felines are not. Wild carnivores get plant nutrients by eating the stomach contents of prey animals. So we have to make veggies like baby food.

I put a few veggies in a food processor each week and puree it completely. I feed a heaping tablespoon or two each day. The tub lasts about a week. I don't give my dogs fruit because it's not necessary and you have to feed it far away from meat feeding times so it doesn't ferment in the gut.

Good veggies-- carrots, parsley, dandelion, zucchini, yellow squash, beets, etc...

One note on veggies-- if you give brocolli or cauliflower, you need to lightly steam them first. In raw form they can suppress the thyroid-- same for humans.

I give my dogs whole or baby carrots sometimes, but it's really just for fun. They don't really digest it.

[Sangye]

Kat, raw chicken necks are great for cats and little dogs! Not much meat, but excellent edible bones. Turkey necks work great for dogs. In the US you can get turkey necks during the holiday season very inexpensively.

My dogs do the same thing if they think someone might steal their bones....

[elephant]

Thanks Sangye, appreciate this info.

[onatreetop]

I wondered about fat or meat scraps for the kitties? Is it safe? I had been cooking them because I was afraid that the raw might make them sick?

[Sangye]

Raw meat actually strengthens their digestive system. Dogs and cats have much more acidic stomachs than we do--they're meant to scavenge. But after a long time eating cooked food (kibble), their GI tracts need to be restored.

To start feeding raw, give little bits of raw meat each day. Their stomachs need to build up digestive enzymes again. Some dogs actually have to take enzyme supplements in the beginning. Don't give raw organs or bones for a few weeks-- very rich and harder to digest.

My last dog was a kibble-fed dog. If she ate something weird while hiking in the woods, she'd throw up, sometimes for days. Usual sick dog stomach.

My two dogs now have been on raw food for 5 and 6 years. Lotus ate a pile of rotted elk intestines once and never even burped. The only time they've gotten bad stomachs is when visitors have given them "treats" like rawhides, Snausages and Milkbones. The last time I was in the hospital, friends came to visit the dogs and each person brought them a little treat. When I got out, Patch had extreme diarrhea for days. It reeked of rawhides and Pup-pepperoni.