Raw (barf) Feeding Questions…?
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editor in
Question & Answer on
Dec 21st, 2009 |
4 responses
1. Is it still considered raw if you make the food in bulk and the freeze it to thaw out later?
2. Is it still considered raw to add a dog supplement powder to it?
3. In your opinion is this a healthy raw meal (it’s new, I’m trying it out) 65% fish (salmon and tuna), kangaroo and chicken, 5% organic tofu (I know some people are against it but my dogs love it), 25% vegetables (spinach, watercress, beet leaves) and 5% this product (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Dr-Bruce’s-Vets-A… which is soaked fo r24 hours before and is not frozen. This also has a vitamin powder for dogs added to it.
Thanks.
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1. Yes
2. Yes supplementing is a personal choice
3. If you are going to feed non meat bone product you need to lower the amounts. Your dogs should be getting more meat AND organs than anything. I also don’t see any mention of bone which they also need to maintain calcium levels and other nutrients as well as firm stools. Ditch the stuff from ebay – dogs don’t need grains and this is chock full of it. Even 5 percent is unneeded. I would ditch the tofu only because most dogs have reactions to soy.
IF you are going to feed veggies I’d drop it to 5-10% this is more than they’d get in the wild on a steady diet of small rodents they can’t gut and shake the stomach contents out. Of course you could skip it all together and feed tripe instead, which also counts as a meat instead of an organ.
1. yes
2. i believe for the barf diet YOU MUST add supplement
3. no, i personally would not do the barf diet. I would if any raw dieting look up the raw meaty bones (prey-model) diet. Barf diet has too much bones and since it’s grounded meat instead of whole, dogs do not get the full benefit for their teeth and gums.
Dogs are carnivores but also scavengers, that is why they can eat vegetable but it’s not optimal for them. Prey model diet contains organs which also cause it not to be necessary to add any supplements.
1 – yes
2 – yes
3 – no – I would keep the chicken and kangaroo as the bulk of the meat/bone portion. Feed the fish in small amounts. If you feed fish, you need to make sure you supplement with Vit. E. You also need to add some organ meat to the diet. Liver is a good place to start. I’ve never used the Dr. Bruce’s dehydrated food, but I don’t see a reason it would be necessary if you are feeding 25% vegetables.
The best book to read for information is Dr. Billinghurt’s “Give Your Dog a Bone”.
I would suggest you join a BARF raw-feeding group on Yahoo.
I use a primarily prey model form of raw feeding so I do not regularily supplement with anything.. including vegetables.