Sonny's First BARF!!

[Guin33]

I finally did it. I have been wanting to switch to BARF for a while and have been reading like crazy. My Sonny has allergies and I was supposed to start cortizone shots for him but I just don't "feel" right about it, so I decided to see if we can't improve his condition through improved nutrition.

I gave him his first chicken wing meal last night and boy was he in heaven. I have never seen him eat so fast and go back to lick his bowl so many times.

I just have a few questions I am hoping the experienced BARF'ers can answer.

1- What do you feed for your muscle meat and how often
2- How often and how much veggie mush should he get. Is it the same % as a RMB meal?
3- What else do you put in your veggie mush besides veggies (puree'd beef, eggs, supps)??

I also have a zillion other questions but I'll start off slow.

Thanks All

P.S. I am not new to message forums but I must say I have never seen such a supportive community like BW!!

Thanks

[cashisking]

I am pretty new to BARF too, a month or so under my belt, so I will try to answer your questions, and I am sure if I am wrong, someone will correct me!

First, I hope those allergies clear up, I can sympathise with your dilemma about traditional treatments for your baby. You are doing the right thing by your dog!!

1. For muscle meat, I feed beef stew cubes 1x a week, maybe 2x if I have extra ground meat after human meal prep. Have heard deer is good too, I THINK Lamb is also a muscle meat?!?

2. I was told not to pay TOO much attention to percentages, it is a rough guide. I feed Cassuis veggies mix every other day at lunch. Deit calls for roughly 15% veggies, etc?! The great thing about this is, if you miss a veggie meal, you won't hurt your dog! You can make it up later.

3. As for what I put in MY mix, it is pretty basic, a green veggie, a carrot, an egg every other time, some chicken liver (offral), yogurt, cottage cheese. I should be adding ACV to it too. That is pretty much it, but if I spy something in the fridge that I think he can/should have, I throw that in too.


I am sure you know to watch for the runs, and goopy eyes through detox!

Good Luck, and welcome

[Guin33]

Thanks Cash,

When I say %, I mean how much veggie mush as a percentage of body weight should I give. For my 40lb+ guy I give him about 3 or 4 wings at once but I'm not sure how much mush at one sitting. I don't want to over do it.

[Muttluvr]

Hi! I'll try to answer your questions too!

1. I generally feed ground beef as a muscle meat. Once a week. Sometimes I'll feed chicken quarters, which have a very high meat-bone ratio so I'll skip the muscle meat meal for that week.
Also, when I feed the offal meal (always liver for me, either chicken, ostrich or beef) I'll add in heart and gizzards. The heart and gizzards are considered muscle meat. OH, and I feed a tripe meal a week too! I'm pretty sure that's considered muscle meat!

2. There are a lot of different opinions on veggie meals . I personally don't feed an all veggie meal to them (since they won't eat it) so I give them each a heaping tablespoon of pulped veggies with a heaping tablespoon of yogurt after ever meal (like a dessert )

3. I just use veggies! (but as I mentioned in #2 I mix in yogurt, and sometimes an egg).


For feeding amounts (in adults) you want to feed 2-3% of their ideal weight. So assuming your 40lb guy is at his ideal weight you'd be feeding 0.8 - 1.2 lbs a day (so each feeding would be .4-.6). Generally start in the middle range and add or subtract depending on how your guy looks (ie if he gains weight feed a bit less, if he looses weight feed a bit more).

Hope this helps!

we just started giving our dogs raw beef bones from the butcher, have not really been giving them much else except for the scraps off the chicken skins or livers an hearts the junk we throw out, an not really taken them off the dog food we have been feeding them, I have been doing this for bout 3 months now, an their eyes have cleared up big time no more nasty eye boogers, their noses stay moister, an coats are softer, Im gona have to read more into this, an see about the vegies you all are talking bout!!

best of luck to everyone

Jakob
Ogie
an son JJ

[JulieM]

Muscle meat is pretty much any "meat" that doesn't have bones in it Chicken, lamb, beef, veal, pork - if it's boneless and not offal, it's muscle meat. (Heart is considered either a muscle meat or both muscle meat and offal, depending on who you ask.)

I usually feed the muscle meat as part of the veggie mush (I have a couple who won't eat the veggies otherwise), and try to vary it as much as possible (I don't feed a lot of variety in the RMB department, so try to cover it in the muscle meat). Beef, pork, lamb, veal, turkey are the ones I feed most of the time, usually ground but if there's a sale I'll pick up whole pieces and cut them into chunks.

Veggie mush should make up about 15% of the diet, and it's up to you whether you want to feed veggies every day for 15% of the total food intake, or whether you want feed veggies 15% of the meals over a certain time period. (For example, 15% of 20 is 3, so you'd feed 3 veggie meals over a 10-day period, assuming you're feeding twice a day.)

I generally add my supplements to the veggie mix, because it's easier to 'hide' them Sometimes I'll throw in yogurt or cottage cheese instead of muscle meat, it just depends on what I've fed recently. The key is to feed as wide a variety of foods as possible over several weeks.