Switching to BARF for two Husky's

CreedonsDogDayc

Hi all,

Looking for some advice.

I have two Siberian Husky's, one is 1 and the other is 8 weeks.

I'd like to switch to the BARF diet full time with them as the older has never really settled with any brand of dog food, and I just think they'd be healthier and it would be more natural.

Has anyone any experience of feeding Husky's BARF? ISDW do you feed barf to your dogs?

The other dog has had some chicken wings in the past but only really as a treat, and didn't make a full switch.

Theres loads of conflicting info out there, so im not sure how much to feed them, the easiest way to get it etc.

I work 7 to 7 mon to sat so dont have much time to go butcher hunting.

Also can you give them the food frozen or does it have to be thawed?

Any advice on feeding it to the puppy?

Thanks a mill

ISDW

I don't feed BARF, only because I have too many dogs here, and I wouldn't have the storage facilities needed for that amount of meat! Good luck with it, I know lots of sibe owners here and in the UK that do feed it, and swear by it.

You kept that quiet about the new pup, come on, details please:D

CreedonsDogDayc

ha ha she's gorgeous! I was thinking of getting another husky for a while, and when I came across the breeders I couldnt say no, it was the perfect set up.

Her parents are both from Lueldar and I got her from the nicest family who bred their female as their second husky passed away. The mother has already been neutered, they only wanted her to have one litter as they're keeping two of the boys. The owners were heartbroken handing her over as she was the first to go.

I wouldnt really call her a pup she's bigger than most dogs I know and she's only 8 weeks and 3 days!
I got her on Sunday, she's going to be a handful i'd say!


Here's a pic of her having her first bath, she shared the tub with Poppy, a bichon, as it was less scary that way!!!

CreedonsDogDayc

dont think the pic worked

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?pid=435943&id=100000496076505&ref=notif&notif_t=like

Actually ISDW I think you know the breeders, they are from Laois. The mum was Dakota and the other dog they had that passed away was Kamots

TooManyDogs

I had wanted to switch mine to BARF but like you found the info confusing. I got this book and it made it much easier "Raw Dog Food" by Carina Beth McDonald.

I don't have sibes but mutts from JRT to GSD x so might be able to give you some help. My local butcher saves the chicken carcases he butchers and I collect them from him every 2 days. I have a standard undercounter freezer and it isn't big enough for me, I need 1.5kg of meat a day, so I'm getting a chest freezer next month. I do feed the food frozen in the summer if it's not defrosted in time, I only feed frozen in the summer because they knaw on it and drag it around and I don't let them do that in the house!

For the pup you could start out with wings that would be easier to crunch for him. Wings and backs aren't weight carrying bones on the chicken like legs and thighs so the bones aren't as compacted and thick.

Good luck, I'm delighted I made the switch

CreedonsDogDayc

Thanks for the info, was wondering about the frozen foods option as it would be easier than having thawing meat sitting around (im a vegetarian) and I would probably feed them in their individual crates as I know in the past when Bella did get the odd chicken wing she was VERY guarded of it.

TooManyDogs do you vary the meat they get or stick with chicken? Do you give them veg too?

TooManyDogs

I stick to chicken bones, they have loads of meat on them, if I come across a bargain by way of meat then I'll get that too. Pork has to be frozen for 30 days to kill the dangerous bacteria that is normally killed by cooking but beef/turkey/lamb is safe to feed directly raw.

I do feed them veggies, half green veggies and half other colours. You have to par cook root veggies (potatoes/carrots/parsnips/turnips) because they can't break them down effectively. All other veggies can be used raw. I normally cook up a big batch of root veggies, then add the other veggies, eggs (including shells) and blend it down, freeze it in batches too. They also get a couple of spoons of natural yogurt over their dinner too.

You can also give them fish if you have access to fishermen! While we were camping we had an avid fisherman camped next to us and he gave us the bits of the fish left over after filleting, you'd want to see the dogs tuck into fish heads!!! :eek:

Like you I'm vegetarian, it does take a little while to get used to it but I keep reminding myself that the dogs are carnivores. I also chop up the bones (my old girl has feck all teeth left) so there's not as much crunching sounds

CreedonsDogDayc

TooManyDogs wrote: »

I stick to chicken bones, they have loads of meat on them, if I come across a bargain by way of meat then I'll get that too. Pork has to be frozen for 30 days to kill the dangerous bacteria that is normally killed by cooking but beef/turkey/lamb is safe to feed directly raw.

I do feed them veggies, half green veggies and half other colours. You have to par cook root veggies (potatoes/carrots/parsnips/turnips) because they can't break them down effectively. All other veggies can be used raw. I normally cook up a big batch of root veggies, then add the other veggies, eggs (including shells) and blend it down, freeze it in batches too. They also get a couple of spoons of natural yogurt over their dinner too.

You can also give them fish if you have access to fishermen! While we were camping we had an avid fisherman camped next to us and he gave us the bits of the fish left over after filleting, you'd want to see the dogs tuck into fish heads!!! :eek:

Like you I'm vegetarian, it does take a little while to get used to it but I keep reminding myself that the dogs are carnivores. I also chop up the bones (my old girl has feck all teeth left) so there's not as much crunching sounds

Great info, thanks a mil!!!

ISDW

Oh, yes I do know the breeders, she'll be a great dog, I saw pics of them whilst with their mum. Congratulations, now, when are you going to start working them? Obviously not her for a while, but you're going to have to buy a scooter or rig now:D

CreedonsDogDayc

ISDW wrote: »

Oh, yes I do know the breeders, she'll be a great dog, I saw pics of them whilst with their mum. Congratulations, now, when are you going to start working them? Obviously not her for a while, but you're going to have to buy a scooter or rig now:D

Ha ha I'll wait for the ice to hit again this winter, that way I can still get to work

pageturner

Hello everyone.
just reading your posts on feeding BARF.
Well we don't have Huskies but have 4 ranging from pugs to retreivers....all on BARF.
All on Natures Menu which we found on www.foodforpets.ie. These guys have also been on the Show circuit lately. We feed the frozen nuggets which we find thaws very quickly...about 3 hours.

imnu

My bichons are on sort of a barf diet. Some days they have frozen minced lamb or chicken with finely chopped green beans or carrots, another day they will have frozen chicken wings, all straight from the freezer.

When the freezer is empty they have Taste of the Wild kibble with tinned salmon

I also supplement their diet with Angels Delight (mainly for the tears) and salmon oil (NOT cod liver oil)

There are some people that say that dogs should not have raw and kibble at the same time. They claim that it will slow the rate at which the meat goes through the dog and increases the risk of salmonella etc. I have spent hours looking into this and cannot find any evidence of increased risk.

The hardest things with BARF is making sure that you don't over feed.

Get the raw meat from an animal/pet supplier- way cheaper, it might have the odd bit of fur or feathers but dogs don't care.

Since moving away from commercial mass produced foods it has help with lots of things, eg hot spots and although they still have some tear staining it is much less than it used to be. The Angels delight deals with the rest

The Sweeper

I wouldn't buy raw from a pet supplier only because they can put a lot of preservatives in that meat to ensure it keeps. They can use additives that they can't use in human grade meat, hence you see 'not fit for human consumption' on the labels. It is much cheaper, yes, but there's a reason and I'd be worried about the longer-term health of my dog with those additives.

I feed my pup as follows (he's 20 weeks):

Chicken wings (whole, with the tips still one, in one piece, not bashed about).
Chicken necks (especially the larger pieces - the smaller ones go to the cats).
Chicken sections e.g. a quartered chicken carcass with the meat on.

This is where he gets his bone intake from. I supervise him when feeding to ensure he doesn't gobble or scoff too much.

Meat intake, the offal counter is my friend. Hearts, tongues, tripes - loves all three. Liver and kidney - not so big a fan but he has to have it. He will eat it, he just won't relish it. The trick with making raw convenient for you is to balance over time, not in every meal - so not every meal needs meat, bone, fat, offal. Liver and kidney makes an appearance at dinner twice a week for my pup, but I always mix with something tasty like a handful of beef strips and a sardine - disguises the offal taste (ho ho, the pun).

Other food includes sardines, and occasionally something like some porridge oats hydrated in some probiotic yoghurt (this is a real weekend thing - when I'm eating them myself for breakfast! He'll get a couple of tablespoons mixed in with his meat breakfast.) He also gets a raw egg in his food a few times a week.

I don't do much to add veggies to the dog's diet. The 'BARF' way of adding veg is to blend it with a little water and stir it through the food, but my dog gets chronic gas if fed veg. I currently give him a 500mg vitamin C tablet crushed into his food - a lot of that was because he was down in his pasterns when I got him. There are supplements you can buy to add veg and roughage to a dog's diet and I think I'd rather go with one of those because the veg I've tried so far isn't working.

The amount to feed - for an adult dog, you want to feed 2-3% of his target body weight per day. For, say, a large adult 35kg labrador, this means you target 700g - 1050g of food per day. I find that around two full chicken wings plus four chicken necks = 500g in weight or thereabouts, to give you an idea. You'll soon get used to getting the scales out on shopping day and dividing your raw purchases into sandwich bags, then into the freezer with most of it. Pups need more food, around 8-10% of their bodyweight per day I believe.

There's an element of raw feeding that includes a fasting day. Sounds like the horrors, but I find my dog after a week of raw food loses interest in his food for a day or so, and I reduce his intake to very little for that day - he maybe gets two chicken necks in the morning and one wing that night if he's even interested in it. He's not ill or lacking in energy, just not interested in eating.

One major advantage of raw - hydration. My pup was in such terrible condition when I got him, very underweight, all ribs and hips and no bum to speak of. His skin and coat were lose and slack on him, and if you gently pinched up the skin on his scruff it would take literally minutes to smooth back out again. Some of that was puppyhood, but a lot of it was being in rubbish condition. Even after a while of good feeding with commercial food, the reaction of the skin was still slow. He wasn't interested in drinking water. We switched him to raw and his skin is like elastic now. He drinks about the same amount of water as he used to, but he used to eat kibble and now he doesn't and it's just as though his body is stronger and his skin is better.

A raw, meaty bone is NOT a bone that the dog cannot eat. This is important - a large lamb marrow bone with meat on it is NOT part of a BARF diet. Marrow bones are so hard that a dog can crack a tooth so it's up to you if you want to give one to your dog - I admit I'll give my pup a marrow bone, but mainly to gnaw and to keep him occupied with his teething and everything else. He doesn't get any calcium from it, hence it's not part of the integral diet. He strips the meat and the cartiledge off both ends and that's about it. Then it goes in the bin.

A raw, meaty bone includes any part of a chicken carcass with meat on the bones, or things like turkey drumsticks (adult dogs - these are big bones) or turkey wings, lamb ribs, or rabbit. The idea is the dog eats the bone. He crunches it and chews it first, or gnaws it to get chunks off (in the case of large pieces of chicken carcass, for instance) and then chews it up and swallows.

Just a note - I wouldn't be feeding an adult husky a chicken wing as an introduction to raw, just because the dog is too big and the wing is too small - you don't want your dog to hoover his food, gulping it down without chewing. With an adult husky, I'd give him half a chicken back for starters and see how he gets on with that. Once he's in the habit of chewing you may find he copes with a chicken wing just fine, but our kibble-fed pets have forgotten how to chew up larger pieces of meat and it's genuinely a skill that needs reawakening.

The big advantage for me of the dog being on raw is it's helping me put my cats back on raw too. They're hard to feed because they're finicky and too much was going in the bin - however kibble makes them fat. They eat it too quickly, they're left unsatisfied, and the carbohydrate content just creates a gut. They get, at most now, one cup of high-end kibble between the six of them a day - the rest of it is a combination of raw meat, chicken necks, offal, so on. The dog picks up the slack and makes buying in bulk more economical!

Dr Billinghurt's secrets for success in raw feeding (this is for pups but you can extend it to adult dogs in terms of the approach, if not the amounts and the exercise rules!)

Billinghurst's Ten Secrets of Successful Puppy Rearing:

First Secret: Heaps of raw meaty bones -- 60-80% of total food intake

Second Secret: Grow your pup slowly, lean and slightly hungry, not at maximum growth rate.

Third Secret: Feed your pup a wide variety of natural foods.

Fourth Secret: Feed your pup mostly raw foods.

Fifth Secret: Feed your pup foods suitable for growth, high in good-quality protein, fats, vitamins and minerals.

Sixth Secret: Do not base the diet of your pup on raw steak, commercial dog food and calcium supplements.

Seventh Secret: The only exercise allowed is play (and eating exercise).

Eight Secret: Have your pup spend most of his day outside in the fresh air on clean earth and grass, in the sun, with ample fresh water available.

Ninth Secret: Diet balanced over time, not by providing balance in every meal.

Tenth Secret: Is a puppy raised with love, resulting in a strong immune system, a puppy that is "watched," and fed according to his weight, condition and general health.

imnu

Thanks thesweeper

I had always assumed not for human consumption meant the prep was below par- will have to check for preservatives- i suppose I thought that frozen implied no need for preservatives.

With regard to kibble- i agree about the carbs, that is why I suggested the grain free ones. Not only will cheaper kibbles give a sugar rush- they also lead to plaque as dogs have the wrong types of enzymes.

Once again thanks. haven't read the whole of your post but i will later- have to be up in 5 hours...

BTW what is your position on vegetables and fibre- I read conflicting advice saying that dogs don't need much fibre and then that fibre helps to express the anal glands, more of an issue for us toy dog owners. They seem to be unable to break down any cellulose at all.

CreedonsDogDayc

hi guys, thanks for all your great info.

Im moving house tomorrow so Sunday i'll find my nearest butchers and get sorted. I'll also have to weigh the dogs and get a weighing scales.

Just to clarify, with all of the raw meat and bones, does anyone advise AGAINST feeding from frozen? It would probably be more convenient for me and allow them to eat their food slower, but will they still get all the nutrients from the food?

With regards the veg, I'll try blending it and mixing it with their food and see how their going.

Here's a pic of the two brats in question

TooManyDogs

imnu wrote: »

BTW what is your position on vegetables and fibre- I read conflicting advice saying that dogs don't need much fibre and then that fibre helps to express the anal glands, more of an issue for us toy dog owners. They seem to be unable to break down any cellulose at all.

There is 2 schools of thought regarding veggies/fibre. One says that in the wild a dog would eat the stomach contents of small animals it killed, eg rabbit so would eat partially digested veggies/fibre so include it in a raw diet. Another school says that they don't eat stomach contents at all so only feed bones and meat.

My own personal opinion is that it's up to your dogs. If my dogs don't get veggie slop on their dinner for a couple of days they start eating the lawn like a herd of cows, they never get sick and it never comes straight out in their poo so I figure mine need/enjoy veggies, but I know other people who's dogs don't do well on the veggies and now skip it. So it seems to be each dog to his own.

The Sweeper

CreedonsDogDayc wrote: »

Just to clarify, with all of the raw meat and bones, does anyone advise AGAINST feeding from frozen? It would probably be more convenient for me and allow them to eat their food slower, but will they still get all the nutrients from the food?

The only thing I've heard against eating frozen involves large breeds and bloat -- they can get bloat from eating from frozen - I've no idea of the authenticity / reliability of this info.

wopper10

Hi my dad wanted to feed a barf diet but like yourself didn't have time to go shopping in butchers etc. So he found this food called Ziwipeak. Its basically just dried meat its the closest you can get to a raw diet without actually feeding a raw diet.His GS is doing really well on it. Great food have to say. Maybe try it, if you don't have time to shop round butchers.........

butcher75

foodforpets.ie I found very expensive, I get all my meat from Slaney Petfoods, its all 100% meat not preservatives or addatives, very good quaility. You can pick up orders at any champ shows. I found them on ohmydog.ie. You can contact them at slaneypetfoods@gmail.com