Hi iluv2zzz, i am interested in your HCF recipe, do you mind to share with me? i found this interesting article about the BARF diet http://www.consumersavvytips.org/what_is_the_barf_diet.html . the writer of this article hits the right point too. just to share....

vege and fruits are blended with anything else?

I throw in bits and pieces of various vegetables and sometimes sesame seeds, almonds and other nuts, ikan bilis, hebi, whatever. At feeding time, I'd drizzle some olive oil or flaxseed oil or some fish oil. I might throw in some cooked buckwheat or millet or some other grain. Then mix that with the raw meat and bones stuff. Sometimes if I want to whip something up on the spot rather than prepare a batch for freezing, I'd just use a mortar and pestle rather than a blender.

Got garlic, turmeric, liver, eggs, yogurt and all sorts of fruits n vege then mixed with ACV and soon to start some supplements too.

I see. Coz doggies normally dislike vege alone. Thanks for the info!

I love this thread.

I've got two dogs at home - Bobby, a 17kg spitz mix (considered mongrel) and Brandy, an 8kg shih tzu. Both are fed a diet of high quality kibble (Evo) and HCF.

Two days ago, I noticed Brandy scooting on her rear end. Immediately I suspected something was wrong with her anal glands and sent her to the vet. It turned out that her left anal gland was badly impacted. According to the vet, Brandy was probably raised on a diet of pure kibble since she was a puppy and she didn't drink enough water. So over a period of time, her digestive tract could not handle her hard poo and so it affected her anal glands. Note that I have no idea about Brandy's past because she's runaway/stray which we recently adopted. The vet told me to switch Brandy from kibble to wet dog food.

Now, I do not want to raise my dog on canned food. IMHO, if dry kibble is bad enough, imagine the amount of preservatives needed to keep wet food fresh. Probably more than dry food.

I'm thinking of switching my dog to a prey model diet which is similar to BARF, but minus the fruits and veges. According to information which I gathered from the Net, the prey model is based around providing nutrition through raw meaty bones, offal etc alone because dogs generally cannot digest vegetables and fruits unless mashed into pulp.

I got most of my info from here:

http://www.rawfed.com/

http://www.rawfeddogs.net/

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...13150731AA04RUc

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Added on January 14, 2009, 3:07 pmI'm not against BARF, just that I fear I do not have the time to pulp fruits and veges. Still I think that any form of raw feeding, be it BARF or prey model will always be more superior to feeding processed food.



This post has been edited by bluepuppygirl: Jan 14 2009, 03:07 PM

a note on veges. you can cook the veg and fruit portion if pulping is untenable. the most important is that the meat and bones are raw. furthermore, partially raw is better than totally cooked. also, remember nutrition over time! sometimes, cooked, sometimes raw for the veg is fine too! we've been doing this for many years and raw fed pets are so much healthier....you must try it.

some dogs tend to have problems on EVOPET due to their higher protein level compared to other kibbles. and note their moisture level is not that high to.
My dog are feeding on EVO too, but she drinks lots of water...so far so good. =)

Sigh, so much for Evo being a 6-star dog food.

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Added on January 18, 2009, 7:20 pm1st day of feeding Brandy raw chicken - SHE LOVES IT! So much for reports of small dogs being picky eaters... I gave her a whole drumstick + 1/2 a piece of chicken liver and she cleaned everything up. At first I was worried she would reject raw meat but she handled it like a pro.

So happy!



This post has been edited by bluepuppygirl: Jan 18 2009, 07:20 PM

Well, that's what they meant to eat! I believe animals are quite simple. They eat what they meant to eat, and refuse or reluctant to eat what they are not meant to. We don't say that a Wolf is too pampered because he doesnt take kibbles so must force him, he should eat raw!

bluepuppygirl, do give us feedback on how things go feeding raw alright?

This post has been edited by White Palace: Jan 24 2009, 02:42 PM

hey yang...can i actually feed my ruby kibbles and BARF together??

i mean for example 3times a week BARF then other days premium kibbles??

Not advisable, the digestion rate for BARF and Kibbles is different, mixing them up or frequent switching might upset the stomach.

oic...thanks for the advice..

Hi bluepuppygirl, I feed my Scottie the Prey Model diet too. I have been feeding him for about 3-4 months now and the results were quite remarkable His stools were much lesser compared to his kibble days, his breath doesn't smell as bad, and to me the greatest improvement was that his teeth is getting whiter than his kibble-fed days. He used to have a lot of tartar on his teeth even though I brush his teeth quite often, and even the vet said his teeth needed scaling. But after switching him to raw feeding, his teeth now is noticeably whiter and I don't need to brush his teeth now...

I am no expert too, but I have found a Yahoo group on raw feeding, and I have learnt a lot from the more than 12000 members there. You can join it here: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding/

Besides those sites, here are some other sites on raw feeding recommended by the group...very good info here too:
http://www.rawlearning.com
http://www.rawmeatybones.com
http://www.rawfed.com/myths/
http://rawdiettruth.blogspot.com/

Hope these will help you in making your decision to feed your doggies raw And yes, I like to believe that feeding any form of raw would still be better than feeding processed food. But then, the owner needs to read and do their research first before embarking on this, as feeding too much or too less of something can be detrimental.

Audrey

This post has been edited by Rayne: Feb 2 2009, 10:24 PM

Thank you for all the useful links. It sure helps for those who wish to learn more!

How often do you guys deworm your dog? Feeding barf should deworm more often?

For me, no...I deworm Scottie as usual, about 4-5 months once.

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Added on February 10, 2009, 3:03 pmWhat is Prey Model Diet?
(taken from http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/RawChat...rap=1&var=1&l=1 - you would need to be a member of the group to view the messages)

The species appropriate whole prey model diet has been modeled after what
the dog's very close relative, the wolf, eats in the wild. IOW, if a dog
were wild, and free to breed and pack up and roam to choose prey, what would
they eat?

From the research and writings by David Mech and other scientists, its been
learned that wolves, who are medium to large size critters, run in familial
packs and hunt down large ruminants - deer, elk, bison and the like - by
choice and seasonally they hunt and eat much smaller prey - such as rabbits,
birds, fish, rodents and even eggs - depending on the region the live in.
They eat everything; muscle, skin, fat, connective tissue, fur, organs,
bones, etc.
http://www.davemech.org/books.html

So, the IDEAL Whole Prey Model Diet is to feed entire wild prey animals to
our dogs. Most people can't manage to do that, so in comes the variants -
feeding smaller whole prey to different sized dogs and feeding them from
commercial or home grown or wild caught sources - such as mice, sardines,
rats, rabbits, mackerel, chickens, turkeys, lambs, goats, pigs, cows, etc.
Some of us also tweak the WPM diet to successfully feed dogs with physical
abnormalities, limitations or diseases.

Another variant is to Feed FrankenPrey - as wide a variety of cobbled
together animal parts and organs as it is possible to obtain, fed over time,
to simulate ideal prey. Most people, even experienced rf, on this list are
in the FrankenPrey feeding category, at least in part. Those of us who feed
mainly commercial meats also usually supplement with some sort of Omega 3 -
Fish Body or Salmon or other type of oil, to balance the preponderance and
imbalance of Omega 6s in that type of meat.

Most of us prefer to call what we do raw feeding - feeding a species
appropriate whole prey model diet, if we need to explain it and
differentiate it from the 'other flavors' of 'raw' that OP feed their dogs.

RMBs is a very loose term, and conjures up, for me, at least, a vision of a
bare nekkid bone, with shreds of meat and connective tissue clinging to it.
Not nearly meaty enough for a real species appropriate
Whole Prey model/FrankenPrey diet! Anything that is referred to as BONE
first and foremost; RMB, marrow, recreational (wreck), soup, 'dog' bones, et
al - are not, IMO & E, meaty enough to feed as a meal. The same goes, imo,
for bony parts - necks, backs, any part that you can see the bone, and isn't
completely covered in meat, is usually too bony to feed regularly without
added meat.

Its just not usually cost effective to buy bony parts, when you have to then
buy meatymeat to add to meals.

The general 'rule of thumb' guideline, that averages out all whole prey
(each whole prey animal has a different proportion and is 'perfect' for
itself) bone to meatymeat to organ proportions to a 'formula' is;

80% meatymeat - muscle, fat, skin, fur, connective tissues and such muscular
organs as heart, tongue and gizzards.
10% EDIBLE and digestible bone
10% organs - 3-5% liver and 5-7% 'other' organs, such as kidney, spleen,
pancreas, lungs, brains, sweetbreads, tripe, etc and so forth.



Other good links for reading on raw feeding as well:
http://www.thewholedog.org/artcarnivores.html
http://www.rawlearning.com/rawfaq.html
http://www.rawlearning.com/supplementmyths.html
http://www.rawfed.com/myths/index.html
http://rawfeddogs.net/Recipes
http://rawfeddogs.net/FAQlist

Nutrition data calculating sites;
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfeeding/message/174712[SIZE=7]

This post has been edited by Rayne: Feb 10 2009, 03:30 PM

I start to give my dog chicken wing as dinner since last night....
Today I saw his stool having some bone which is not ingested properly...
that means he didn't chew properly?
Today dinner, he grab the chicken wing and want to eat inside his bed...I faster carry him to the kitchen then he thought I am going to grab his chicken wing away XD ended up he almost choked by the chicken wing as he is like gulping...is it coz of the chicken wing is small? so he won't really chew on it?

Some bones in stool is normal. Nothing to worry about as it is just passing out.

What you did was wrong, to carry him fast. You scared him, and made him try to gulp the chicken wing down because it thought you wanted to steal it away. Dogs are somewhat protective over food and shouldn't be frightened or threaten during mealtimes.

You should feed him in a quiet place, with newspaper around as some dogs like to eat their food on covered ground. Never try to carry or snatch away the food when a dog is eating and do not sit too close to your dog coz it needs privacy when eating too.

chicken wing and drumstick is not advisable to give. other body parts are ok like ribs, breast, keels etc.