Puppy Not Doing So Well On Barf

[rosylea]

For the last 2 weeks i have started to introduce a BARF diet to my 10month old jackrussel. However after i fed her chicken neck last night(for the first time) she had diarrhea and vomited up her food followed by yellow foam a few times. She sat hunched over for a while and started to shake a bit. I was so worried and just about to rush her to an emergency vet (this happened at 4am in the morning) but 15minutes later she seemed ok and just wanted to sleep and now she seems quite normal.

Since introducing the diet the only thing she seems to do be ok on is beef(mince). After eating lamb off cuts and kangaroo mince i noticed that her faeces was covered in a bit of jelly slimy like substance. She seems to do the worst on chicken. After i fed her chicken wings her faeces was initially a bit foamy and then she became quite constipated after eating it for 3 days. I gave her some yogurt which seemed to help a bit. I fed her a small tin of mackerel along with other things split into three days and on the last day she vomitted. So during the past 2 weeks its been hell and im not sure if it is what im doing thats wronge or if my puppy is just allergic to a lot of raw foods.

i still ocasionally give her a bit of Eagle Pack mixed with other foods in the mornings just to finish whats left in the bag. I changed her diet in the fist place as she never really liked dry food (Eagle Pack holistic) and i had to always mix other things such as canned wet food (Optimum puppy formula) with it. She seemed to put on a lot of weight with her old diet too. Would it be wise to just give up on BARF and switch her back over to her old diet? She seems to really like eating raw food.

Im going to take her to my vet this afternoon but i just wanted some advice before i go. Has anyone else had similar problems? Is my puppy allergic to most raw meat? I didnt introduce all the different types of raw food gradually into her diet. Could this be the problem?

Sorry about the really long post.

Please help!

[laffi]

Maybe you introduce all these different foods too fast?

Does your dog chew on the raw meaty bones or does how just swallow them whole? It's important they chew them as big bone pieces can cause indigestion.

What is the meat ingredient in the Eagle Pack that you used? If it's chicken and your dog doesn't have problem with Eagle Pack, I doubt raw chicken would be the problem.

[rosylea]

Maybe you introduce all these different foods too fast?

Does your dog chew on the raw meaty bones or does how just swallow them whole? It's important they chew them as big bone pieces can cause indigestion.

What is the meat ingredient in the Eagle Pack that you used? If it's chicken and your dog doesn't have problem with Eagle Pack, I doubt raw chicken would be the problem.

ive been careful to watch her while shes been eating anything with bones in it and she seems to chew everythign quite thoroughly. I even held the bones for her to chew on at the beginning to make sure of it.

The main ingredient is chicken meal. I have fed her boiled chicken in the past and she was ok. Is it possible for a dog to only be allergic to raw chicken?

[Paganman]

I think you feed your dog what suits it.If your dog looks good and acts happy and has lots of energy when its eating a certain diet then stick to it.From what Ive read on dogz Barf doesnt suit all dogs just like not all dry foods suit all dogs youve just gotta find what works.

[tyra20007]

To feed a BARF diet that is well balanced takes time and a lot of research.

A couple of points regarding your post are:

If she is not chewing up her chicken necks and swallowing them that can cause

problems and discomfort - try feeding a whole chicken carcass you can get good

fresh ones from Lenards Chicken Shops very cheaply or Woolworths but make sure they are fresh!

If you wouldn't eat it because it smells a bit - don't feed it to your dog.

Canned mackerel is not ideal! Especially if you left it in the tin over the 3 days of

feeding - again if you wouldn't eat it, don't give it to the dog. Buy some fresh sardines

at the fish shop or frozen ones are great too - just freeze them individually and feed

1 every couple of days.

Lenards also sells minced chicken frames which you can mix with human grade beef

mince and some chopped liver/kidneys/brains, to my mix I also add some soaked

Vets all Natural which gives the dogs bowels whole fermented grain that cleans the

lining and keeps the bowel stimulated. I also add some supplements from greenpet

like the greenpet essentials and also they do a great omega oil mix. (you can order online

or over the phone)

If you would like an idea of my total feeding plan I am happy to email it to you just send

me a message with your email address.

Feeding BARF is easy once you get the balance & confidence to do it. I mix up my dinners

for 2 adult Dobermanns once a month and freeze it into individual servings which I weigh

up for each dogs needs. and I buy bones / fish every 2 weeks and freeze those into

daily servings. Once I spend a bit of time on the prep, feeding this way is just as convenient

as feeding a dog processed pet poison (Sorry but I am a BARF Nazi and will never give my

dogs any kind of pet food) I have helped others change the diets for their dogs and the dogs

have recovered from having bad skin conditions very quickly and those people are now

BARF converts!

Stick with it - as it is worth it in the long run - the rewards are huge - healthy long lived dogs

means that the effort to feed a properly balanced diet is worth it.

[rosylea]

To feed a BARF diet that is well balanced takes time and a lot of research.

A couple of points regarding your post are:

If she is not chewing up her chicken necks and swallowing them that can cause

problems and discomfort - try feeding a whole chicken carcass you can get good

fresh ones from Lenards Chicken Shops very cheaply or Woolworths but make sure they are fresh!

If you wouldn't eat it because it smells a bit - don't feed it to your dog.

Canned mackerel is not ideal! Especially if you left it in the tin over the 3 days of

feeding - again if you wouldn't eat it, don't give it to the dog. Buy some fresh sardines

at the fish shop or frozen ones are great too - just freeze them individually and feed

1 every couple of days.

Lenards also sells minced chicken frames which you can mix with human grade beef

mince and some chopped liver/kidneys/brains, to my mix I also add some soaked

Vets all Natural which gives the dogs bowels whole fermented grain that cleans the

lining and keeps the bowel stimulated. I also add some supplements from greenpet

like the greenpet essentials and also they do a great omega oil mix. (you can order online

or over the phone)

If you would like an idea of my total feeding plan I am happy to email it to you just send

me a message with your email address.

Feeding BARF is easy once you get the balance & confidence to do it. I mix up my dinners

for 2 adult Dobermanns once a month and freeze it into individual servings which I weigh

up for each dogs needs. and I buy bones / fish every 2 weeks and freeze those into

daily servings. Once I spend a bit of time on the prep, feeding this way is just as convenient

as feeding a dog processed pet poison (Sorry but I am a BARF Nazi and will never give my

dogs any kind of pet food) I have helped others change the diets for their dogs and the dogs

have recovered from having bad skin conditions very quickly and those people are now

BARF converts!

Stick with it - as it is worth it in the long run - the rewards are huge - healthy long lived dogs

means that the effort to feed a properly balanced diet is worth it.

Thanks for giving such thorough reply tyra. As you can tell im quite new to this whole BARF thing but from all the good things ive read about it I really want to stick with it. Im just not sure what to do now after last night. Should i not be feeding her chicken wings and necks at all and move onto carcasses? Should i be feeding her raw food at all tonight? Or should i gradually introduce it into her diet again by feeding her the dry food again and adding the raw food in bit by bit.

[laffi]

I would probably go back to the dry food and add slowly one type of meat at the time (so for a couple of weeks you just add turkey etc). I would probably start with something other than chicken just to see if she can handle raw meat nicely.

Don't add any other things (like treats etc) while you are testing for food sensitivities.

I think your first goal should always be to settle her tummy.

[Sandra777]

I wouldn't feed her dry food then raw dry food then raw dry food..... The digestive enzymes required to digest cereal and those required to digest raw meat are very different. Many dogs can cope with both and perhaps your dog will be one of them after a while, but at the moment it's probably not a good idea.

I have never heard of any dog which is allergic to raw meat but can eat the same meat cooked - but nothing is impossible!

Mucous on the faeces generally indicates the gut cannot process the food properly. This could be as a result of a food allergy or a stomach upset or the food being fed being a fraction off (for that dog - some dogs could eat meat so rotten it walks and have no ill effect!)

If you find a vet that doesn't try to sell you hills chicken and rice in a can you are a lucky person. IMO the average vet is not the right person to ask for dietary advice for your dog.

IMO you should fast her for 12-24 hours, at least until her bowels are clear and her poop normal. Make sure she has plenty of water and encourage her to drink liberally. If she doesn't seem to want to drink add a little lactose free milk (a splash to a cup of water) to encourage her. If you use milk, put it in a separate bowl and offer it every couple of hours, keep it in the fridge between times (leave plain down water for her) - you don't want to risk ANY chance of introducing yet another bad bacteria to her poor tum!

Once everything is OK again get some probiotic. You can use acidopholous yoghurt but in this case I'd go for the good stuff from a health food shop - either wet form or in a capsule.

For the first four or five days give her either cooked chicken or cooked white fish (one or the other, decide at the start) and nothing else except the probiotic - dosage could be an issue, you'll need to do some maths!

Don't over load her system, small meals little and often.

If all goes well then over one or two days cook the meat less until you are feeding her raw meat only with the probiotic.

If all still goes well then add ONE additional meat - preferably something substantially different to the one she is OK with (if you use white fish for example, don't choose chicken to add, choose a red meat).

Mix it about 1/4 new meat and 3/4 proven OK meat for ONE meal only (proven OK meat only for the other meals in that day) and watch her reaction.

You can cook the new meat for one or two meals if you want, but generally this isn't required.

If nothing untoward happens, then just feed her a mixture of these 2 meats for 2 or 3 days, don't worry about introducing them slowly or such, just mix and match or mix them together.

Introduce a third meat the same way

If she has any reaction, immediately remove the new food from the diet and stabilise her again before trying a different new meat.

Now you can try bone content.

Assuming she's been OK with chicken, get some minced chicken bodies (Lenards was suggested) and introduce this as if it was a fourth new meat (1/4 - 3/4 etc). If she's OK with this use it for a few days along with the other proven OK meats.

Get a chicken wing or body - personally I don't think chicken necks are much good for anything except tiny puppies or chihuahuas. Break the body into three or four pieces and remove any huge hunks of fat or if using a wing, take most of the skin off it. Feed her the wing/body only for one meal. See what happens.

You can usually taper back on the probiotic after they're eating two or three different meats and also managing the bone content - you just have to watch what happens

I'm sure you've got the idea, stop all mixing and matching until her body is quite recovered from the stomach upset. Start simple and easy to digest. Introduce anything new only when the dog is stable and the gut functioning properly.

I've switched dogs cold turkey and had no problems, but they're all different and all have to be treated that way.

ETA: do NOT cook minced chicken bodies - even in the minced form cooked bone is not good.

Edited April 28, 2009 by Sandra777

[CavsRcute]

My dog cannot eat chicken or poultry....she vomits and then has yellow foamy poos. Normally about 2am

Edited April 28, 2009 by CavsRcute

[puggy_puggy]

rosylea can you type out exaclty what you feed every day.

[rosylea]

rosylea can you type out exaclty what you feed every day.

I have been feeding her the same thing for breakfast for the past 2 weeks- some Eagle Pack with pureed veggies with either egg/ yoghurt added to it. There were also a few days which i added the leftover mackerals to this aswell. ----> this made her vomit

For 1 night i fed her some canned mackarels ---> She was ok with this

For 3 nights in a row i fed her raw chicken wings ---> faeces was foamy and made her constipated

For 2 nights i fed her lamb off cuts ---> faeces covered in slimy substance

I started off just feeding her beef mince (sometimes mixed with rice) and for the remaining nights i have fed her either beef/kangaroo mince as im too scared to feed her anything else after the reactions shes had with the foods listed above.

But last night i thought id give it a go with feeding her chicken necks ----> made her throw up and diarrhea

[puggy_puggy]

I have been feeding her the same thing for breakfast for the past 2 weeks- some Eagle Pack with pureed veggies with either egg/ yoghurt added to it. There were also a few days which i added the leftover mackerals to this aswell. ----> this made her vomit

For 1 night i fed her some canned mackarels ---> She was ok with this

For 3 nights in a row i fed her raw chicken wings ---> faeces was foamy and made her constipated

For 2 nights i fed her lamb off cuts ---> faeces covered in slimy substance

I started off just feeding her beef mince (sometimes mixed with rice) and for the remaining nights i have fed her either beef/kangaroo mince as im too scared to feed her anything else after the reactions shes had with the foods listed above.

But last night i thought id give it a go with feeding her chicken necks ----> made her throw up and diarrhea

How fatty were the chicken wings and chicken necks? How many did you give at a time?

Did the lamb off cuts contain any bone or were they just fat and meat?

Don't feed rice. Not needed in a dogs diet.

[Clyde]

I think you feed your dog what suits it.

I agree. BARF doesn't suit every dog. Some of my dogs have BARF'ed and done really well. I currently have two dogs which it does not suit so I'm not BARF feeding any dogs at all the moment.

Feed what he is doing well on. Then maybe later when the puppy has stablised a bit try slowly introducing new foods. Poor puppy probably feels like a bomb has hit its intestines.

[rosylea]

I have been feeding her the same thing for breakfast for the past 2 weeks- some Eagle Pack with pureed veggies with either egg/ yoghurt added to it. There were also a few days which i added the leftover mackerals to this aswell. ----> this made her vomit

For 1 night i fed her some canned mackarels ---> She was ok with this

For 3 nights in a row i fed her raw chicken wings ---> faeces was foamy and made her constipated

For 2 nights i fed her lamb off cuts ---> faeces covered in slimy substance

I started off just feeding her beef mince (sometimes mixed with rice) and for the remaining nights i have fed her either beef/kangaroo mince as im too scared to feed her anything else after the reactions shes had with the foods listed above.

But last night i thought id give it a go with feeding her chicken necks ----> made her throw up and diarrhea

How fatty were the chicken wings and chicken necks? How many did you give at a time?

Did the lamb off cuts contain any bone or were they just fat and meat?

Don't feed rice. Not needed in a dogs diet.

I gave her 1 chicken wing at a time which werent that fatty however the necks (i gave her 3 small ones) which i got from coles were quite fatty.

The lamb off cuts were mainly meat with only a small bit of bone and i tried to trim the fat off these. She didnt have a reaction to the lamb the first time i gave it to her. Could it be that the second one i gave her had too much fat which caused her to not digest it properly and have slimy faces?

[rosylea]

I think you feed your dog what suits it.

I agree. BARF doesn't suit every dog. Some of my dogs have BARF'ed and done really well. I currently have two dogs which it does not suit so I'm not BARF feeding any dogs at all the moment.

Feed what he is doing well on. Then maybe later when the puppy has stablised a bit try slowly introducing new foods. Poor puppy probably feels like a bomb has hit its intestines.

She did do ok when she was just on Eagle Pack and a bit of wet food. Well she didnt vomit or have diarrhea atleast but she was always scratching. What made me change was the fact that she stopped wanting to eat the old food. She'd always sniff at it and then walk away and then maybe a few hrs later when she got realy hungry she'd eat half of it.With the raw food on the other hand, she really likes it and always finishes it. But it just doesnt agree with her stomach. Now i dont know what to do because even if i put her back on the old diet she probably won't even eat it.

What do you feed this dogs now clyde if you're not feeding them on BARF?

[Dogsfevr]

Stick with it - as it is worth it in the long run - the rewards are huge - healthy long lived dogs

means that the effort to feed a properly balanced diet is worth it.

BARF doesnt guarantee this

What time do you feed??Sometimes if the dog is feed to late it sits heavy in the stomach & they wake up crook.

Not every dog can stomach high quantities of meat especially if it has alot of fat.If she is throwing up bile(the yellow stuff) then thats a sign that something isnt agreeing.

When it comes to fish i have dogs that do well on tuna but get chronic runs on sardines so they dont get sardines.

I never feed beef due to the high incidence of reactions plus the crap results in the past.

I feed eagle pack hollistic giant to my young dog simply for growth but now hes 13 months i have swapped to my preferred choice,He ate it but not with great joy,it would give him soft stools & his coat was crap.

The one you used gave our other dogs the runs but they thrive on the power formula.

We use to different brands here or what ever the individual dog does best on.

All ours like many dogs get a combo of dry & raw(we use mutton only,chicken necks,fish (either shark,tuna) & many other add ons & all our dogs thrive & live very healthy long lifes.

One of our breeds has a very high incidence of pancreatitis so we must be careful what we feed.

[rosylea]

Just got back from the vet and I am so relieveddddddd. He said that it was nothing serious. She just ate her chicken necks too quickly and couldnt stomach them properly. Im just going to put her on boiled chicken and rice for about 4 days and then slowly introduce the raw stuff using sandra's method. The vet did say not to give her probiotics yet as it doesnt seem to be anything serious.

What really surprised me was that my vet commented on the fact that chicken necks were great for her and that i should continue to feed her raw food or just dry food, never together as they digest differently. Ive just heard so many stories about vets who say that the dog food that they sell at their clinic is the only recommended food for a puppy.

He also said that the abnormalities in her faeces was because meat like lamb is too fatty for her and its probably best that i introduce it later on when shes a little older.

thanks for all the advice everyone. Im going to persist with BARF but more slowly this time. Fingers crossed

[tyra20007]

Im just going to put her on boiled chicken and rice for about 4 days

If you do the cooked chicken and rice, the method I use is to boil about 6 litres of water with 1 full chicken breast and cook for about an hour on a very slow boil, I then add 2 cups of rice and cook for 50% longer than it says on the packet (about 18-20mins in total). Once cooked I then strain the rice and chicken and keep the stock separately and then shred the chicken and put in it's own bowl and the rice in another. Depending on the size of the dog this may need to be cooked again during the 4 days. A gentle way of feeding it to the dog to help the digestion issues is as follows.

1st day - lots of broth with only rice (no shredded chicken)

2nd day - lots of broth with mostly rice and some chicken

3rd day - broth with 1/2 rice 1/2 chicken

4th day - broth with 1/3 rice 2/3 chicken

I have had to do this for a few friends dogs who have had some digestion issues due to eating something they shouldn't have eaten.

Glad to hear the vets went well - I will send through the feeding plan tomorrow as brain and fingers tired and it probably wouldn't be legible if I did it now

You will always get the nay sayers about feeding a BARF diet - but with a bit of research on balancing the diet it isn't difficult and the results are there. Be prepared for those who are against it and insist on feeding processed dog foods and then there are those who only feed Raw Meaty Bones and disagree with adding vegetables and a grain mix like Vets All Natural, in the end you are the best judge of your dogs health and if you have a vet that is open minded and honest with you they will be happy for you to feed natural. My vet hassles me that they never get to see my dogs - except for check ups and that my dogs health is exceptional and leaves her nothing to do (I also do not believe in over immunising animals- thankfully my vet is also on my side when it comes to immunising too much)

[Jaxx'sBuddy]

maybe she had a bout of pancreatitis caused by the fatty food, ie mackeral and lamb. maybe you might need to be a bit careful of how much fat she gets. raw might be ok but too much fat might not.

[dianed]

I had the same problem as you last year when I started my rescue dog on raw food.She,d previously only had tin, bones and dry food. She vomited it straight back up, I had to slowly introduce it to her. The roo meat was worse, I ended up cooking it till she got used to it. I also had to keep the dry food separate. Shes fine now and has put on weight.