Raw/natural Chitchat

[yellowgirl]

OK, thank you!

Your recipe is the easiest I have seen and seems to be approved by experienced raw feeders...

I may ditch the VAN and have a go!

Oh, it is easy! And cheaper. And better for them (in my opinion, I should add )

Don't worry about following the recipe exactly, it could change again by the end of the week! If I'm following my own theory from post #8, then it would make sense that there is not only vegetation, but also grain matter in the stomach lining and intestines of the prey. Soooo, looking into that again now

Any thoughts/help on that one Staranais ? (or other post #8 theory followers)

Edited July 27, 2009 by yellowgirl

[Tru Borders]

Raw feeder here too :D

Was the best thing we ever did for our 2.

Here's my question for you hard core Barfers/Prey Diet Peeps.

I dont feed Vegies in the furries dinner as part of my regime ..... but.... Asher and Nooki need to lose a couple of Kilos so instead of feeding Dried Liver and Dried beef as treats, I cut up some carrot and celery this week. So as a Veggie newb, how much is too much?

Eg, Asher is on Carprofen (long story see my arthritis/cruciate ligament thread) and I have to give the tablet with food. As they only get fed once a day in the evening, I have been giving him a half a carrot, cut up, with his tablet in the morning. Is this too much? Is it ok to replace their treats with carrot and celery?

My Favourite thing about the Barf diet ...... I know exactly what goes in their bellies

[yellowgirl]

I just read your other thread huskyheaven, poor Asher .

I'm not surprised they didn't like the celery! :D . I don't see anything wrong with small pieces of carrot or apple as treats though.

You'll really need to get Asher's weight down for his poor leg, the only way really is to reduce the amount of main meal he's getting. You could always add some veggie mash to bulk up the meal a bit. I think you said they were on about 500g a day. I'd reduce that to 300g with 100g of veggie mash. Kelly Louise (in your other thread) had some good ideas too .

Hope all goes well for Asher's operation next week

[yellowgirl]

I found another interesting article :D following the lines of (what will now be known as) my ' post #8 theory' based on info from two sources: Canine & Feline Nutrition - Case, Carey & Hirakawa, 1995; and Small Animal Clinical Nutrition 3 - Lewis, Morris, Jr., and Hand, 1992.

http://www.thepetcenter.com/imtop/contrast.html

[westiemum]

Yep I have chosen to disregard this type of comment too Yellowgirl - I don't fuss tooo much about what type of veggies - tends to be whats in season and reasonably good and cheap - and the last pre-GA blood tests they all had in January all came back as very normal.

So I feed what I think is a good barf/prey/veg mixture... and don't think I've gone far wrong... I think we can all get tooo hung up on the last gram or veggie type in our dogs diet when if we did this to our diets others would think we were insane!

Cheers,

Westiemum

I just came across this article which supposedly shows proof of why a raw or barf diet is not suitable for dogs. (I can't even remember what I was looking for in the first place now , I think it was something to do with oats.... :D )

They say "A very small segment of pet owners have accepted the opinions of a vocal fringe minority of individuals who are currently proponents of feeding raw foods. The diet is commonly called the BARF diet, (Bones And Raw Food). Individuals within this group often make unsubstantiated claims that sound plausible but are typically unsupported in fact. The barf diet is extolled based primarily upon several myths claimed to justify the feeding of this diet."

I choose to disregard it as another anti-raw opinion, but I'm very interested to know what others think of the theories, particularly the first myth about the genetic connection between wolves and domestic dogs. I thought the DNA had recently been proven to be the same

You might want to grab a coffee before you start .

http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/barf-myth.html

[yellowgirl]

Yep I have chosen to disregard this type of comment too Yellowgirl - I don't fuss tooo much about what type of veggies - tends to be whats in season and reasonably good and cheap - and the last pre-GA blood tests they all had in January all came back as very normal.

So I feed what I think is a good barf/prey/veg mixture... and don't think I've gone far wrong... I think we can all get tooo hung up on the last gram or veggie type in our dogs diet when if we did this to our diets others would think we were insane!

Cheers,

Westiemum

Sounds to me like what you're doing is working perfectly for you and your dogs

I do like to hear others' opinions, even if it differs from my own, and I found the naysayer article interesting, but ultimately I think one of these :D is in order .

Speaking of getting hung up on the last gram or veggie type, I'm still finding more info for my ongoing research

This link is for " A Comparison of Three Homemade Raw Diets with AAFCO, NRC and Prey-Model Standards ... A Macronutrient and Mineral Comparison of Three Popular Homemade Raw Food Diet Plans with NRC and Ancestral Diet Nutrient Profiles; and Suggestions on How to Enhance Nutritional Compliance with Both". Seriously, it's very interesting

http://www.seespotlivelonger.com/articles/...0Comparison.pdf

[Staranais]

Speaking of getting hung up on the last gram or veggie type, I'm still finding more info for my ongoing research

This link is for " A Comparison of Three Homemade Raw Diets with AAFCO, NRC and Prey-Model Standards ... A Macronutrient and Mineral Comparison of Three Popular Homemade Raw Food Diet Plans with NRC and Ancestral Diet Nutrient Profiles; and Suggestions on How to Enhance Nutritional Compliance with Both". Seriously, it's very interesting

http://www.seespotlivelonger.com/articles/...0Comparison.pdf

That is a cool study, Yellowgirl. I'd seen it before, but a while ago and hadn't recorded where so had lost track of it. Thanks for posting it.

It's a really interesting idea for a study, taking some "typical" BARF and RAW diets and analysing them to see if they meet theoretical nutrient guidelines, and if they match up with the authors ideas of what a typical "ancestral" dog diet might be. The author has done a good job at remaining unbiased and evenhanded, and has done a good job at analysing different diet types.

It's really interesting to see how well the NRC values match (or sometimes don't match) the author's idea of a typical ancestral dog diet. The ancestral diet is generally at least as mineral and vitamin dense as the NRC guidelines, very much so in the case of calcium. Whereas all home made diets were found to be lower in trace minerals than either the "ancestral" diet or the NRC recommendations.

Also I find it really great how the author tried to rejig each diet plan so it fit the NRC values better, rather than just discarding the diets totally because they were unbalanced (which I've seen another paper from a more mainstream journal do when the analysed raw diets didn't match recommended values).

There are a few questions I had about the paper, though:

a) Does it really matter whether a dog's diet is a little low in nutrients? I'm not sure if it always does matter. I mean, I'm pretty sure that if I ran my own diet against the recommended values for humans, I'd come up a little short in a few micronutrients, yet I'm pretty healthy and fit on the whole since I eat a varied, healthy diet.

The science behind NRC recommendations is sometimes solid, but also sometimes just the "best guess" based on shaky science. A diet that comes out as slightly too low, or slightly too high, on some nutrients against theoretical values need not (IMO) necessarily be discarded or altered if the dogs appear to do well on it.

b) On the other hand, I do wonder about those homemade diets that seem substantially too low or too high on some nutrients. The BARF-style diet they analysed had only 1/6 of the recommended copper, for example, and half the recommended zinc. Does this matter in the long term? The truth is that noone knows - noone has funded long term studies on dogs fed raw to see if diets that don't meet NRC values have deleterious effects on the dog the long term.

It's also quite possible that mineral or vitamin deficiencies or excesses could affect the long term health of some dogs and not others (different genetics, different co-existing diseases, etc), and for different nutrients and not others (for example, it's far far harder to overdose an animal on water soluble vitamins than on fat soluble vitamins).

My own perspective is that I personally find it hard to design a diet that meets all the NRC values using only natural ingredients and no supplements (which I prefer not to use, except for fish oil and kelp). When I have to compromise, I think it's best to have several minerals slightly deficient, rather than one really out of whack and the others fine, since having a severe mineral imbalance (as opposed to a simple deficiency) can cause additional problems with absorption of those minerals. Several of the analysed diets weren't following that "rule", so I'd be reluctant to use them without adjustment.

c) I'd be really interesting to see some commercial diets that passed the AAFCO 26 week "feed trials" analysed for nutritional values like this. As far as I'm aware a product has to either pass a feed trial or be analysed in order to bear the AAFCO stamp of approval. So it's perfectly possible, I suspect, for a commercial product to pass a feeding trial but still have out-of-whack nutrient values like these homemade diets do.

To look at it another way, all of these home made diet plans would probably have passed the AAFCO feed trial process were they analysed that way, even though they don't meet the NRC nutrient values. IMO a diet that is home made from natural ingredients, and balanced to NRC standards, is far more likely to be truly balanced than a commercial food that has merely passed an AAFCO feed trial test, yet commercial foods tested this way aren't being put under the spotlight in the same way that raw diets are.

d) The author has a really weird background. Did anyone else notice that he started off breeding designer dogs, then graduated to making dog food? Irrelevant, but funny.

What were your thoughts on the study, Yellowgirl?

Tomas - I wish I lived in Auckland (well, I don't actually - I just wish Bombay petfoods delivered to Palmy North!) I can't find spleen or green tripe anywhere local consistently.

[yellowgirl]

d) The author has a really weird background. Did anyone else notice that he started off breeding designer dogs, then graduated to making dog food? Irrelevant, but funny.

What were your thoughts on the study, Yellowgirl?

I thought it was interesting too, and I tend to agree with your overview .

It would be pretty hard to compare it with commercial dry foods since they tend to use a lot of cheap plant based material to imitate the protiens of real meat to meet the protien level in the 'guaranteed analysis'. So yeah, protien levels might look high, but they've used inappropriate foods for it.

I saw his bio at the end too, at least he realised he wasn't achieving the 'hybrid vigour' he was hoping for and concentrated on the diet instead

[tomas]

Tomas - I wish I lived in Auckland (well, I don't actually - I just wish Bombay petfoods delivered to Palmy North!) I can't find spleen or green tripe anywhere local consistently.

LOL. I wish I did'nt some days too! I actually have a brother and his wife living in PN.How about contacting them and see how far they deliver to...also try Lynn at Raw Essentials and see if their are any stockists down your way...

[huski]

Personally I feed vegies. I blend together a mix of carrots, broccoli, pumpkin, apple, maybe some spinach etc and mix it all together with natural yoghurt. I feed this to the dogs several times a week for dinner, usually mixed with some sardines, or egg or offal.

I also give the dogs some fruit like apple or a piece of carrot to chew on as a treat although I don't think of it as part of their regular diet.

[Diva]

I haven't read all the posts, but I'm jealous of those who have said they can access green tripe - I'm in Canberra, any ideas on sources? I think it's illegal to sell it fresh, but even canned would be worth trying.

And has anyone seen any infor comparing trace mineral levels in game or wild raised meat ( wild rabbit, wild hare, feral deer etc)compared to farmed sources? Curious, and hoping to take advantage of all your research.

Edited July 28, 2009 by Diva

[yellowgirl]

I have one girl on Hills ID or Euk Low Residue because I can't use anything else. I am hoping that one day I will be able to find a natural diet for her but she has IBD and it has proved hard to settle on raw.

Stitch, I've looked into it a little bit and it seems that dogs with IBS, IBD, pancreatitis, etc would still be better off on a natural, but very simplified diet. Chicken meat seems to be the way to go. As far as bones go, the wings are no good as they are too bony, but chicken breast (bone in) with skin removed is a good gentle way to start.

The biggest recommendation is to include good quality animal based digestive enzymes, possibly some probiotics and L-glutamine to heal the intestinal muscle. Start out with little bone, little fat and small, frequent meals. No dairy.

I expect that you've already tried different things, but I thought I'd have a look as I'm interested in how other natural feeders handle these situations.

Edited July 28, 2009 by yellowgirl

[tomas]

I haven't read all the posts, but I'm jealous of those who have said they can access green tripe - I'm in Canberra, any ideas on sources? I think it's illegal to sell it fresh, but even canned would be worth trying.

And has anyone seen any infor comparing trace mineral levels in game or wild raised meat ( wild rabbit, wild hare, feral deer etc)compared to farmed sources? Curious, and hoping to take advantage of all your research.

Ziwipeak do a Lamb Tripe in a can version...

You could try that...I have spoken to the people that produce it and they swear by their product as their Lab girl is raw fed,but she also gets Ziwi dry and a few cans a week....

I am in NZ and have access to a few diff sources of Green Tripe,problem is if I sent you some it might kill the postie with the smell. I actually like the smell ,it's like rotting wet hay that a cow poohed in . My dogs actually don't even get that excited about it anymore.

[yellowgirl]

like rotting wet hay that a cow poohed in

Haha! I love that! Sounds luverly

[Tru Borders]

I just read your other thread huskyheaven, poor Asher :D .

I'm not surprised they didn't like the celery! . I don't see anything wrong with small pieces of carrot or apple as treats though.

You'll really need to get Asher's weight down for his poor leg, the only way really is to reduce the amount of main meal he's getting. You could always add some veggie mash to bulk up the meal a bit. I think you said they were on about 500g a day. I'd reduce that to 300g with 100g of veggie mash. Kelly Louise (in your other thread) had some good ideas too :D .

Hope all goes well for Asher's operation next week

Thanks for your advice and concern YellowGirl ;)

Asher was being fed 500 grams but we have cut it back to 400. We have found that feeding lamb shanks (350-400gram) or something similar feels better (for us and them!) as it takes him longer to eat and requires more work than 6 chicken necks, giving all of us a feeling of general satisfaction

will definitely give the Veggie mash a go. Its a great bulker up-er-er!

The Furkids love apple so I might switch to it and give the celery the flick. Do you know if the natural sugars pose any threat to the weight loss YellowGirl?

Kelly_Louise has been amazing! She has given me so much great advice. And Huski too!

Another great reason why this website is so valuable.

[yellowgirl]

The Furkids love apple so I might switch to it and give the celery the flick. Do you know if the natural sugars pose any threat to the weight loss YellowGirl?

Ahh, that's one of those 'can someone with more knowledge than me answer this?' type questions . Personally, I don't think it would effect the weight loss too much, maybe more of a dental concern. But that's what the bones are for :D . Good idea giving him something he can muck around with for longer

[Diva]

Ziwipeak do a Lamb Tripe in a can version...

You could try that...I have spoken to the people that produce it and they swear by their product as their Lab girl is raw fed,but she also gets Ziwi dry and a few cans a week....

I am in NZ and have access to a few diff sources of Green Tripe,problem is if I sent you some it might kill the postie with the smell. I actually like the smell ,it's like rotting wet hay that a cow poohed in . My dogs actually don't even get that excited about it anymore.

Thanks, I'll look for the canned version. I expect if you tried to post some the scent dogs at customs would have field day, I can just imagine their faces coming across that lot!

I have asked at a number of different butchers and meat suppliers, but they act like I am a health inspector trying to set them up.

[jamie]

Genuine question to all the barf feeders out there.

If you're including vegetables in your dogs diet because of the belief that dogs do eat the stomach contents of their prey wouldn't it make more sense to use only/mostly green leafy veg to at least sort of simulate the natural diet of the majority of herbivores (deer,elk,rabbits,kangaroos etc).Wouldn't they mostly live on low starch stuff like grasses,shrubs,leaves and seeds?

Jamie

[Diva]

I'm not really a BARF feeder, I feed vegies (silverbeet, broccoli, kale, pumpkin, carrot etc) once a week and only because I've been told the sky will fall in if I don't - and I can't prove it won't, LOL. But I don't feed any fruit. I grow a lot of fruit and berries and they can free graze on them if they wish.

Mostly they don't, but one likes raspberries and another will have a munch on a pear occassionally. Very small volumes though. I think if they truly needed fruit they would take more advantage of the many opportuites they have to help themselves? But I may be wrong.

[Staranais]

Genuine question to all the barf feeders out there.

If you're including vegetables in your dogs diet because of the belief that dogs do eat the stomach contents of their prey wouldn't it make more sense to use only/mostly green leafy veg to at least sort of simulate the natural diet of the majority of herbivores (deer,elk,rabbits,kangaroos etc).Wouldn't they mostly live on low starch stuff like grasses,shrubs,leaves and seeds?

I'm not a BARF feeder so not sure if my answer counts. :D

But grassfed cows and sheep eat fresh green matter when it's available but will also plenty of seedheads (= grains) when the grass goes to seed in the summer and autumn. I presume wild ruminants do the same? And I'm not sure what small mammals eat, but I would suspect that mice often eat seedheads and fruit preferentially since they're higher in calories than green matter is. So I agree with you that ideally vegetable matter in a diet should be mostly green vege, but I see nothing unnatural with including some grain and some fruit. Using fresh green tripe instead, if you can get that, is probably an even more "natural" source of vegetable matter.

But realistically, I doubt it matters that much exactly what vege matter you decide to feed, dogs are very adaptable (like we are!) I've seen dogs do OK on all flesh/bone diets, and OK on almost completely vegetarian diets. So exactly which type of vegetable matter you choose to feed is probably a minor quibble.

Edited July 29, 2009 by Staranais