How Many Breeders Feed Barf To Pregnant Bitches?

[Labkisses]

Hi everyone

I'm not sure if i should have posted this in the nutrition/health forum but I was just wondering how many breeders feed a BARF or RAW diet to their dogs and particularly pregnant bitches.

I dont know if my bitch is pregnant yet, but this will be the first litter we've had and I'd like the pups to start off with the best of health and continue feeding an all raw diet to my dogs afterwards.

Currently my dogs are on RMB's most days of the week and on other days dry food. So i'm not sure if it is a good idea to change her diet now. If she is pregnant it will only be week 1.

So my questions are:

1. Would it be wise to keep her on a commercial dry food diet supplemented with RMBs and change to BARF after the pregnancy? Or would you change now as it is only early on.

2. What do you include in your BARF diet for pregnant bitches? Ratios of meat, offal, bones, including supplements..brewers yeast, kelp, vit C, A, E etc.

3. Has anyone had any problems with litters while feeding all raw or barf?

Thanks in advance!

Edited to add: I have all 3 of Dr Billinghurts books - Grow your pups with bones, The Barf Diet and Give Your Dog a Bone but they were written around years ago, and I figure that premium commercial dry food such as Advance, Royal Canin etc have evolved since the books were written. So is a BARF diet still the best way to go?

Edited March 6, 2010 by Labkisses

[Alenkit]

3. Has anyone had any problems with litters while feeding all raw or barf?

Thanks in advance!

Edited to add: I have all 3 of Dr Billinghurts books - Grow your pups with bones, The Barf Diet and Give Your Dog a Bone but they were written around years ago, and I figure that premium commercial dry food such as Advance, Royal Canin etc have evolved since the books were written. So is a BARF diet still the best way to go?

This is a fairly difficult and emotive isse as a lot of people can get very passionate about raw versus commercial. I can't really tell you what the best solution is but I would like to adrress Point 3 of your question.

In 2008 I bred 2 litters born 1 week apart. I fed both bitches raw only while they were pregnant. It was based on the 'raw meaty bones diet', e.g. chicken, mutton meaty bones and hearts and livers. Eggs, yoghurt and some left overs. I did not give a lot of other additives. Bitch number one ate everything I put in front of her. Bitch number two would only eat chicken.

Bitch number one had 9 pups, one did not survive due to fluid in the lungs. Btich 2 had 6 pups, one did not survive (did not have a anal opening).

Bitch number 1 started to self-wean her babies at 4 weeks old by eating her raw food (she favoured chicken) and then barf it up in the whelping box. She would make sure each pup had a good go at tearing and chewing before re-eating all left overs to make sure nothing was left behind. (I found this pretty awesome to watch).

Bitch 2 did not do this.

I started with raw mince (mixed with milk formula) for both litters at 4-5 weeks of age and both litters also had regular meals of chicken necks and later on chicken wings. I fed chicken because it is such a good way of getting calcium into the pups.

Pups from bitch 2 were healthy without any problems as they grew up.

3 pups from bitch 1 developed severe canine atopy. Neither parent had ever produced it before or had it themselves. I have no idea if it had anything to do with the raw food but my vet is convinced that commercially produced chicken is the root of all evil. He says "grow the chicken in your backyard, chop it's head off and feed it to your dogs" but never give it commercially grown chicken. I don't know

Bitch number 2 had another litter which I fed on Proplan (no raw at all as I had gotten very scared of raw chicken and pups) - again all her pups were healthy without problems - same as her first litter on raw

There is a lot of merrit in feeding raw and I honestly don't know what caused my problems in the litter from bitch number 1. I tend to suspect either the raw food or the vaccinations as all pups first displayed signs a few weeks after vaccianting. However 3 pups with severe atopy in one litter is not a nice experience so I thought I'd give you the information I have just in case ........

[gundoglover]

I would not change her diet just now in case it causes her to abort and then make any changes gradually. The caution against too much chicken is wise. Lamb & veal are safer raw meaty bones. Sheep & cattle are usually raised on grass in Australia without expensive antibiotics or growth hormones that may be used in raising chickens.

[Labkisses]

Alenkit - If i'm reading your post correctly, you mentioned that both bitches were fed raw, but only 1 litter had problems and both litters of pups were brought up eating raw chickens? So I'm wondering how your vet came up with the idea that chicken may have been the cause of these problems in the litter when the other litter wasnt effected?

Thanks for the info, it has made me re-think feeding my dogs so much chicken especially whilst pregnant.

[Kustali]

Too much chicken is not a good thing! Some dogs do have allergies to chicken. I would not feel safe giving chicken as the base of the pups diet, rather a mix of all meats to keep it balanced

The diet your giving sounds fine for her Labkisses I feed my girl a similar raw mix. While she is pregnant and while she's going to be feeding pups i have been adding some biscuits as an extra. I have not made any drastic changes only increased the amount slightly.

Edited March 7, 2010 by HANNAH

[centitout]

My pups are all raised on chicken without problems,havent had any issues so far.

And i am pretty sure the use of hormones in chickens has been banned since the 60's?

[WreckitWhippet]

Hormones are no longer used in Aussie chooks.

I feed raw to my pregnant girls and have found that they go through a couple of weeks, where chicken seems to be the meat of choice, when they are turning their noses up at everything else.

[Labkisses]

Thanks everyone

I think I'll stick to feeding the dry food 3 days a week and RMBs the other days and maybe once a week a mixture of veges, minced chicken frames, fish and eggs. I'll see how she goes and if all goes well, perhaps very slowly up her meals with the half the mixture and half the dry food as the weeks progress. I'm hoping to take her off the dry food altogether, but I wont be making any drastic changes until after the pups are born.

[Kustali]

That sounds great, i'd just stick to that, you know she's done well on it so far so why change a good thing!

[~Midniara~]

I breed Belgian Shepherd Groenendael.

My last two litters the bitches and resulting pups have been fed on 100% raw diet with no commercial food whatsoever with great results. I was very careful to ensure my bitches and resulting pups had a good, varied diet.

All pups were free of any health issues or abnormailites. All pups as well as the mothers continue to be healthy to this day. The first litter that I fed raw to resulted in 10 pups which are now coming up to two years of age with the second litter of five pups now turning seven months of age. I am quite impressed with how healthy my bitches looked after whelping their pups. Their coats still shined and they still looked very healthy even after they dropped coat. I had no deaths or health issued with either of these two whelps.

Good luck with it all whatever you decide.

[gundoglover]

Hormones are no longer used in Aussie chooks.

That's good to know. Thankyou.

[mikelli]

Hormones are no longer used in Aussie chooks.

That's good to know. Thankyou.

So they say!!!!!???

[angelsun]

I had a couple litters of Manchesters totally on raw from prior to breeding to weaning and I can say they were awesome. I saw a noticable difference in the quality of coats and activity on these pups compared to their commercial kibble fed siblings (from the same mother a litter before)

I'm a big fan of feeding offal and doing up veggies properly to add to the diet, so have never found that my girls are lacking anything. I"m looking forward to my next litter here which will also be totally raw fed. It's been a pleasure to not have to search high and low here for raw food for the dogs compared to where I used to live!

[sandgrubber]

I think the only serious problem with chicken is bacteria load. babies don't handle Salmonella at all well. I've raised many litters using a lot of chopped frames . . . had a few cases of the runs. One of my vets says he's seen baby pups die from salmonella.So if you do feed chooks, make sure it's fresh and avoid the gut region of the carcass.

[Jed]

Hormones are no longer used in Aussie chooks.

That's good to know. Thankyou.

So they say!!!!!???

As far as I know the use of hormones is banned under some obscure act and has been for 40 odd years.The the health dept randomly checked chicken in shops for hormones. How often this happened, I have no idea, and the fines were quite substantial.

I have been feeding my bitches raw, including minced bone in chicken, and weaning and feeding the pups the same for the past 300 odd years, without any problems.

Dogs I bred and reared like this have grown old and died of old age.

I would suspect the atopy would be more likely to be from vaccinations, particularly if it occurred a few weeks after vac, and they were vac with C5 or C7. Unfortunately, there is no proof of anything, with things like that.

Edited March 16, 2010 by Jed

[Bohunt]

I have fed BARF diet (love it and believe in it) to all my dogs for some years to try and combat the CECS condition our breed is afflicted with - it is well acknowledged now that diet is key in all of this. However, I have been plagued with birth defects in my pups and so have my friends overseas (the USA) who feed BARF with the same issues.

I now move the girls I am mating to complete food (Advance puppy plus) once they are in season and leave them on this (and nothing else) until the pups are weaned and they then go back to the BARF diet. It is well documented (and my dramas are living proof) that if you don't get the calcium/phosphorus exactly right, you can have problems with birth defects and milk fever (calcium deficiency in the lactating mum). Vit A imbalance between days 17 - 22 of gestation will cause kink tails and the list goes on. I had 2 litters not long ago and 50% of the pups in BOTH litters had birth defects and I lost many of them. I currently have a litter and did the complete food thing and all pups are strong & well and the bitch came through with no calcium issues this time.

There is a group of us (worldwide) who have been looking at this issue for some years and have all decided this is the best way to manage it.

I have an excellent paper done by an Australian vet on the very subject, and if anyone would like it please email me and I will forward it to you. [email protected] It is a great read and I applied the advice and it worked.

There is also a new BARF food on the market which is NZ made and just arrived in Australia. I am feeding this and love it. K9 Natural is the brand. They are sponsoring our Border Terrier Speciality Show in June this year and flying a company rep from NZ and an agent from Sydney to talk with people. Well worth coming down if you are in Victoria. This is much cheaper to feed than Ian Billinghursts and freeze dried so easier to store. I love the stuff and it is so much easier to manage (not as messy), smells glorious and dogs need less volume - I had to cut them back as they put on weight.

Cheers

Gaela

Edited March 18, 2010 by Bohunt

[Bohunt]

I have had a few people already contact me so here is the link:

http://www.wolfweb.com.au/acd/birthdefects.htm

The Americans contacted this vet and are currently writing something for their National Magazine based on this paper.

Regards

Gaela