Bought Barf Vs Homemade Barf

[BMAK]

for a box of 12 roo patties here it is about 20-23 dollars

which lasts me about 4 days 4x patties per day for 2 dogs around the 25 kg mark one each morning one each at night.

now that for me is too expensive!~ to be doing for the rest of there lives,

all i can think of doing is giving kibble in the morning, and BARF at night but even them it is still expensive.

what is the equivilant price of home made??

how long does it last you for what sized dogs??

and easy recipes please?

ideas welcome

[Staranais]

My dog has half kibble, half raw.

Her raw is:

Lamb flaps, $6/kg

Salmon heads, $4/kg

Green tripe, $5/kg

Liver, $8/kg

The odd kidney or lamb heart, $7/kg

Left overs from my dinners

Fish body oil & vit E

I would never buy the raw patties, for several reasons, including cost.

ETA, all prices are in NZ dollars.

Edited May 17, 2011 by Staranais

[Remarkabull]

I do homemade barf and it works out alot cheaper than buying pre made BARF, and I also like knowing exactly what is going into my dogs.

I buy minced chicken frames @ $2 per kg. 1kg is one meal between my 3 dogs. To that I add tinned salmon/sardines, eggs, yoghurt, flaxseed meal, kelp granules, sweet potato and any number of other things (depending on what I have in the house on the day). Every day is different and all the mentioned things are not added every day nor in the same combinations. I also buy bulk bones @ $27 per box for horse and buffalo mixed bones and that lasts abo9ut a month for 3 dogs, and I also buy fresh whole sardines, fish heads and beef hearts and some offal as well.

[westiemum]

Have a read of Freetoroam's thread from last week here - and yes I do find it cheaper once you've bought the flaxseed oil, vitamin powder and kelp powder. And its not hard with a good food processor.

[Andisa]

I feed my Rotties (girls) 1 patty a day - the boy will get 2 and the rest in bones or what ever else I have on hand. The pugs have 1/2 and a wing.

Once you get everything you need and in a routine making your own barf is pretty easy. You will even enjoy it.

[kirst_goldens]

we sell barf patties at work and while i think they are great for multiple dogs it can be very expensive! some will take the extra cost for convienience and i can see the reasoning there lol but i like doing homemade any ways and i buy in bulk so works out much cheaper!

[BMAK]

thanks guys, i have done home made barf's before with roo mince as they do really well on it but they didn't like my recipe i think i put to much veg n fruit in, but i cannot rememeber how much it cost me :S but it was basically roo mince with veggies of all sorts and fruit chopped and blended together then frozen in containers.

how much meat to veg + other would i use.

one dog doesn't eat bones of any sort, where as the other boy would get a brisket bone for breakie. where casn you buy grounded chicken carcasses?

[Guest Panzer Attack!]

You can buy pet mince (which is ground chicken carcass) from Lennards and Wishbone.

E x

[BMAK]

thanks westiemum i didn't even read it after i posted ahha silly me.

copy paste and print that info to keep on hand.

i might go the wholey hog when i get some more cash in hand buy oatmeal medium sized kibble for half or one whole meal.

buy pumkin, sweet pot, carrot, beans, broc, celery, pasta, brown rice,spin, garlic

par boil or steam as my processor is piss weak.

add egg's, kelp powder, whole flax seeds,cottage cheese or natural youg,

and blend two types? with with the chicken carcass grounded and roo mince if cheap enough and brisket bones for one/two dogs

can i add / take away anything, also how much do you make to last you, few weeks month or two?

Edited May 18, 2011 by BMAK

[best4koda]

You can buy pet mince (which is ground chicken carcass) from Lennards and Wishbone.

E x

Yes, tested out the chicken frame mince from Lennards here in sydney and was happily surprised by price $1.50/kilo and that it seemed pretty fresh unlike alot of pet mince I've tried. A couple of recipes were put up last week if you take a look thru this forum further down if you want some ratios of ingredients.

[westiemum]

BMAK I personally don't bother with kibble if feeding barf although I know others do - I think its expensive and nowhere near as good nutrition but thats just my opinion. As to your recipe, its fine but an awful lot of chopping with a poor processor. If I were you, I'd save as quickly as possible for a decent processor and save yourself a heap of time and effort. As to amounts - it depends on how big your dog is as to how much to feed - I feed my westies around 100gms each (I think!). So a kg of meat and then veg added will last three small dogs 4-5 days. Hope that helps.

thanks westiemum i didn't even read it after i posted ahha silly me.

copy paste and print that info to keep on hand.

i might go the wholey hog when i get some more cash in hand buy oatmeal medium sized kibble for half or one whole meal.

buy pumkin, sweet pot, carrot, beans, broc, celery, pasta, brown rice,spin, garlic

par boil or steam as my processor is piss weak.

add egg's, kelp powder, whole flax seeds,cottage cheese or natural youg,

and blend two types? with with the chicken carcass grounded and roo mince if cheap enough and brisket bones for one/two dogs

can i add / take away anything, also how much do you make to last you, few weeks month or two?

Edited May 18, 2011 by westiemum

[jakeyjangels]

My dog has half kibble, half raw.

Her raw is:

Lamb flaps, $6/kg

Salmon heads, $4/kg

Green tripe, $5/kg

Liver, $8/kg

The odd kidney or lamb heart, $7/kg

Left overs from my dinners

Fish body oil & vit E

I would never buy the raw patties, for several reasons, including cost.

ETA, all prices are in NZ dollars.

Can I ask your reasons that you would never buy BARF patties please Staranais? My breeder says it is the best food you can feed. Just curious Thanks

[jakeyjangels]

I feed my Labs one patty a night & make them go further by adding fruit & veg.

I finely grate fruit usually a whole apple (minus seeds), carrotts, zuchini etc

Whatever is in season that is cheap & very ripe. Couple times a week they

get an egg, including the shell, fresh sardines & chopped up lamb kidney/liver, cottage cheese

all mixed in with one patty. Their main meal is therefore double the size of 1 patty.

Jangels & Louis love it. Gone in seconds!!

I am lucky here in Brisbane and purchase from where it is made. If you buy 4 boxes, they are $17.50 each.

Which lasts my 2 boys, 3 1/2 weeks.

[Staranais]

Can I ask your reasons that you would never buy BARF patties please Staranais? My breeder says it is the best food you can feed. Just curious Thanks

This will probably be controversial. But my main reason is that once food is minced, you can't tell what goes into it.

When you feed whole organs or large pieces of meat, you can see if the product looks diseased or dirty. Once the food is minced into patties, you simply can't see what is in there. It might be fresh prime beef stake, or it might be pneumonia riddled lungs and cadmium filled kidneys. Once meat is minced, you just can't tell. And that's bad enough if you're feeding kibble, but when you're feeding raw meat I believe quality and hygiene are paramount.

That might sound paranoid, but I've been to several slaughterhouses (including working alongside the meat inspectors), and I can honestly tell you that some of the things that get sent to pet food companies as "lamb" or "beef" are are not things I'd ever contemplating feeding to my dog, especially uncooked. I have also toured behind the scenes in two petfood factories, including one that makes a premium export quality raw food (not "BARF" brand), and the terrible quality and hygiene of the meat and grains used in those foods absolutely shocked me.

Of course, people do feed these raw pet foods without problems, most dogs do fine on them. But after seeing first hand what can be in raw minced pet foods, I just can't personally bring myself to feed those to my dog.

[Red Fox]

Home made wins hands down (provided you have some idea of what you're doing).

Cheaper to feed, more choice and flexibility and you know exactly what's in it.

Plus unless your dog has no teeth all meat should come on the bone. A BARF diet means RAW meat, bones, veggies, fruit, offal, eggs, fish and a small amount of dairy. Apart from the veggies/fruit mix nothing else needs to be mushed ;)

[best4koda]

Can I ask where is the best place for price to buy flaxseed oil and kelp powder? I'm having trouble locating it at the moment.

Note: If you are in the liverpool area of Sydney, chicken shop at casuala mall had chicken carcasses for $1.90/kg and they appeared to have quite a bit of chicken left on them really.

[Sandra777]

I feed my Labs one patty a night & make them go further by adding fruit & veg.

What sort of patty are you talking about?

All the commercial ones I know have fruit and vege already in them so in effect what you are doing IMO is drastically reducing the amount of usable protein your dogs are getting and bulking out the little goodness in the patty with unusable vege & fruit and unbalancing the whole premade patty

Adding sardines and eggs etc is great, but IMO what you are doing is buying patties then making your own, why don't you just make your own (with some tweaking).

Just interested

Jangels & Louis love it. Gone in seconds!!

Kids like MacDonalds - I'd never be taking the dog eats in it seconds as being any sort of recommendation (especially a Lab )

Yes I do agree with raw feeding, big fan here and I'm NOT picking on you, but I see this so much - "my dogs love it" as if this in itself was a recommendation. Dogs love dirty baby nappies too

[jakeyjangels]

I feed my Labs one patty a night & make them go further by adding fruit & veg.

What sort of patty are you talking about?

Big Dog BARF & all varieties

All the commercial ones I know have fruit and vege already in them so in effect what you are doing IMO is drastically reducing the amount of usable protein your dogs are getting and bulking out the little goodness in the patty with unusable vege & fruit and unbalancing the whole premade patty

Even though I don't know the exact proportion of the fruit & vege content of the patties, IMO I don't think there is enough F&V in them. I can assume this because I HAVE made my own patties many, many times & still do when time permits. That is my 2nd reason for adding my own F&V. Dr Ian Billinghurst in the 2 of his 3 books that I have read, suggests that when making your own BARF, that the F&V content be 50% with raw meat being the other 50%. Dr Billinghurst also states "that the BARF diet is balanced over time & not by providing balance in every meal". So I doubt the patties are so supposed to be 'balanced' so I wouldn't be unbalancing by adding extra F&V. All i want to achieve is getting back to basics in regards to nutrition which I have achieved with what I have discussed & with most importantly, daily Raw Meaty Bones.

Adding sardines and eggs etc is great, but IMO what you are doing is buying patties then making your own, why don't you just make your own (with some tweaking).

Just interested

Yes you are probably correct in this assumption.

Jangels & Louis love it. Gone in seconds!!

Kids like MacDonalds - I'd never be taking the dog eats in it seconds as being any sort of recommendation (especially a Lab )

Not ALL Labs are the same. Jangels is a little fussy compared to our old boy Jake

McDonalds could be compared to tinned & dry food not any RAW diet IMO.

Yes I do agree with raw feeding, big fan here and I'm NOT picking on you, but I see this so much - "my dogs love it" as if this in itself was a recommendation. Dogs love dirty baby nappies too

I can't see what is wrong with saying 'my dogs love it' . And yes, I am recommending what I feed. Because:

1. I am speaking from my experiences and I have happy, healthy 16 month old Labrador that has never tasted commercial food.

2. His breeder saw him for the first time 2 weeks ago and was absolutely delighted with him. Beautiful coat, perfect weight amongst her many compliments.

3. Our vet who owns a Labrador himself, said at our last visit for vaccination, we are doing a wonderful job & that he is a picture of health.

Edited May 21, 2011 by jakeyjangels

[bedazzledx2]

I only ever buy human grade supplements as there is no testing for animal feed and who knows whats in it including high levels of mercury, lead, cadmium etc. The health food shops often have specials on products that are close to expiry date and you can get some real bargains.

Can I ask where is the best place for price to buy flaxseed oil and kelp powder? I'm having trouble locating it at the moment.

Note: If you are in the liverpool area of Sydney, chicken shop at casuala mall had chicken carcasses for $1.90/kg and they appeared to have quite a bit of chicken left on them really.