Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

The doghouse

If you're worried about your pet's health, please speak to a vet or qualified professional.

New puppy & BARF diet

8 replies

Frettchen · 02/07/2013 11:54

My new puppy arrives in a little under 3 weeks, and I'm pretty much ready for him. The only thing I'm unsure about is feeding him. I have plenty of dry food left over from my old dog, but as he's still a puppy (3-4 months old) that won't really be suitable. He'll be coming from a rescue in Romania, so I won't have any of his current feed to start him on, so was expecting the first few days to be a matter of bland chicken & rice type meals to settle his stomach after the long journey here.

I always wanted to feed my old dog BARF, but as she was happily established on dry kibble, I never made the transition. I have a 'spare' chest freezer and regularly buy in chicken wings/day old chicks for the ferrets, so would happily stock that with puppy food as well. I would rather feed a complete BARF food with chicken wings/meaty bones as regular extras to keep his teeth clean, rather than mixing together all the bits and pieces from scratch and worrying I've missed out some vital vitamins/minerals.

My main question is - is there a good place to compare different available complete BARF brands? If not, does anyone here have any recommendations? I'll be doing plenty of research over the next few weeks, but was hoping to get some words of wisdom from people not trying to sell me a product! Any other advice on puppy-feeding would be fab. I've had dogs before, but not from this young.

My boy's going to be a medium-large sized dog; he's part Samoyed, part mongrel - in case that makes a difference...

OP posts:
SconeInSixtySeconds · 02/07/2013 16:07

Sorry not much help in premixed food, but my two labs have been on raw meaty bones since they were 11 weeks old and they are now 10.5. They get a carrot every day (whole) and leftover veg from our meals and cod liver oil etc now they are ancient and creaky, but they have always been happy and healthy on it.

Frettchen · 02/07/2013 16:38

Thanks Scone

So it's fairly easy to feed raw without getting the trays of mulched up food?

OP posts:
TataClaire · 02/07/2013 16:41

Natural instinct is an easily digested raw diet that we've found really good.

SconeInSixtySeconds · 02/07/2013 16:43

When I started I went to a seminar with Tom Lonsdale here in the uk . He is a vet who is a very strong advocate of messing with animal food as little as possible. As he said you don't go to the safari park and see the African painted dogs tucking into mince.

So mine get chicken wings, turkey legs, lambs tails, occasionally offal. One of my labs loves fish, the other looks at me in horror! I have made friends with my butcher...

fanoftheinvisibleman · 02/07/2013 17:30

I just do it myself with normal meat. Wings, ribs, oxtail, offal, fish, eggs and diced or minced meats.

Frettchen · 03/07/2013 13:59

Thanks all.

That actually sounds fairly doable. I'm thinking I could batch up a fortnight's worth of meals, freeze, and defrost as required, so it would be fairly easy each day to ensure he got what he needed... I've got another couple of weeks to look into it before he arrives, and have - after reading this thread - started looking up sample menus for quantities etc.

Just need to go find myself a nice butcher to befriend!

OP posts:
fanoftheinvisibleman · 03/07/2013 14:24

That is exactly how I do it. I cwn easily do 3 weeks as I am only feeding a BT but a portion everything in freezer bags with the weight on so I can just match up meat and bone for the day easily.

HotPanda · 04/07/2013 09:38

There is a group on facebook called Raw Feeding Uk. Loads of advice and helpful people about feeing raw, from using the minces to giving full carcasses. Have an ask on there.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page