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Old May 8th, 2008, 09:55 AM
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pitgrrl pitgrrl is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brandikiss View Post
Then after a lot of research I found that the BARF diet might work out well for him. Of course he LOVES meat, so he likes the taste but then I read a lot about BARF diets not having enough vitamins. So what I do is give him Nature's Variety frozen medallions during the day and "Now" kibble at night.
If you're feeding Nature's Variety it's formulated to meet the guidelines set out by the AFFCO, which is the same minimum standards used by most kibble. Personally that isn't what I would use to judge a food, but if you're worried about it in relation to kibble that might make you feel better.

Quote:
Originally Posted by brandikiss View Post
So far it's working well. But, I wondered, with a BARF diet, how many meaty bones are you supposed to feed your dog each day? One? Or do you only give it to them once or twice a week? Is it going to add a lot of calories? Because I don't want him to gain weight.

The frozen medallions say to give him 4 a day for complete feeding, I do 2 a day and half the kibble he needs a day. But now, where do the raw meaty bones come in?
Like want4rain mentioned, it's about proportions. Nature's Variety already has bone in in the patties (quite a bit actually), so if you're feeding that you don't actually need to add anything more. You could give recreational bones for the dog to chew on to take advantage of the tooth cleaning benefits, but if anything Nature's Variety patties are pretty bone heavy, so no need to supplement with more edible bone.

That said, if you want to feed a raw diet that you assemble yourself, you'll probably want to do some reading to figure out what you're doing before diving in.

ETA: in terms of portion size, each dog is different. What is marked on the bag is only a starting point. For example, my dogs need to eat about 3% of their body weight a day to maintain their current weight (a bit less in the summer). Some dogs each only 1-2% a day, others more than my two. I would just keep an eye on your dog's weight and adjust how much you feed accordingly.

Last edited by pitgrrl; May 8th, 2008 at 09:59 AM.
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