Need suggestions for double dog barfing

[BooBoo & Riley]

Our new puppy girl Courage is already 3 months old and a good 19# and 15" tall. We've been feeding her Innova while her big brother BooBoo is on his regular barf schedule. Our original plan was to wait till she's 4 months old before we start feeding her raw.

My problem is that Courage is always trying to steal a bit of Boo's raw food before she will eat some of her own. And Boo trys to eat her kibble in the mornings since he is only feed at night time.

So I thought, since I can't feed them both barf for 2-3 meals a day, I was going to offer an alternative to barf for both in the mornings and then barf both at night. What would you guys recommend. I don't have a problem with them eating kibble in the mornings, they each get a bit of both anyways when I turn my back and their stomachs hold up well. I've also tried VERVE, the dehydrated food. But it takes too long to make and the dogs don't seem to love it... what to do, what to do...

 

[JulieM]

I'm sorry, I probably missed this from another post, why are you waiting until the puppy is 4 months old to feed BARF and why can't you feed them both BARF 2-3 meals a day?

You can make the Verve up a few days ahead of time and refrigerate it, that will save time. If your dogs don't love it you can add say ground beef or turkey etc. to it, that might help. I've only used the Force and my dogs gobble it up, but I know the HK folks primarily intended their foods to have fresh raw food added to it.

It probably goes without saying that I'm not a fan of kibble, but if that's what works for your dogs that's what works for your dogs.

 

[BooBoo & Riley]

Julie, with all the stress of adding a new puppy, I was too busy to do raw from the beginning. Especially because I knew that I have to cut Booboo's portions even smaller for Courage. So I decided to wait to switch her when she starts teething...

Anyway, yeah I do feed Verve with raw meats or offal, but I don't have time in the morning even to feed myself and hubby who goes to work later isn't trustworthy enough to get it right. If I were to feed Verve by itself, it wouldn't take much time like you said, but again they don't really care for it by itself. Even if I had enough time to put down the food for them, I don't have enough time to see to make sure they eat it properly.

I agree with you about the kibble, that's why I want to get some creative solutions from you guys...

 

[Jan]

I don't have a huge lot of time in the morning either, but I still manage to give them their raw food. In the morning my dogs always get straight chicken backs and necks. I package it up so that each bag has a portion for each of them. One is bigger than the the other as Tara needs more than Markus as she is much more active even though she is smaller. All I have to do is put the chicken out to thaw the night before and in the morning I just put biggest chunk in Tara's bowl and the smallest in Markus'. It's simple and takes all of 1 minutes. I'm sure even your hubby could manage that.

 

[Albie]

Maybe you could feed a pre-made raw in the morning. I have been feeding the BarfWorld patties for a couple of months now, and love the convenience of them. Lacy usually gets chicken necks in the AM and then either BarfWorld patties or BarfWorld ground meat and bone mince in the PM. As long as the food is thawed, even hubby should be able to plop a pattie in the dog's bowls!

 

[Karen J.]

We also feed premade BARFworld patties in the am (with a little yogurt and cottage cheese on it) and chicken backs at night. Ajax was reared on natural, so we started out cutting the chicken backs down the spine for his little baby teeth. We switched our older boy over to raw about a month after we got Ajax (used up the kibble). We still cut the backs for both of them even though Ajax has big teeth. It does take more time than kibble, but once you get the routine down, it's not too bad.

 

[BooBoo & Riley]

Ok I just tried something tonight that I hope will be well received tomorrow morning...

I bought 2#s of salmon head and meat pieces, cut up most of the meaty parts and gave to BooBoo for dinnner. Then I took the head and other non-meaty parts and made a broth out of it. Then instead of re-hydrating the Verve mix with water, I'm using the broth and making a large batch of Salmon flavored Verve to serve my two in the mornings.

Wish me luck! I'll let you know how they like it...

 

[BooBoo & Riley]

Thanks for the suggestions so far by the way. I'm not sure how much pre-made BARF patties are, but I'm afraid to find out that it's too expensive. I'm at around $0.75 per pound of food right now for BooBoo and don't want to go too far above that...

 

[Tam319]

I feed 3 dogs raw (65#, 45# and 20#). Morning meals I typically feed ground chicken OR ground chicken/fruit/veggie from:

www.mountaindogfood.com

I buy the 6# breeder blocks and thaw in the fridge. It last me a few days and there is no prep involved. Just dish it out and you are ready to go.

In the pm I add more variety - fish, beef, pork, rabbit, mutton, elk, antelope, eggs, yogurt, EFA oil. I subscribed to a yahoo group in my area which acts as a bulletin board to help people find good deals on meat, veggies, sources, etc.

Another dehydrated food you may want to try is NRG. It takes 10 minutes to soak and the dogs love the taste. It is a little pricey though, perhaps even more expensive than BARFWorld patties.

www.nrgpetproducts.com

Hubby and I are both full time students with a very meager budget and little time but with some planning we are able to manage the raw diet. In my opinion it is worth the extra effort.

Tam