BARF Starter Help for Dogs
Valuable tips & tricks for starting life as a BARFer
You want to feed your dog a balanced and healthy diet using the BARF method, but you’re not quite sure how?
Then we have put together some valuable tips for you here.
Tip 1: Changing the diet
Switching from commercial food to BARF is usually quite straightforward, but there are a few things to keep in mind.
As a first step, it’s advisable to give your dog a fasting day before making the switch, so that his intestines can be completely cleared of the old food. Caution: this does not apply to puppies!
Next, the dog should gradually get used to the different BARF components. Feed only minced, easily digestible muscle meat for the first one or two days. It is important that you initially decide on one type of meat. At this point, we recommend our tender tartare or muscle meat from beef or chicken muscle meat. If your dog tolerates the meat meals well, you can gradually introduce new types of meat, such as muscle meat from horse, turkey, or fish, before combining the meals with easily digestible vegetables such as carrot or pumpkin and some fruit (e.g., apple or pear).
The plant components should always be finely pureed or cooked before feeding, as your dog would otherwise not be able to absorb the nutrients they contain. Alternatively, you can also use ready-made vegetable-fruit mixes. If you feel that your dog is tolerating all the food components well, you can start feeding tripe or green tripe after about four days.
If this is also well accepted, you should then offer offal. To ensure your dog gets to know all the important offal straight away, we recommend our mixed beef offal mix for about two days.
Finally, the dog must get used to the last important component of BARF feeding: bones. For this step, we recommend our chicken-beef mix, which consists of soft minced chicken bones and beef muscle meat, or coarsely minced chicken necks. Always pay special attention to your dog’s stool when feeding bones; if it is too hard or white, you should initially reduce the bone feeding again and slowly increase to the desired amount.
If your dog does not tolerate bone feeding even after slow acclimatization, it is advisable to omit this component of the BARF diet and provide the missing nutrients through supplements such as bone meal. To ensure your dog receives all essential nutrients, you should begin supplementing with high-quality nutritional supplements such as salmon oil and seaweed meal after completing the transition to meat meals
(Step 2). The animal and plant components of a BARF meal do not contain all nutrients in the correct amounts or ratios.
That’s why there are essential additives that provide important iodine and omega-3 fatty acids, for example. If you don’t feed fish, vitamin D must also be provided in another way. Cod liver oil is ideal for this.
The slow transition is especially recommended for sensitive dogs. While a balanced diet is not possible at first, the digestive tract can adapt particularly gently to the new feeding method. In healthy dogs, the transition can usually be made much more quickly.
After a period of seven to ten days, the dietary change is complete for most dogs. Afterwards, you can start feeding according to your previously established feeding plan. But beware: every dog is individual, always keep this in mind and give your four-legged friend as much time as he needs for a smooth transition. Note: During the transition phase, diarrhea, constipation, mucus in the stool, vomiting, itching, or skin problems may occur.
These symptoms may occur immediately or only after some time and are initially no cause for concern. However, if they persist for a long time, it is advisable to consult a veterinarian to rule out other causes than the dietary change.
Tip 2: Number and size of meals
As a general rule, an adult dog should receive about 2–4% of its body weight as a daily ration, divided into two meals, depending on its size. Puppies and young dogs have an increased nutritional requirement and therefore need between 4–10% of their body weight as daily food intake.
The daily ration should be divided into several small portions throughout the day.
Tip 3: Composition and preparation
An ideal BARF diet consists of 80% animal and 20% plant components. The animal components are further divided into 50% muscle meat, 20% tripe or green tripe, 15% mixed offal, and 15% raw meaty bones. Plant components should consist of 75% vegetables and 25% fruit, finely pureed or gently cooked. These are the common percentage values you will also find in the literature. In this breakdown, the animal and plant portions are each considered as 100% and then broken down again by percentage so that the individual components each add up to 100% again.
In the adjacent pie chart, you can also see the distribution of ideal BARF meals with percentage values, which result when the animal and plant parts are considered together and not separately as 100%. The division does not change; it is simply a different way of writing it. Incidentally, our “Beutebarf” complete menus are also put together according to the adjacent division.
Both meat and fruit and vegetable varieties should be varied slightly on a regular basis for a balanced diet. However, it is not necessary to feed all components in the correct ratio every day. To ensure the diet is adequate, it is sufficient if all necessary components are fed over a period of about four weeks. We recommend feeding 2–3 different types of meat and choosing vegetables and fruit seasonally whenever possible, which automatically provides enough variety.
Our frozen mixes also contain enough variety of different fruit and vegetable types.
Tip 4: Nutritional supplements
Since BARF feeding usually does not involve feeding whole prey animals, it is necessary to supplement BARF meals with certain supplements. Valuable vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, and fiber naturally contained in, for example, blood, brain, eyes, and fur of prey animals should be provided with the help of nutritional supplements. Some supplements, such as seaweed meal, which covers the natural iodine requirement, and a high-quality oil with a high content of omega-3 fatty acids (e.g., salmon oil or omega-3-6-9 oil), should be added regularly. Other supplements are optional and can serve as a substitute if not all BARF components are eaten (or can be eaten).
For example, bone meal or dicalcium phosphate should be used if your dog does not eat bones or does not tolerate them well.
Tip 5: eBarf BARF calculator
On our website, you will find a practical BARF calculator for dogs that calculates the optimal amount of food and composition of meals based on your dog’s individual details. In addition, we have developed four other free requirement calculators for you, with which you can calculate the required amount of seaweed meal, the appropriate composition of the offal, the necessary fat content of the meals, and the amount of calcium to be supplemented. However, always keep in mind that every dog is individual and the results shown are only guidelines.
If you follow these tips, nothing will stand in the way of a smooth BARF start. If you are unsure, you can always consult a pet nutrition expert who will answer your questions or create an individual BARF plan for your dog.
Even if BARF feeding takes a little more time at first than feeding ready-made food, a routine will quickly develop, and the advantages of BARF will clearly outweigh the disadvantages: BARF is the healthiest and most species-appropriate form of nutrition for dogs.
Do you want all the tips at a glance to print or save? Then you can also download our BARF starter help as a PDF here.