Making the switch to BARF
Raw Feeding
Making The Switch To Better Nutrition
There are several ways to switch to a natural raw
diet .The following general guidelines and specific
ideas should get you thinking in the right direction
and help you make a decision as to how you will go
about the switch with your pets.
The switch can be rapid, straightforward and
trouble free. An important factor to consider is the
diet you are switching your pet from. Where a pet
has some experience of eating a variety of home
produced foods, both cooked and raw, there is
usually more acceptance and less likelihood of
gastrointestinal upset on the part of the pet. With
kibble fed pets, the change is much more dramatic
for their system.
There are two general methods of making the
switch to better nutrition, "Rapid " and
"Slow."
Rapid Switch
This is the simplest way to make the switch. You
simply go ahead and do it! Yesterday you fed your
pet kibble or canned pet
food, today you begin to feed the BARF
DIET™. Before using the rapid switch, you need
to consider whether your pet is suited to a quick
transfer of diet. The general experience and
consensus is, that the rapid switch is the
preferred, simplest, most trouble free and most
successful method for dogs particularly young and
healthy dogs with a relatively normal
gastrointestinal system.
The rapid switch with pets that are older, pets
with digestive problems or impaired immune systems
may not be appropriate. Many older pets that have
been kibble fed all their lives (and some younger
ones for that matter) cannot tolerate both raw
food and kibble together in their digestive
tract. That combination can result in diarrhea or
vomiting or both. In this case we have no choice, it
has to be the rapid switch.
It can be helpful to allow your pet a one or even
a two-day fast prior to making the transfer. This
allows for a small amount of detoxification and also
brings to your assistance a mighty ally, hunger!
When you begin feeding the BARF
DIET™, you may divide the daily amount into two
or three small meals.
Slow Switch
This method of switching your pet can take from
one to four weeks, or up to six months, depending on
the circumstances. Some pets never make the switch
completely, as many pet owners leave their pet
suspended between kibble and raw, "just to be sure
they don’t leave any important nutrients out." Not a
great idea!
There are three basic ways to go about
the slow switch.
1) You can offer one meal of the BARF
DIET™ followed by one meal of the old food, and
gradually feed fewer meals of the old type. If your
pet accepts this method with no problems it is a
fair indication that he has a very robust digestive
system and would have handled the rapid switch
extremely well.
2) The second way to go about it is to offer both
types of food at the same time, and gradually offer
less and less of the old food and more of the new
food. E.g. some kibble and a chicken wing in the
same bowl. Twenty five percent of the new food for a
few days, fifty percent for a few days, seventy five
percent for a few days then one hundred percent. On
the other hand, some pets may develop
gastrointestinal upset as they cannot tolerate these
two vastly different types of food in their
digestive system at the same time.
3) Those pet owners who have always fed a home
made but cooked diet may decide to introduce the new
food in a cooked state, and gradually feed it in a
more raw state. Dog owners whose dog is suffering
from some an immune deficient state can cook the BARF
DIET™. Cooking is not recommended for normal,
healthy dogs.
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