About seven months ago, my older dog had a health scare which had me question her diet and what exactly she was putting into her system. To my shock, many commercial dog foods that are out on the market have next to no nutritional value whatsoever for your animal. This lead me to what is called the BARF diet. BARF stands for Biologically Appropriate Raw Food or Bones And Raw Food. The belief here is that domesticated dogs evolved from wolves which are obligate carnivores who hunted for their prey. When they killed their prey, the meat was in it’s purest state. So our dogs should consume what their ancestors did.
I scoured the internet looking to find out exactly what my dog should be eating and found the list of food to be extremely time consuming to prepare. Enter, prepackaged raw diets. What? These actually existed? It’s really difficult to find these prepackaged raw diets as they are not common. You can’t walk into your normal grocery store (or even pet store!) to find these products. Most pet stores don’t have a freezer section. Small name pet stores will carry some brands (not all) while others you have to find on the internet. I’ve complied a list to make it easier for animal owners.
Dr. Billinghurst’s BARF Diet
This unfortunately isn’t out in stores. You can buy it directly from their website or you can find a distributor in your area. I did though and she was about 45 minutes away. They deal with patties (chicken, beef and lamb) as well as minces (chicken, lamb, veggies and fruit, beef offal, unbleached and beef tripe). I’m not that crazy about patties since my dog doesn’t eat the same amount day to day. I prefer the nugget sizes. According to Dr. Billinghurst’s website, they only have chicken in the nugget size. They also carry supplements if you are interested, like organic dried alfalfa powder, BARF plus supplement as well as omega 3 & 6 with salmon & EPO oil. Dr. Billinghurst isn’t cheap and their website requires you to buy in bulk (obviously because it has to be shipped frozen and it’s a waste to deal with small orders). If you can find a distributor though like I did, they might let you buy them a bag at a time. To order or find a distributor of the Dr. Billinghurst BARF Diet, go to the following websites.
http://www.barfworld.com/
http://www.barfproducts.com/
Primal Pet Foods, Inc.
Primal Pet Foods currently carry six different raw diet formulas for dogs . They are chicken, duck, beef, lamb, pheasant and venison. They also carry bones as well as grinds and mixes that come in the flavors of turkey, chicken, buffalo and sardine. Primal Pet Foods also carries a raw diet for cats. You can find these products on their website, through a distributor, certain stores or even some veterinarians. You can find all this information at their website and more.
http://www.primalpetfoods.com
Bravo!
Next up we have the Bravo! raw diet. They carry their original and basic formulas, boneless meat, what they call their ‘specialty products’ and bonus bites. You can sign up for their newsletter at their website. This is one of the more popular raw diets. You can find stores that carry this product.
http://www.bravorawdiet.com/
Steve’s Real Food
Steve’s Real Food is very affordable for the customers who are looking to make a switch to the raw diet for their animals. They don’t just cater to the dogs here, they have formulas available for cats as well. They are among the cheapest from what I have researched. Cheap doesn’t mean either that their formulas aren’t up to par. All of their ingredients are USDA inspected, gluten free, no by-products (yeah!) no hormones, no wheat protein concentrates and the list goes on and on. Go to their site for more information and where to find their great products.
