Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was reading about raw diets, barg ect and I thought what about dehydrated barf? After doing a quick search on dehydrated barf I have found that they actually sell the stuff. Seems like a good idea to me. Does anyone have any comments on dried barf? Good / Bad? Any problems with it?
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- Chubaka aka Chuie!

Are you talking about Honest Kitchen or Nature's Variety? I'm not aware of any other brands of dehydrated raw. I wouldn't go with Nature's Variety because it has grains. Grain meat= bad. Honest Kitchen has a grain-free variety called Embark. Lots of great-quality ingredients, easy to prepare... but neither of my dogs will touch it. Given, I didn't feed it long before giving up, but if your dog(s) will eat it it's great.

Kadee Sedtal
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Kadee Sedtal
home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats- Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, and Fillmore, and the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, and Rasputin

Actually I was thinking about home-made dried barf? I imagine it wouldn't be a good idea to dehydrate bones though.
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- Chubaka aka Chuie!

I tried this once. It actually dried pretty well, though in order to get it to soak up all the water when I re-hydrated it I had to use the microwave, which kind of defeats the raw thing... I put my raw mix of ground meat, eggs, vegetables, and milk (among other things) in a thin layer in the dehydrator at 155 degrees, then crumbled it up. Do use the plastic catcher thing that comes with the dehydrator- you will not ever get it off the racks! It takes a lot more effort that just freezing and thawing, though for trips it would be nice. For all the time you'd save I'd say just go with Honest Kitchen Embark. It's expensive, but if your dogs will eat it it's a whole lot easier than making your own, plus it re-hydrates a lot better. A thought just now popped up in my head- what if you put the homemade dry food in a blender to make the pieces smaller? Might re-hydrate better that way. Hmm...
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Kadee Sedtal
home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats- Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, and Fillmore, and the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, and Chaminade... I really ought to stop getting more rodents every time I go out, huh?

Do you have to re-hydrate it?
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- Chubaka aka Chuie!

Yes, or it's just as bad as kibble. Dogs can have kidney problems if they're only fed dry food. It doesn't take long to re-hydrate the Honest Kitchen food, only about ten minutes.
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Kadee Sedtal
home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats- Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, and Fillmore, and the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, and Chaminade... I really ought to stop getting more rodents every time I go out, huh?

I have very limited experience with dehydrated raw diets. But I have used it for a few meals over the 3 years we've been feeding raw. Although the commercial freezedried foods are very expensive they can be a good alternative when raw won't work, traveling for example. (Or in the case where I had forgotten my dogs food in the hotel and didn't realize it until at my destination over an hour away.) The only thing I have against them is, well, that they are dehydrated. One of the bonuses with raw is the moisture level, you loose that with dehydrated.

I have heard good things about Honest Kitchen and the next time I'm in the need to pick up some dehydrated food plan to try it.

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tabitha
Kayo, Kahla, and Dante'