BARF v Kibble digestion time

There are several factors involved in digestion, mosture content, fiber, type of food source(grain, meat, vegitable matter). Digestion time will vary with BARF however, I feel over-all raw is more digestible than cooked. Excerize iand feeding schedule frequantcy are the other factors. The higher the metabolic rate the faster food is proceesed.

One of the reasons that there is generallly less waste and faster digestion with raw food than with kibble is because raw foods are about 75% water whereas kibble is about 10% moisture. So, on a weight equivalent basis there is more solid mass in kibble diets than in raw feeding. As others have stated the quality, form, and type of ingredients in raw food and kibble will also affect digestion rate. For example if you are feeding a raw diet that is high in bone adn vegetable content especially unground and even fur and skin then the digestion rate will be slow and in fact may pass through the alimentary system not only slowly but may be partially or fully undigested. If you are feeding a kibble with moderate protein levels 12-22% and high marginally digestible grain content like corn well then it too will not digest well at all and will pass slowly. The high protein content 32 to 40+% grain free kibbles seem to digest only slightly faster than regular kibbles. I can't explain it but from my experimenting with my own dogs and a couple of my friends who have trialed feeding the high protein content grain free kibbles with raw meat, the dogs seem to frequently have intestinal upsets and loose stools when the protein content gets much higher than 32 to 33%. I don't have an explanation for it especially when it is counterintuitive to the fact that raw meat with high water content is over 70% protein by weight when corrected to a dry weight basis. It just seems that the extrusion process and lack of moisture really in kibble affect digestion and absorption rates. This is only an anecdotal observation on my part. As far as raw food that is cooked and fed to dogs instead of actually being fed raw, I have not seen any difference in digestion rates or stool sizes. If you feed kibble with raw about 50/50 on a volume basis the digestion rates will be closer to the six or so hours people generally observe with BARF diets. The stool size will be slightly larger than barf stools but will not look like giant land mines like straight kibble diets. Hope this gives you some food for thought.

About my "cooked" comment: I occassionally will bake/dehydrate excess BARF mix. I believe the reduced mosture content does effect my dogs digestion time. I have not tracked the time, nor can I produce a spreed sheet to atest to this observation. I also have noted that bones take longer to move through the G.I. track.

I don't like the term barf, it's a trademark. Raw feeding is the most natural thing there is I don't need an Australian vet to tell me about it, making money off it in the process. I believe feeding raw reduces the possibility of bloat. I have no idea how much time the food spends in there. How would you calculate that? I suppose I could throw a small cooked indigestible bone with the rest of the food and wait for it to come out. However dogs can hold stool for longer periods than would actually indicate digestion. I did find out that frying meat in oil greatly increases the time of digestion and the cooking may even render it indigestible. This I discovered by accident feeding the dog some fried leftover people food and the dog vomiting later in the day. What came out was the part that was the outside and was more fried, the rest was digested.

You can tell by looking at the stool. Feed a meal of just meaty bones and you'll see the white ashy stool, it's unmistakeable. Beets will leave red fiber & the urine will be red. Green leafy veggies will leave green fiber. It is all rather easy. If you do any serious conditioning or training it's important to understand your dog's cycles to get the best preformance.