Stimulating intestinal flora through "the Farm Food Fresh Method".

Note: Farm Food Fresh is not yet available in the UK. Where Farm Food Fresh Complete is mentioned you can change 20% of the Farm Food HE with the double amount of raw unwashed tripe.

"Healthy intestinal flora means a healthy body" is a saying that is becoming more and more important, in our experience. We see diarrhoea and other digestive upsets increasingly often, as a result of poor intestinal flora. By poor intestinal flora we mean when there are too few different bacteria colonies present in the intestines. When this is the case, food is not sufficiently broken down and rotting and fermentation takes place in the colon. This causes diarrhoea, and the dog gets into a vicious circle. This circle is difficult to break out of without a natural approach.

That healthy intestinal flora affects good health is an extremely important reason for externally building up and maintaining a good, stable intestinal flora and in particular good bacteria. The intake of these bacteria need not necessarily take place through daily feeding. It's been our experience that when dogs get hold of excrement from most herbivores (rabbit and sheep droppings, for example), this is also a good way of keeping the intestinal flora in good condition.

As the vast majority of dogs, in particularly pups, do not have such opportunities, for as long as we have been working with dog food we have generally advised giving pups younger than about 5 weeks additional food of fresh meat only (meat with unprocessed tripe, otherwise it does not work). After this, switch over to Farm Food HE gradually over 3 weeks by mixing, and later have at least 1 day a week as the fresh meat day until they are half-grown. Thereafter given them at least 1 fresh meat day every 14 days until they reach adulthood, then at least 1 fresh meat day a month.

Also when dogs build up poor intestinal flora (for example through easily digestible, expanded light food) or when the intestinal flora is unbalanced (after a treatment of antibiotics), we advise giving the dog raw unprocessed tripe, at least 1 day a week before switching over to Farm Food HE. (In any case, the latter is the safest way of switching over to Farm Food HE.) After this, continue as described above. (See also the Farm Food Info "What to do about sensitive digestions").

Note: Farm Food Fresh is not yet available in the UK. Where Farm Food Fresh Complete is mentioned you can change 20% of Farm Food HE with the double amount of raw unwashed tripe. 

Since Farm Food Fresh Complete has all the nutrients for a complete and healthy meal the raw unwashed tripe is not complete. Therefore Farm Food HE can be used as a basis to create a 'do it yourself' Farm Food Fresh Complete substitute.

50 grams of Farm Food HE compares to 100 grams Farm Food Fresh. A dog needs at least 75% of the nutrients from Farm Food HE to get a complete meal, the rest of the meal should be substituted with raw unwashed tripe to stimulate the intestinal flora.

So if you would give a dog 100 grams (example!) Farm Food HE per meal (but wanted to feed your dog FF Fresh Complete instead) you can give 80 grams Farm Food HE and 40 grams raw unwashed tripe (you doubled the 20%).