Chow Chow Dull Coat on BARF Diet Fixed

Six months on a BARF diet and your Chow Chow's coat is still dull — that's genuinely frustrating, and it's also a clear signal that something specific is missing nutritionally rather than raw feeding being wrong for the dog. Chow Chows have a notoriously dense double coat that demands a lot from their diet, and home-prepared BARF can easily fall short on omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, or vitamin E without the owner realising it — the ratios just look right on paper but don't add up in practice. Raw feeding done well can be excellent, but the difference is balance and sourcing. To help narrow this down: are you preparing the meals yourself from whole ingredients, or using a pre-made BARF mix? And is your dog eating mostly muscle meat, or are you including oily fish, organ meat, and raw meaty bones regularly?

That's almost certainly your answer. Chicken breast and lean beef mince are very low in omega-3 fatty acids, and without oily fish — sardines, mackerel, herring — you're running a significant deficit in the very nutrients that govern coat quality, skin health, and that deep shine a Chow Chow should have. Liver is excellent, but sporadic. You're also likely light on zinc and vitamin D without regular raw meaty bones and organ variety. The coat is the first thing to show these gaps because the body prioritises internal organs over it. Does your dog have any digestive sensitivities, or has the gut generally been fine on raw?

Good — a settled gut makes this much easier to fix. At 28kg with no digestive issues, your Chow Chow is a strong candidate for a nutritionally complete raw meal that does the balancing for you rather than relying on you to hit every micronutrient manually. My recommendation is Nature's Menu Country Hunter 80/20 Raw Nuggets — specifically the multi-protein varieties that include salmon or herring. These are cold-pressed into frozen nuggets from 80% named meat and fish, 20% fruit, veg, and botanicals, and they're formulated to be complete and balanced to FEDIAF standards, which your current prep almost certainly isn't. The oily fish content is built in at meaningful levels, and the inclusion of seaweed and linseed adds further omega-3s and zinc. You'd portion roughly 400–450g per day for a 28kg adult dog, split across two meals. A lot of Chow owners see coat improvement within eight to twelve weeks on a properly balanced raw diet — your dog's coat isn't a lost cause, it's just been underfed the right things.

It's genuinely complete as it comes — that's the whole point of choosing it in this situation. Nature's Menu Country Hunter nuggets are formulated to meet FEDIAF nutritional guidelines for adult dogs, so you don't need to add oils, supplements, or anything else. If you want to go further once his coat starts improving, a small amount of raw meaty bone two or three times a week is a nice addition for dental health and enrichment, but it's not required for nutritional balance. The one thing I would say: give it a full twelve weeks before judging. Coat cycles are slow, and the outer guard hairs on a Chow Chow can take that long to reflect dietary changes. You should see skin condition and coat texture start to shift around week six or eight, with full shine coming later.

Nature's Menu Country Hunter nuggets are widely available on Amazon UK — a 1kg bag runs around £6 to £7, and they're often sold in multipacks of 7kg or 8kg which bring the per-kilo cost down to around £5 to £5.50. At 400g a day for your dog, a 7kg multipack lasts roughly two and a half weeks, so monthly cost is around £45 to £55 depending on which proteins you choose. The salmon and herring varieties are the ones to prioritise for coat repair — the chicken or turkey alone won't move the needle the same way. Order a single 1kg pouch first to check he takes to it well before committing to a larger batch.