Raw feeding ..... dogs

topsales

Hi Beckyy - can I ask who you get your meat from as I am in Northish Scotland too - thanks!!

Beckyy

Sure

We get ours from Fife Animal Feeds. http://www.fifeanimalfeeds.co.uk/
They're supplied by Durham Animal Feeds and have a great selection. They also offer discounts for orders over £100 or £200 (unless it's changed recently). They deliver to us and we must be well over 150 miles away from where they live, and I know they have customers further up than us, so definitely worth emailing them.

I have found a few other suppliers (I can't remember their names mind) that will deliver here, but their prices have always been higher.

con1888

I have a chest freezer that I have bought specifically for the dog, just need food to fill it !!

con1888

I am near Glasgow if that helps.

StudioBeau

Quinn is a 30KG greyhound, I feed him 650-750g per day (about 2.2-2.5% of body weight - he could eat less but he doesn't get treats, if you are going to give your dog treats, reduce it accordingly).

The 700g (on average) per day is cut down into 20% bone, 20% offal and 80% meat. Quinn gets chicken legs, chicken carcasses, half rack of lamb ribs, whole mackerel, etc with liver, heart, kidneys, etc.

His food costs me on average £26 per month. Although, now I am building up a rapport with my butcher, I am getting more and more free and paying less and less. I think this month it only cost me £19 for Quinn.

I used to buy from TPMS but having to order £40 minimum each time was annoying as we can get so much free.

Shop around butchers, you may not get lucky at your first one or even your second one, but keep looking, you will eventually find a butcher willing to give you a few hearts per week and a few kidneys and lamb ribs. Chicken legs can be quite cheap, especially if you buy in bulk and you can do a bit of haggling. Chicken carcasses are often free, a lot of offal is free too.

con1888

StudioBeau wrote: »

Quinn is a 30KG greyhound, I feed him 650-750g per day (about 2.2-2.5% of body weight - he could eat less but he doesn't get treats, if you are going to give your dog treats, reduce it accordingly).

The 700g (on average) per day is cut down into 20% bone, 20% offal and 80% meat. Quinn gets chicken legs, chicken carcasses, half rack of lamb ribs, whole mackerel, etc with liver, heart, kidneys, etc.

His food costs me on average £26 per month. Although, now I am building up a rapport with my butcher, I am getting more and more free and paying less and less. I think this month it only cost me £19 for Quinn.

I used to buy from TPMS but having to order £40 minimum each time was annoying as we can get so much free.

Shop around butchers, you may not get lucky at your first one or even your second one, but keep looking, you will eventually find a butcher willing to give you a few hearts per week and a few kidneys and lamb ribs. Chicken legs can be quite cheap, especially if you buy in bulk and you can do a bit of haggling. Chicken carcasses are often free, a lot of offal is free too.

Do all butchers deal with these meats yeah ? We actually have a family butcher who I could ask if I know what I am looking for. I hate asking favours but could make an exception and if I am paying then it's not really a favour. Could I maybe have some examples in what to ask for in a 'pack'.

I'm sorry for asking for so much help but really don't know where to start and for some reason my calculations seem to be making things look really expensive.

JennyW_2

con1888 wrote: »

Do all butchers deal with these meats yeah ? We actually have a family butcher who I could ask if I know what I am looking for. I hate asking favours but could make an exception and if I am paying then it's not really a favour. Could I maybe have some examples in what to ask for in a 'pack'.

I'm sorry for asking for so much help but really don't know where to start and for some reason my calculations seem to be making things look really expensive.

Are you looking to feed raw and doing it yourself? ie purchasing the bone, meat and offal...

or are you looking to purchase it "ready made" as Natural Instincts?

I found it a bit confusing to go down the "doing it yourself" route as I was worried about getting the % of offal/meat/bone correct so that's why I buy NI.

krlyr

As Jenny says, which way are you looking at feeding? Pre-made will cost more than "DIY", some companies by a substancial amount more (Darling's, or whatever they're called down, are pretty expensive from what I remember - Natural Instincts is a bit cheaper, and the pre-packaged stuff at PAH cheaper still I think)

Here's the calculations for my two if it helps. I have a spreadsheet I can send you if you like (PM me your email), it helps work out amount to feed, a weekly schedule and a monthly "shopping list". I work in lbs as my supplier does too - most do 1lb/454g bags. You'd have to edit the prices to that of your chosen supplier but it could give a rough idea for the DIY approach. I've rounded figures up to be neat, you don't need to be scientifically precise. This is based on the prey model diet of 80:10:10 of meat/bone/offal.

Kiki at 35kg/77lb should get ~1.5lb a day - this breaks down to a weekly amount of about 8.6lb meat, 1.1lb bone and 1.1lb offal.
Casper at 40g/88lb should be on ~1.75lb a day - 9.85lb a week meat, 1.25lb bone and 1.25lb offal

So then I work out how to spread those figures out over the week while giving roughly the same amount a day. I don't feed exactly the right amounts daily - so for Kiki, an example week could be

Monday - 1lb chicken mince (bone-in*), 0.5lb fish. 1.5lb daily total
Tuesday - 1lb tripe chunks, 0.35lb chicken wings (probably a couple of wings), 0.35lb liver - 1.7lb daily total
Wednesday - 0.5lb chicken mince, 1lb tripe mince - 1.5lb daily total
Thursday - 0.5lb lamb & tripe mince, 0.4lb chicken carcass (1 small carcass or half a large one), 0.4lb pig pluck (mixed pig offal) - 1.3lb daily total
Friday - 1lb economy mince, 0.5lb fish - 1.5lb daily total
Saturday - 0.5lb heart chunks, 1lb beef chunks - 1.5lb daily total
Sunday - 0.5lb chicken mince, 0.5lb tripe chunks, chicken wings, 0.35lb liver - 1.7lb daily total

*Most suppliers will include bone in their chicken mince, and some of their other minces. My supplier doesn't include a huge percentage so personally I feel this is cancelled out by the amount of meat found on wings, carcasses, etc. so don't really count that bone, but some suppliers do put more bone into some minces so you may need to class this as partly bone, partly meat.


I don't follow a plan as such anymore but found it useful when I first started. I might not follow it exactly - if I defrosted lamb and tripe mince instead of tripe chunks, no big deal, I just tried to keep the amounts roughly the same. At the weekend, I might swap a day's meal for a whole rabbit - I've found a rabbit is about 2lb in total so I'd either halve it or feed in as a "brunch" and not bother with a dinner. I also may swap some of my regular meals for something I've picked up reduced in the supermarket - so Wednesday's chicken mince might become turkey breasts instead, or Saturday's beef chunks might become a few pork chops.
I try to provide variety for the enrichment it provides and the variety of nutrients that different meats/cuts will provide. My supplier has brought out a few more products so I can include a few different things in their diet regularly now too, without supermarket whoopsies.

Based on a pretty similar example week for Casper, my monthly shopping list appearing on the spreadsheet is

Chicken mince 20lb
Tripe chunky 12lb
Tripe green 8lb
Lamb & tripe 6lb
Econ mince 8lb
Beef mince 6lb
Heart 4lb
Chicken carcass 3.6lb
Chicken wings 5.6lb
Pig pluck 3.2lb
Liver 6lb
Whole rabbit x2

With the prices on the spreadsheet (might need updating actually, I think prices increased sligthly since I made it) it comes to £43.18 - so not far off the £20 each mark. I buy the fish from the supermarket so have to factor that additional cost in, but it balances out by me getting free bones from a butcher that may replace the carcasses/wings/etc. some days.

Beckyy

Con1888, the balance doesn't have to be done by the day, or even week.

I fill the freezer up with a balanced diet overall. Meat, bone, offal. I feed it in a rough order, and know that by the time I get to the bottom of it the diet has been balanced. Although you should have a rough balance (no good feeding offal for a day, then wings for 2 days solid - but common sense prevails!) you don't need to feed a certain amount of something every meal, or day, or even week.

con1888

Thanks, I think to start with I would prefer prefrozen foods but open to doing it from scratch if I can find good sources. At the moment we are dealing with a family member dying so wont be for another 2 weeks probably until I am able to get organised to go sourcing food, speaking to butchers etc.

Krlyr that is very kind of you, I will PM you when I am ready to start, don't want to just now as will end up forgeting and getting lost in my emails.