Raw Diet for Dogs

Feral_Moon

Rev wrote: »

I found MVM to be better quality than DAF.

I Clearday raw. They're a small company who covet the north west. He delivers every two weeks.


I feed the raw treat range. Complete minces and since switching I've noticed a gigantic difference in my dogs.

Thanks, I may give them a try as they seem to have a very good range of food looking at the link Fosterdog posted.

Edited to add: having looked again they seem to do predominantly minced food and their selection of non-mince is faulty limited. It's so frustrating that some companies don't cater more for those of us who don't use minces. It's not as though they don't have a wide variety of whole animals when you look at the content of the minces.

prosaver

Rev wrote: »

It's far cheaper to feed raw that commercial. Especially crap commercial like pal and chum.


It cost me around £35 a month to feed two 25kg dogs.


I'd spend triple than feeding them commercial food.

Impossible.....
How come other people are spending £80 a month and that on one dog , giving it mince 85p a Ib..

prosaver

Others
Meaty mince (may contain any combination of MVM products)

24lb

£15.00
Ref:http://www.cleardayrawfeeds.com/manifold-valley-meats
About 55p a pound ..maybe u add something else?

Feral_Moon

prosaver wrote: »

Others
Meaty mince (may contain any combination of MVM products)

24lb

£15.00
Ref:http://www.cleardayrawfeeds.com/manifold-valley-meats
About 55p a pound ..maybe u add something else?

Do you really think raw fed dogs only get mince? :rotfl:

In fact my dog doesn't get any mince whatsoever.

Rev

prosaver wrote: »

Impossible.....
How come other people are spending £80 a month and that on one dog , giving it mince 85p a Ib..

Check the Clearday raw page. I pay £13.50 for 20kg of complete chicken mince. £16.50 for 20kg of either turkey lamb or beef.


Spending £80 to feed one dog in a month is quite frankly ridiculous. Commercial food, maybe.


Given I pay the bills I can tell you it's far from impossible.

krlyr

prosaver wrote: »

Impossible.....
How come other people are spending £80 a month and that on one dog , giving it mince 85p a Ib..

I buy from a supplier at between 61-85p a lb for minces, up to £1.35 for some meat chunks. At a combined weight of 70kg, that's 154lb, they are fed around 2% of bodyweight a day so just over 3lb a day. 3 x 66p (that was the average cost per lb of my last order) x 30 days = £60 a month for my two dogs.

And that's assuming everything I feed, I pay for. I have a neighbour who shoots rabbits and often turns up with a couple of freebies for me - I have enough rabbit in my freezer to replace at least 2-3 meals a week if I wanted to, which brings that monthly cost down. My last job, a colleague kept ducks and chickens and would often give me freebies scared to death by a fox or similar. I have been to a couple of butchers who give scraps free - if I went more often, I could probably cut my costs further using these regular freebies (not all of it is suitable, e.g. some is marinated/spiced, but much of it is useable). Fishmongers often give away fish heads and trimmings, some supermarkets do real yellow sticker bargains, lots of ways you could bring the cost of raw down - whereas a commercial food tends to have a minimum price, so once you've found the cheapest supplier then you're pretty much going to stay at that cost.

It's like comparing your family's shopping list to mine too. Even if we had the same amount of people in the house, your family's tastes, the supermarkets you have available to you, the amount of food you need to eat to maintain your weight, etc. will all vary.

Feral_Moon

Wow! I pay more than that just for my 45kg dog. He has 1.5kg of food per day costing at least £3 a kilo so that is around £4.50 a day.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Genuine question out of curiosity - do dogs that are given 'prey food' tend to associate wild/live versions of their dinner as something to chase and eat more than dogs whose food doesn't resemble something they could see in a field?

I'm asking because the ex MIL had no issues with her former dogs and was actually an animal trainer, but the Retriever she introduced raw feeding to suddenly became a liability everytime they travelled to a rural location on holiday -

Just a few weeks after he was started on BARF, he changed from a dog who could be trusted around loose rabbits, sheep and chickens/pheasants/waterfowl (as he'd been trained to be well behaved around livestock due to their love of walking holidays/weekend walks in the countryside every week) to one who, if he was not firmly secured in the car at all times, would go crazy and force his way out of a barely open car window to launch himself at chickens, sheep, goats or anything that vaguely resembled one - and pulled her completely off her feet on one walk so he could kill (and begin to eat) some ducks he spotted just off the footpath they were walking on.


Not meaning to be offensive at all, it was just such a dramatic change from the dog he'd been up until that point, and it the only thing that was different in his life was that she had started feeding him minimally prepared rabbit, chicken and suchlike.

(She never got him back to the dog he was before that point - the rest of his life, he spent on a lead and they weren't ever able to truly relax in case he took it upon himself to deal with local cats - he'd grown up with one - or went after livestock and got shot).

prosaver

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Genuine question out of curiosity - do dogs that are given 'prey food' tend to associate wild/live versions of their dinner as something to chase and eat more than dogs whose food doesn't resemble something they could see in a field?

I'm asking because the ex MIL had no issues with her former dogs and was actually an animal trainer, but the Retriever she introduced raw feeding to suddenly became a liability everytime they travelled to a rural location on holiday -

Just a few weeks after he was started on BARF, he changed from a dog who could be trusted around loose rabbits, sheep and chickens/pheasants/waterfowl (as he'd been trained to be well behaved around livestock due to their love of walking holidays/weekend walks in the countryside every week) to one who, if he was not firmly secured in the car at all times, would go crazy and force his way out of a barely open car window to launch himself at chickens, sheep, goats or anything that vaguely resembled one - and pulled her completely off her feet on one walk so he could kill (and begin to eat) some ducks he spotted just off the footpath they were walking on.


Not meaning to be offensive at all, it was just such a dramatic change from the dog he'd been up until that point, and it the only thing that was different in his life was that she had started feeding him minimally prepared rabbit, chicken and suchlike.

(She never got him back to the dog he was before that point - the rest of his life, he spent on a lead and they weren't ever able to truly relax in case he took it upon himself to deal with local cats - he'd grown up with one - or went after livestock and got shot).

maybe thats why, in zoo's they keep feeding lions nice meat, so they dont have to get new zoo keepers everyweek:D

Feral_Moon

Jojo I've never had a problem with dogs eating whole prey associating the living versions as food. In fact I don't know of anyone who has so I'd say your MIL's dog is the exception.

My large German Shepherd eats whole rabbits but when we visit a friend who keeps rabbits he just sniffs them or licks them on the head. He's also quite happy walking through a field of sheep and lambs on a loose lead. He might stand and look at them as he's fascinated with all animals but makes no attempt to approach them.