home-ground raw - pictorial

[technodoll]

for those who are thinking of making their own ground raw food (for dogs or cats), here's what it looked like this afternoon in our kitchen... price calculations are after the photos (and please ignore the crappy surroundings, i can't wait to get out of this rental and into my OWN place where i will have a NICE kitchen! sigh)

Here are 16 lbs of thawed beef heart, pre-preparation:



Beef heart after slicing into proper-sized pieces:



This box contains 35 lbs of chicken frames:



Hubby chopping up the frames for the grinder:



Here are 25 lbs of chopped chicken frames, ready to go:



The trusty grinder doing its job:



The finished product: 41 lbs of ground chicken frames and beef hearts (mixed), and 8 lbs of intact frames for recreational chewing (we kept 2 lbs to make a nice chicken veggie broth for us humans, LOL). Before bagging, some people like to add stuff to the meat mix but we add it just before feeding, this allows for a greater variety of "mixers".



These 41 lbs of ground cost $21.50, so $0.52/lbs (frames were $0.22/lbs, and the beef hearts $0.99/lbs)
We have 8 lbs of intact chicken frames for $1.76
Our soup broth frames were a whopping $0.44

Prep time is fairly quick if "the man" has a good chopping arm, it's the cleanup time that's not too fun. gotta clean, wash and disinfect every surface and utensil. For us it's more than worth it, it cuts our monthly feeding costs in half and it only takes about 3 hours from start to finish, going slooowly.

The reason we grind: easier to get more raw food into the dogs (since they don't always like the "additions" such as raw fish, avocados, raw eggs, cottage cheese, chicken hearts, raw organ meats, baby-food veggies, etc), though they do like it when we add green tripe, yogurt, boneless meats... They do eat a significant portion of their raw diet in "intact form", which cleans their teeth beautifully.

Hope some of you find inspiration in this!

[hazelrunpack]

So how long does that amount of food last?

[barkley21]

That was a fantastic post Technodoll
I'm sooooo jealous thinking of how well stocked your freezer is right now
I would totally do this if only I had the freezer space! We don't have room in our freezer for this much meat and we don't have room in the house anywhere to fit an extra freezer We have discussed getting a larger refrigerator with more freezer space in the near future.
I can't believe how cheap all that meat is! It makes me cringe at how much we spend to feed our little furry bottomless pit
Good job TD! Your dogs are very lucky to have a mom and dad who devote that much time preparing their meals.
Thanks again for that pictorial. I think a lot of people will find it very helpful.

[technodoll]

So how long does that amount of food last?

if we fed the ground raw exclusively (nothing else), we'd go through about 4.5 lbs/day for the two dogs (some days less), so the lot would last about 10 days. but we add stuff to the mixture to stretch it out and add a variety of nutrients, dakotah gets 1/3 of his diet in kibble, they eat whole meaty bones, etc... we'll make this lot of ground last a month, i'm too lazy to do it all again before December!

oh and for the record... we managed to squeeze a small (2 x 3) chest freezer into a corner of our living room, we put stuff on it and it serves as a table of sorts too, ha ha! and the kitchen is at the complete other end of the appartment - so where there's a will, there's a way

[Frenchy]

Originally Posted by technodoll

Hope some of you find inspiration in this!

Yes I did can't stand raw meat

[technodoll]

me neither frenchy... but it's for the kids and they deserve the best, so i just "get over it"

[Prin]

It's interesting, but I'm still not convinced it's for me... I'd be doing all the chopping alone and I'm not good with carcasses...

[TeriM]

Wow, looks like a lot of work. I have one dog (long story, very bad allergies only thing that worked) but am very lucky that we have 2 great stores very close that sell prepackaged (and cheap) raw products. Raw is a booming industry on the west coast and many local companies have jumped to fill the need.

[rainbow]

Originally Posted by Prin

It's interesting, but I'm still not convinced it's for me... I'd be doing all the chopping alone and I'm not good with carcasses...

That's me too.

[technodoll]

yes, thank goodness for big man-muscles!