DennasMom
Well-Known Member
AngelBears is in TX... where meat is CHEAP!!!
The cheapest meat I can find is whole chicken, on sale, for $0.89/lb... BUT I'm still being careful with chicken, as I think Denna is sensitive to it (gives her a goopy ear)...so... without that cheap option, I go with boneless pork shoulder ($1.90/lb at Costco) and then stuff from our bulk buyers group, a lot of which is ground.
I average all-in at $2.50/lb, and that's including a lot of variety (including some Elk and Bison next month... at ~$4/lb).
The Suzies stuff looks good, and at a very reasonable price, too.
I try to limit grinds & mixes to under 50% of the diet, so Denna can get some good chunks of meat and bone to chew - the meat sinew is good tooth floss, and the chewable bones (chicken ribs, lamb ribs, etc.) are good tooth brushes. She gets the occasional "big" bone, but she's also already chipped a tooth on something (not sure if it was bone or antler or stick or ???), so those are pretty rare.
Denna is 155lbs now, and eats about 2.8lbs/day (on average), or 20lbs a week of "stuff"... I do a rough estimate on weights now - I do have a spreadsheet to help me plan weekly meal "buckets" (aiming for approx 80/10/10), but mostly I want to make sure she gets enough liver (5%) and kidney/other organs (5%) as I find them.
If you do the math... that runs out to about $190/month for ONE dog. More than kibble, for sure, but seeing all the recalls and knowing the stress I used to put on myself trying to find the "right" bag of kibble before... I LOVE the raw diet! It does get easier as you go along.
And, as the dog gets transitioned to a real, raw diet, their systems are much stronger (IMO), and can handle a lot of changes and new foods that might upset a dog that only gets a single flavor of kibble their whole life.
For example - When we go camping or visiting relatives, if I don't want to pack a cooler full of raw, I put Denna on a quality grain-free kibble for that time... often adding in some freeze dried "raw" stuff, too. She's never had a problem going back and forth between the two. She's normally back on raw within a week, so the system doesn't have time to get "lazy" from too much kibble.
Lots of stuff to think about - but when you do go raw, I think you'll enjoy it, too.
The cheapest meat I can find is whole chicken, on sale, for $0.89/lb... BUT I'm still being careful with chicken, as I think Denna is sensitive to it (gives her a goopy ear)...so... without that cheap option, I go with boneless pork shoulder ($1.90/lb at Costco) and then stuff from our bulk buyers group, a lot of which is ground.
I average all-in at $2.50/lb, and that's including a lot of variety (including some Elk and Bison next month... at ~$4/lb).
The Suzies stuff looks good, and at a very reasonable price, too.
I try to limit grinds & mixes to under 50% of the diet, so Denna can get some good chunks of meat and bone to chew - the meat sinew is good tooth floss, and the chewable bones (chicken ribs, lamb ribs, etc.) are good tooth brushes. She gets the occasional "big" bone, but she's also already chipped a tooth on something (not sure if it was bone or antler or stick or ???), so those are pretty rare.
Denna is 155lbs now, and eats about 2.8lbs/day (on average), or 20lbs a week of "stuff"... I do a rough estimate on weights now - I do have a spreadsheet to help me plan weekly meal "buckets" (aiming for approx 80/10/10), but mostly I want to make sure she gets enough liver (5%) and kidney/other organs (5%) as I find them.
If you do the math... that runs out to about $190/month for ONE dog. More than kibble, for sure, but seeing all the recalls and knowing the stress I used to put on myself trying to find the "right" bag of kibble before... I LOVE the raw diet! It does get easier as you go along.
And, as the dog gets transitioned to a real, raw diet, their systems are much stronger (IMO), and can handle a lot of changes and new foods that might upset a dog that only gets a single flavor of kibble their whole life.
For example - When we go camping or visiting relatives, if I don't want to pack a cooler full of raw, I put Denna on a quality grain-free kibble for that time... often adding in some freeze dried "raw" stuff, too. She's never had a problem going back and forth between the two. She's normally back on raw within a week, so the system doesn't have time to get "lazy" from too much kibble.
Lots of stuff to think about - but when you do go raw, I think you'll enjoy it, too.
