I'm going to be following the sample menu leerburg has up, but the menu calls for meat (with no bone) such as ground beef or turkey. I can't find a place that will sell me such a thing for a price I can afford. The cheapest is 5 pounds for $9 for Walmart brand ground beef. What can I do? Any ideas?

Fish - I bought some canned sardine that is smoked and canned in pure spring water with no other ingredients or seasonings. I want to feed this as a treat/part of the diet but I'm not entirely sure how much to feed. Any ideas?

Look around at the butcher and supermarket. Beef heart is boneless muscle meat. So is stew meat.

Also, have you looked at restaurant suppliers?

You know that you start slow, right, like maybe with chicken backs (peeled for the first couple of meals) and watch poops?

The sardines .... I prefer unsmoked, but the upside is that there are often $1 cans on end caps in even such places as discount drug stores.

I start with small amounts of canned fish to avoid diarrhea.


Have you noticed the threads here where folks list their raw ingredients? Here are a couple:

http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=30449&page=1

http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=31461&page=1

http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=31310&page=1

http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=31099&page=1

Beef heart, pork heart and chicken gizzard are all considered muscle meat for raw feeding, and they are about the cheapest I can find at about a dollar a pound (or sometimes less).

You can also often find cuts of pork for about 1.20 a pound if you look hard, and it's on sale. It might include a hunk of bone (such as in a "picnic roast" or "pork butt" cut)--but you can just remove the bone, and then have a bunch of boneless meat. Same with a whole big turkey. Cut off the breasts and there you go--boneless meat. There's no requirement that the meat be ground.

Cheapest of all is if you can beg free venison from a hunter.

Muscle meat is definitely the more expensive part of raw feeding. You can justify it because the other half of the diet is usually poultry parts which, if you are a good shopper, you can do for 50 cents a pound. So it helps average out the total cost of the diet.

You can feed the sardines as a treat--or substitute them for RMB in the diet, since they contain bones. Canned mackerel is probably a cheaper source of the same thing, if you can find it. If your dog's one of the fish-lovers, you can even feed fresh raw (whole) fish--or even trimmings/heads of fish. The one to avoid is salmon. Never feed a dog raw salmon.


eta: cooked eggs are another substitute for boneless meat. I wouldn't want you to make an entire diet of eggs, but they are a fine food for dogs as part of your regular rotation of protein sources; readily available, and pretty cheap.

Our local Walmart had Beef tongue for $1.05 per pound last week, I beg beef trachia, meat scraps of all sorts, tails, tongues, hearts, organs and tripe off of my butcher. I offer to purchase meat for myself at a conversion price of 50 cents a pound. (He saves me 50 pounds of stuff, then I buy $25 of human meat for my family) It's fun to "find the deals" when you really get into it

Sadly, the local area here is not raw feeder friendly. There are only a few 'gourmet' butcher shops and they refuse to sell scraps because of 'liability' issues. I'm still looking around for resources, but after over a year of trying to find a decent supplier, it's pretty obvious that it's expensive here. At this point, I'm willing to pay $$$ for the diet, but I'm not willing to pay almost $2 a pound for meat!

BTW, do I have to cook the egg? I'm not sure if he'll eat raw egg yet or not, but if he will I'd rather not cook it. I hate the smell of cooked eggs! How much egg should I feed for 85 pound dog? Is it as simple as just giving 12 oz of egg in place of the meat?

I went here http://leerburg.com/webboard/topiclist.php?forum_id=12 (All-Natural Diet for Dogs) and found http://leerburg.com/webboard/thread.php?topic_id=24177&page=1 .... I knew there were egg threads in the Raw Feeding section.

Here http://leerburg.com/webboard/topiclist.php?forum_id=12 is where raw feeding topics really should go, because that's where raw feeders look first when they have questions.

 Quote: Amy VandeWeerd

Our local Walmart had Beef tongue for $1.05 per pound last week.... hearts ....

These are cuts sold for humans .... I would think that any butcher doing their own primal cuts (cuts separated from the actual carcass) has these.

Supermarket butchers (behind the meat counter) can be very helpful too. Developing meat-person relationships pays off.

 Quote: SamanthaTopper

Sadly, the local area here is not raw feeder friendly. There are only a few 'gourmet' butcher shops and they refuse to sell scraps because of 'liability' issues. I'm still looking around for resources, but after over a year of trying to find a decent supplier, it's pretty obvious that it's expensive here. At this point, I'm willing to pay $$$ for the diet, but I'm not willing to pay almost $2 a pound for meat!

Do you have freezer room for frozen shipments from a restaurant supplier?

I have a chest freezer that is dedicated to dog food (with the odd turkey for us). However, with an impending move, buying bulk isn't possible, and I didn't find a supplier when I had looked earlier this year. When the move happens and everything dies down, I'll try it again but if anyone has and ideas for suppliers I can save the info.

btw, sorry for posting outside the area.

Many post everything in "General Dog" .... I'm guilty too. It was a reminder to all of us that it's a lot easier to find the stuff later if it's in the right section.

Will you still be in LA after the move (for the info of those who might have source suggestions)?