Quote: rhaean bury

I am also trying convince my husband that the added cost of feeding 35 dogs raw will out weigh the cost of vet bills

still working on it.:-)

I do believe it will be a cost-saver in the long run (and the not-so-long run, too).

I also believe that you can match or beat the cost of premium commercial food.

One thing is that you will have the buying power to get good prices on cases of chicken backs, which would probably be my basic RMB if I had a lot of dogs like that. (As I have mentioned many times , chicken backs are a great basic RMB, with their easy-to-chew bones and their low price. They really have no downside, IMO.)

You will be able to buy salmon oil in wholesale cartons of three or four bottles...... You can pick up crates of less-than-perfect leafy greens at farmers' markets just before they close ....

You will be able to get quantity deals that most of us just can't buy enough to get.

And although I realize this is anecdotal, I can add that every person in our club who feeds raw concurs with this: My dogs have no chronic ailments, and no vet stuff except for the occasional injury and their regular checkups.

I mostly have "pre-owned" dogs, and a few have been rescues who were surrendered because their owners couldn't handle the cost of chronic conditions like skin pruritis and ear infections.

Fresh real food (plus Omega 3s with E) is my secret weapon.

P.S. Even rescues who came with very bad dental placque improved their oral health with raw.

One guy I acquired last summer had teeth so bad that his mouth just stunk, and he had trouble chewing. I did have to have a few extracted, and I am planning a good cleaning next month, but his teeth are visibly better. I had hoped that the switch to raw would at least halt the continuing damage, but he is actually reversing some of that built-up tartar. :>

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I do believe it will be a cost-saver in the long run (and the not-so-long run, too).

I also believe that you can match or beat the cost of premium commercial food.

I agree with Connie here.

Cases of chicken can be quite inexpensive, especially if you live in a major center or near a poultry farm.

Being from AB you can probably even get supplemental free food from friends/aquaintances that hunt (offer to help clean and carry ). Game butchers in hunting season are also great sources of wild game meat for very low prices. In hunting season I can get ground venison for next to nothing. All the bones I want too.

Heck, with a whole kennel you can just by whole cow/buffalo or elk and devide it yourself. It will be quite cheap... but dirty.

I even know people in AB who have deals with CO's to let them have access to fresh roadkilled deer. Not suggesting you do this, just letting you know you can be creative!

If you by all pre made commercial raw dog food, it will be more expensive than kibble.

Good luck in your search!

Cheers,

jennifer: when you switched to raw what amount were you feeding and what is the averge cost of feed your dog ?
I have looked into bulk meat and can get it for about .90 a lb which with all the other ingredients and such it would be about $1.98 perlb to feed raw.

my kennel friend has her own diet of these thing in order of quanity:
raw meat(any kind)
carrot/ peas raw/veggies
rice
rolled oats
fish oil
vitamins

all mixed into a paste about 3-4 cups per dog depending on size and weight

what do you all think of this diet? I was told by my grandmother who ran dog teams in the north that the dogs would travel about 30- 40 miles a day doing daily chores(dogs were the only transport deep in the bush) they got feed 1/4 of a 20lb pike every day and they were good weight she said she would fast them one day once a week. she said they were fed it frozen in the winter and then it was cooked up in the summer to make a paste then fed they also had the occational squirrel body(sorry about the details) but she refered to the beaver and squirrel meat as "hot meat" very rich.
any thoughts on this?

I just want to produce the best food for the dogs that will give them the best health and performance. mostly health I want a kennel of happy healthy dogs with energy.

I forgot to say we do add meat and fat to the diet in winter(the only way to maintain weight in the working season) I have been talking with farmers here to up the amount of cows we can get I just finished fixing 3 cows this last month to freeze for winter I guess I can increase the amount of cows this year to make for enough for raw.the problem is it is calving season and no one is selling good organic cows.

Hey there.

I will reply because you adressed me personally.

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my kennel friend has her own diet of these thing in order of quanity:
raw meat(any kind)
carrot/ peas raw/veggies
rice
rolled oats
fish oil
vitamins

all mixed into a paste about 3-4 cups per dog depending on size and weight

what do you all think of this diet?

You are missing a source of edible bone. Connie suggested poultry as an inexpensive form of RMB

You are also missing some organ meat

I would forget the veggies in every meal. This is personal. I would occasionally add some dark leafy greens (blended)or odd other veg but not every day. It will do nothing to keep weight on your dogs and IMPO I see ground carrot coming out of my dog's behind undiegested, so I don't bother with it.

Instead worrying to much about the veg focus on feeding a good amount a week of Raw green tripe. Good species appropriate veg source and will help keep weight on. Many other benefits.

Grains are not part of a raw diet. I will segway here and say if you compete with your dogs in sledding there maybe a bunch of stuff that raw mushers have figured out works for this sport that I am not aware of. I strongly suggest you speak to RAW feeding mushers about how they are doing things. I think there would be a big difference what dogs need to be fed during the Ididerod sp? vs. what dogs doing the odd dog sled tour need to eat. You must figure out where your dogs fit in.

Fish oil-for sure very important.

vitamins-I don't supplement. I am confident my dog gets what he needs in his raw diet. There is some kelp in some of the raw pre made food my dog gets though. If you have specific reason to supplement go for it, but educate yourself on supplementing first.

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jennifer: when you switched to raw what amount were you feeding and what is the averge cost of feed your dog ?

I started feeding 1 lbs of raw a day to my 35 lbs dog. It was not enough. About 1.75 to 2 lbs a day is what I feed my 43 lbs working dog. I like him at this weight and he is full grown, I use the rib check meathod to determine if I need to up or down the amount I am feeding.

I can't say how much it costs me right now. I think you can do better than that price. I live in a small town so had to buy most of my meat from the grocery store at first, so it was a bit pricey. My cost were lowered considerably when I started geting meat/bone from local hunters and found the friendly game butcher in the next town over.

I now have a food sponser. I get a lot of pre-made novel protein stuff from them, i feed the wild game I scrounge myself, and buy a few things I think are important that my raw sponser does not carry (like tripe ) I am lucky.

I could go on and on, but you need to do some more research, before asking too many more questions. Lurk and search on the raw feeding pages I gave earlier, do the same on this sight on the raw feeding threads, read Ed's articles on nutrition, talk to some raw mushers, read a Tom Lonsdale book......Be prepared for some conflicting advice. You will be the one that determines what is the ultimate diet for your dogs. You are on the right track After you have done a bit more research you will be ready to ask a whole new bunch of questions!!!

Also this site has some good info/articles, please everyone note that this is NOT my food sponser. I know this is not a place to advertise.

http://urbancarnivore.com/

Good luck and hope to see you on the "dark side" soon!

Cheers,

thank you so much all of you.

From What I have seen most mushers with a bigger kennel do not feed raw completely they have kibble and then add meat and fat the same as what I am doing right now.

so that is why I came here to get good advice from people that are feeding raw right now. so once again Thank you.

I am still reading and looking into what we need to do. we have 2 types of dogs here
easy keepers- dogs that will maintain anything eat anything and keep a good weight all the time.
then the hard keepers- we have to monitor closely every week the weight and health of each dog.

so more research and more reading :-)

 Quote: rhaean bury

thank you so much all of you.

From What I have seen most mushers with a bigger kennel do not feed raw completely they have kibble and then add meat and fat the same as what I am doing right now.

A course I did last year on canine nutrition included some details about mushers and how much additional fat they need to feed (and do) when working.

However, even though there are some items that are tweaked for certain kinds of work and climates, it's vital to keep in mind the meat-bone ratio.

Adding significant amounts of muscle meat without the bones that "come" with it is a nutritional error, and the more significant the muscle meat addition, the more serious the error.

I certainly don't mean you personally -- I just mean that whenever we supplement a commercial diet or make a partial switch to raw or totally delete the kibble --- it's vital to keep in mind the way dogs need meat. They need it the way it "comes" in nature: attached to bones.


I agree 100% with Jennifer about studying a book or two, or any authoritative raw feeding web site, before devising a diet. Either that, or follow the meal suggestions of a diet that is balanced, like the Leerburg 7-day menu (or the Lonsdale or Shultze books).

There is conflicting advice on almost every aspect, but not on the absolute necessity for including RMBs in the same proportion that they are included in a wild canid's prey.

Good for you, that you are reading up. It scares me that I have read and heard several times recently about people who got worried when the commercial food recall got so huge, and they decided to give their dogs a meat diet -- with no RMBs (so no calcium).