I thought I'd chime in to this thread after reading it and getting starting with it's name sake.
I originally started breeding some rats because I was gonna get a ferret and wanted to feed them raw as well. Well after about 2 months of waiting I finally got my first rat litter (had to buy the rats young) and that whole enterprise led to the thought of, "hey, why couldn't we breed other animals for ourselves and the dogs?". So away my roommate and I went.
Right now we have 1.3 rabbits, expecting our first litter in a few weeks and will likely expand that to 1.5-1.7. In addition I have 11 laying pullets and 25 meat chicks in the brooder right now. Now most of these animals are gonna be for our 2 dogs. We've got a GSD and border collie.
But considering a typical meal for the dogs is about 1.5lbs, we don't need the birds and rabbits to get anywhere near human butcher weight, so we'll most likely be dispatching them around the 1.5lb mark. Now I realize that they wont fully be grown yet and the mineral ratios in the bone will be different, so we'll be letting some of them grow up more, so that the dogs get a variety of ages.
However, I thought about something today, and follow my logic. If you raise a Cornish cross for the dogs. You're looking at about $1.65-1.75 per bird to buy as chicks. They have a 2:1 feed conversion ratio, meaning to get to 1.5 lbs per bird they'll eat 3lbs of feed. Now I get my feed for $16.50 for a 50lb bag. Meaning they'll eat about $1 worth of food to get to 1.5lb per bird. Bringing the total cost of a Cornish X to about $2.64/bird. Now, I started thinking that the Cornish cross has been super selectively breed for muscle meat production, and thus doesn't have the same ratio of bone to muscle as more wild game. And if we're trying to approximate nature as much as possible, perhaps we should switch to a breed that hasn't been messed with as much. Given that, if we go to a hatchery website, we can get the standard breed dual purpose birds for about $0.86/bird (if we purchase 50 at a time) if we get only males (why not, they're cheaper and we'll be dispatching them before they get "male-y"). Now if we assume they have a feed conversion ratio of about 2.5:1, that means they'll eat about $1.23 in feed per bird. Now they'll have to grow to about 12 wks vs. the 8 for Cornish X (another assumption based on my birds current growth rate), but feeding them is the cheap part. So when you factor in the price of the bird, we can feed a dual purpose breed (Black Australorp, RIR, etc) for about $2.09/bird w/o shipping. Meaning we can feed a more natural variety of bird that gives better bone:muscle ratio, for cheaper than using a Cornish X. So for me, the numbers seem to indicate that I should save the Cornish X for myself and roommate, and get the males of the Dual purpose breeds for the dogs. Way cheaper, and it has the benefit of the males always being available for order since no body wants them. And if you're worrying about price. That means that at $2.09 for a 1.5lb bird (which is one whole meal),that puts your price per pound at $1.36. Now if you feed the bagged chicken leg quarters like I do for $0.67/lb plus some organ meat. I figure that comes in around $0.90/lb. So you're able to feed whole prey raw to your dog for about $0.46/lb more than store prices. Pretty awesome if you ask me.
Now for inspiration. I'm doing all this in a back yard that's 1000sq ft, in a rental house in a suburban neighborhood. And I'm in college living off student loans and a part time job. I've got the rats and chicks in cages in the basement, and have sectioned off a part of the yard for the chickens. And the rabbits are in hutches. It's not much work at all, and with the rabbits having about the same feed conversion ratio. You've got whole prey rats, rabbits, and chickens, to feed to your dog all year long (not to mention for yourself as well), for not much more than you're paying for store bought DIY raw...I'll take it.
*I'm also a member of BYC and that website has some really great tips for getting started on the cheap
...and the training has started