Freezing in Bulk and Food Diaries

I keep meaning to buy in bulk and prepare a week or more worth of food at a time, but I can never seem to just get around to doing it! Either I only have enough money to buy a small amount of food, and then it barely sits in the fridge long enough, never mind needing to be frozen.

If you are a raw feeder, how do you prepare your meals for the week? Do you do the lazy (and yet more work) way like I do and just pop a package in the fridge when you know you need it, or do you package and freeze or do you just freeze and then thaw and weigh what you need once it's thawed? We have a small deep freeze on the back porch and a small freezer in fridge, and I feel I never have enough room. I am considering buying my sister's old freezer off her (or doing a switch, she wants a smaller deep freeze and I want a bigger one lol). Her freezer had a lot of meat which went bad in it because the freezer was unplugged, I'm not sure it's been cleaned or not. I don't think so, which means that would be a lot of work, but a freezer fit for dog food!

Do you also keep a food diary?
I use to. I tried really hard. I keep kicking myself for not updating it because my dog will have a health problem show up and I think "oh god, what food did it?" and have to try to remember what I fed them recently! I keep the log in the kitchen, it's right there, I just don't write in it when I should!

Kibble is far easier, I will give it that... but seeing Unit's beautiful fur coming back in makes all this work completely worth it.

Left: Unit's fur in May 2012

Below: This is the most recent photo I have on this computer that shows her fur. You can see it's still patchy but there's actually FUR in the patches now and not bald spots! This photo was taken January 2013. I will try to get some new photos that show her fur better and post them soon :) And yes, she loves her kitty cat hehe

Introduction

I have debated creating a separate blog specifically for Raw Feeding for a while now. I often post under the Dog Blog but finally decided that this topic deserved it's own blog. You can find my previous Health and Nutrition posts on the Dog Blog Archive, but from now on all Raw Feeding posts will be made here!

I'd also decided that as a part of this blog I would be posting more about my cat(s). Meet Jarokko Rootwo. He is about 2 years old and loves to hunt. he also loves to share his hunts with us, which we do not quite appreciate. Jarokko is a superb bird hunter.

Our other cat (not pictured) is Polly. She is roughly 14 years old and I don't really write about her often. She is my boyfriend's cat, and switching her to raw is something I sometimes dread and part of the reason I have not fully switched the cats yet. Polly is extremely picky and addicted to kitty crack (kibble). Not just any kitty crack, but I have to buy her a specific brand and flavor or she will turn her nose up at it. I have never seen her hunt mice or birds either. Switching her, I'm sure, will pose a great challenge.

The other reason I have not yet switched the cats is because a cat's diet is a little more complicated than a dogs. Cats are obligate carnivores. They do not thrive or require any types of vegetables, fruits or grains.

Cats also do not manufacture taurine on their own.  Before the 1980's no one knew this and cat food manufacturers were not adding taurine to the cat food. Cats began dying of a heart condition called cardiomyopathy until 1987, when researchers discovered the omission and started adding the taurine to cat food. [1]

The last reason why I have not yet switched my cats to a full raw diet is because of money. Yes, I and many other raw feeders, will tell you that raw food is not any more expensive than store bought kibble, IF you know where to get it. I live in a small town where the grocery stores are far too over priced and getting free range and humanely treated meat at a fair price can be a task in it's own to feed ourselves, never mind the animals too! Feeding the dogs sometimes costs a bit extra if the usual, cheaper meats aren't available and I have yet to figure out a method of storing, packaging and buying in large quantities that is saving me time and money. So until I do, I'm afraid our kitties will be eating kitty crack a little while longer.

While I will also stress that my animals are carnivores, I DO feed a very small amount of fruits and veggies (but never grains). Some fruits and veggies have a bit of added nutrition my dogs can benefit from, and I do not see the harm in occasionally feeding one of these items to make sure they are getting a wide range of nutrition, especially, as explained above, when a variety of meats isn't always available. However, the majority of their meals consist of bone, meat and organs.

Meet The Dogs

Coal (right) is 10 years old, he is a Labrador Retriever x Border Collie and was switched to raw when he was 9 years old. I wouldn't call him picky, but he is more selective in what he'll eat than Unit.

I decided to finally switch Coal, even though it's something I'd considered since he was a puppy, when it became clear that there was no other suitable diet for Unit and I figured if I was going to switch one dog I'd better switch both. I was a little worried about switching Coal, since he is older and has had a lot of years eating over processed and poor quality foods, but the switch was fairly easy on him and he will now actually turn his nose up at kibble! He knows what the good stuff is!

Patrol Unit 7245 (left) is approximately 3 - 4 years old and is a pit bull cross god knows how many other breeds! She will eat anything she can get a hold of, there is not much she won't eat. However, there is a lot she SHOULDN'T eat! Unit has Seborrhea Oleosa, triggered by severe allergies. This means the list of what she can eat is very small and makes it extremely hard to always find her low-cost meat and especially hard to even out the ratio of bones to meat that she eats.