I have a 70lb wolfdog who eats about 2lbs of raw each day. On average it costs me about $100/month. I save money buying chicken quarters for her bone requirements (and this obviously comes along with some of her daily muscle meat too). As a large dog she can easily crunch through these bones. And because chicken quarters are usually one of the cheapest cuts of meat available, it brings down the overall cost per pound of her entire diet.
I have a 12 year old dobermann and a 16 week old dobermann puppy. I use ready made and homemade meals. Ithink it costs me around $150 a month. This is only until the puppy gets to adult size and then I think itll be more like $100. Apart from being spayed, liv hasn't cost anything at the vets in her 12 years. Some might say it wasnt the raw food, but all her siblings died from cancers from the ages of 5 to 10 years old. Shes amazing and people think shes a youngster still. Raw all the way!
I was planning on getting orijen for my dog but this really opened my eyes. I never realized that raw food wasn’t so expensive after all thank you!! I’ll definitely looking into raw food for my dog now
I have a husky, who is about 40 pounds. She eats a balanced raw diet, thanks to this channel! I have done my research and I am so happy with the results. I have noticed now, that she only sheds when it's time to blow her coat in the summer (which is terrific). The only real downside is that my dog is picky and doesn't want to eat unless I feed it to her. So I have to grind the meat into balanced portions and hand feed her. Anyways, I spend about $120 on my dog every month and she eats twice a day. I was wondering whether you feed your pets twice a day.
Mariah feeds once daily for Matsu I have a 25lb Pomsky and she is also picky and doesn't really wanna eat unless I hand feed her since that's how I started to avoid resource guarding. I've been feeding her once daily now as well since she was only choosing to eat around dinner time (Which meant she only ate half of what she should have gotten) I learned that a lot of dogs prefer not to eat in the morning. If they don't eat their food when you put it down for them, seal it and put it back in the fridge for later. They'll learn that when you put food down, it's time to eat. Sometimes you need to be more strict where you take the food away until their next scheduled feeding or if you see them throwing up bile.
I feed Matsu a "breakfast soup" in the morning, which is a small portion of his meal with water or bone broth, then the rest of his food in the evening
I own 2 dogs over 72lbs. It is way more expensive to feed raw. Way more expensive to feed raw and balanced. Chicken is an inflammatory meat (it is hot and a very dirty bird) from a TCVM. The thing is, raw will keep a much healthier dog. Either you pay the Vet or you pay the grocer. We buy premade raw from the pet store for variety, but it is pricey. Kibble is garbage and continually going to a vet is not on my radar. Raw is expensive especially rotating meals, but we don't rely on a vet for pills as before when feeding kibble.
I’m sorry, but you should probably get going to a vet “on your radar” in case of emergencies. Unless you are highly educated in dog physiology, vets are necessary in so many circumstances. I’ve never exclusively relied on my vet for treatment, but with my own supplemental education and their professional diagnoses, it’s been essential to visit my vet when my dog was sick.
Vet verses diet is actually a fair argument (for the most part). I’d still have a vet and be on good terms with them, but your overall philosophy makes sense.
@@robinfarrar3493 we only use a Holistic Vet. Honestly, my dogs are so much healthier with a holistic vet. Never using vets who are owned by Hills or Mars (a candy company). Over 50,000 vets in this country are owned by kibble companies.
You forgot to add in the cost of vet visits, cancer, yeast and other ailments our animals get from commercial food. Framed in that perspective, a raw food diet is far cheaper, while being so much healthier!
The food kept giving my dog ear infections, he shook his head, ended up with pillow ear TWICE 1K EACH time they wanted.... Emergency room as this snowballed 1,800 plus.... :/
I have a 15 month old Cane Corso (145lb male, intact). He eats 2145 grams a day (4.7lbs). I'm in Vancouver, Canada and I average about $2.5/pound of food. So with supplements and toppings, its about $12.5-15 per day or $375-400 per month. Homemade and balanced.
Hi! We’re also in Vancouver, wondering where you are sourcing your meats? I want to branch off and introduce more proteins/organs but I’m having trouble finding anything beyond T&T and the occassional raw food store :/
Thank you for doing this cost breakdown. I've been considering switching to raw for a while now (I've already weaned my 5 cats off kibble, including one who "needed" a prescription diet) but I thought it would be way too expensive. I'm currently feeding FF exclusively (I switched to it during the pandemic because it was the only canned food I could reliably find). @3:56 Your 14.6lbs haul for $40.15 gives a cost of $2.75 per pound. I just bought a month's worth of canned food from Amaz*n (the cheapest place I could find it). I got TWELVE 30-can poultry variety packs of two different combinations for a total of $265.51. The price per pound of the FF was $3.66 for one variety and $4.21 for the other. At 3oz/can, 30 cans per pack and 12 packs give a total of 67.5lbs. This video is about a year old so the prices have likely gone up, but for comparison sake if I use your cost per pound and apply it to the amount of FF I buy then my cost would be about $185.63 for raw, a savings of about $80/month. You sold me! This week I'll be going on tour of my local suppliers to see what I can find and start stocking up in order to prepare to transition them. Thanks Mariah!
I’d love to switch my boy to raw, and start my Doberman on raw when I get them, but I would probably start out with a commercial raw food, while learning how to make raw myself. I know that commercial raw is more expensive, but I would rather use that as the main meal while I learn. Especially since I have to avoid chicken for my Pomeranian.
Steve’s Real Food, if you can find it comes out to like $5-6/lbs. it also has my favorite ingredient list, minimal veg, only a few supplements, mostly Meat, organs and bones.
What puts me off raw is how complicated it is to make sure your feeding everything that's needed it's not just as simple as throwing a piece of raw meat to dog I have two pups both just under three months one a border collie one a yorkie cross they're on dry food and I want to go raw but too scared ill screw up and give them the wrong quantities. I don't even have dog scales do keep track of their weight as they grow
This site has feeding chart cheat sheets, and I even purchased a formulator here for $19.00. You can also choose to purchase pre-made raw if DIY scares you. In this video, she balances the meal, and uses supplements to cover any nutrient shortfalls. You can also purchase base mixes to do that, if you are okay feeding some low glycemic fruits and vegetables. She appears to be following a modified Prey Model diet. I prefer a modified BARF model diet.
You have to add due to the currency difference even average dry kibbles are expensive in developing nations, feeding raw made more sense to me, i'll try it when my kitten is a bit older 🥰
I have never considered raw food in the past. I just got a puppy and am looking for a clean diet for him but isn’t raw food a big risk for salmonella and other bacteria??
It's also less expensive bc you won't have high vet bills as they get older . . . . just like humans. Thank you for showing how simple it is buying and shopping. I'm going to be more diligent when I go shopping. Trader Joes is usually very limited. I'm sure organic is better too.
Organic is better, but definitely more expensive. I intend to take advantage of sales and markdown meats. I also have a hunter in the family, and can get duck and deer for free when he hunts. Wild caught food is best to freeze for a while anyway to kill parasites. I usually get frozen meats from his kills when it has sat in the freezer too long and it’s time to throw out.
I feed my dogs often raw chicken quarters from Aldi. They are a Greater swiss Mountain dog (50kg) and a swizzy (40kg) and never had problems with digesting the bones. They crack them a few times while gobbling them down.
I could buy bulk chicken pieces here in South Africa but they are all brine injected so I cannot feed that to my GSD. Because meat is quite expensive and we do not have special markets like Asian markets or the like I have no choice but to feed my boy a part kibble part raw diet. But despite this he is thriving and not just surviving. What is your opinion on bulk chicken pieces injected with brine? Is there a way to get rid of the brine before feeding it to the dog?
I'm sure if there even was a way to remove the brine, it wouldn't be worth the time. I highly doubt all that salt can be removed without also removing important nutrients from the chicken and blood.
One thing I do to save on the dog budget is to groom my own dogs. I save a couple thousand dollars a year doing this. I would rather spend this money feeding them a healthy diet.
I can partly groom my boy, but I have shaky hands and I’m not confident in shaping his coat. I mainly do his sanitary, and his paws. Doing this makes it where he only needs to go about every 2 months, which is far more affordable.
@@early_morning_sd_team Every little bit helps. Some people do have disabilities that prevent them from grooming their own dogs. However, most people I think are just fearful about doing it…just like they can be with raw feeding or learning anything new.
@@mamabear9389 I am a groomer and people are definitely scared but most dogs I groom are pretty aggressive and it would be dangerous for the average pet owner to attempt themselves.
@@tormor9019 I think it is best to start home grooming from little on. However, I would hate to hand over an aggressive dog to a groomer! Groomers should not have to deal with that.
I have 2 mastiffs. Im trying to source cost efficient organs before I jump in 100%. Im doing 20% raw now. But we are looking at 7lbs a day for both. It looks like it will cost about $15-20 a day. Thats a lot for me but im going to try and make it happen
i saw a study that showed that you can remove like 80% of the salt in certain canned foods just by washing them under water. you can also just test it by yourself. taste a piece of oyster before and after washing it, huge difference.
Thank you for sharing this video - it was super informative! It is too bad that you couldn't find oysters! Also, who knew that wet food was so pricey???
Several people I know have switched to one of the latest fresh food diets like NomNom or JustFoodForDogs. I wonder how these would compare price wise. I also wonder about these diets in general, not that I am thinking of them. I am hooked on raw. However, they are definitely better than kibble and probably canned. There is a UA-cam channel called The Stumpey Brigade. He has five Corgis and some cats and feeds homemade raw.
I am currently on Farmers dog and spending $170 for 21 days worth of food for my 40lb dog. She is a senor so transitioning to raw is going to take time. but after watching this, im confident raw is cheaper than the human grade pre madefoods.
@@michellethomas6494 I think raw could be cheaper. I make my own but sometimes it helps to use some of the pre made grinds to start with and then you can add extras. My Pet Carnivore and Hare Today have reasonably priced whole prey grinds. What I don’t like about the fresh food diets I have looked at is that they are loaded with synthetic vitamins and minerals so the food cannot stand on its own. I really like making my own but the grinds could be helpful at first, especially the whole prey grinds because they contain parts of the whole animal.
How much it cost to feed Raw can really truly depend on where you live and what resources are in your area. many of us do not live in an area where we can source the right ingredients. This means we have to order it in which costs more. It's just something you have to consider.
Been feeding my kitties homemade raw for over a year now and it's actually much cheaper than any mid-high tier wet food and cheaper than most high tier kibble. Raw food rivals a few bottom tier wet foods in terms of cost for me. More expensive than mid and some high tier kibble on average but 100% worth the extra bit to be feeding fresh identifiable unprocessed human grade food. List of ingredients I'm currently rotating through: Chicken heart Chicken meat Chicken gizzard Chicken liver Chicken wing tips Pork heart Pork meat Pork tongue Pork kidney Beef heart Beef meat Beef kidney Lamb meat Lamb liver Turkey meat Turkey liver Duck meat Duck liver Smelts Sardines Salmon Mussels Shrimp Kelp Vitamin E Vitamin D Egg shell Blueberries Nutritional Yeast Zinc Bone broth It's a long list but the price per day for both of my kitties is cheap for the quality of food. Usually about $1.50/per cat, per day so $3.00 a day to feed both. Absolutely well worth that for my kitties.
Do you freeze the extra food when you prepare this huge meal because it seems like a lot of meat and I keep reading that raw meat attracts a lot of bacteria way faster.
Raw is very expensive. Good quality meat, grass fed is expensive. Chicken is cheap, but it is an inflammatory to dogs with Leaky Gut, allergies or yeast which is 80% of dogs. Kibble and canned has no nutritional value. What you see on a label is not in the bag. If you look on most bags, like Hills it is owned by Colgate-Palmolive company. Toothpaste employees make the kibble and teach vets how fabulous the garbage is. Or a person can buy another bag of kibble Purina who's maker is Nestlé! So candy companies make your dog's food. Nothing compares to raw or gently cooked if the dog cannot handle raw which is rare. 🥰
I haven't watched a lot of videos yet, but (for cats), I've seen that your website states up to 55% muscle meat, and your video said 83% muscle meat, which one is best?
I can see how thats a bit confusing! So what I mean by "muscle meat" in my earlier videos includes both muscular tissue and muscular organs, so 83% muscular tissue WITH muscular organs. What I mean by 55% muscle meat now is 55-58% pure muscular tissue, and I reserve the remaining 20-30% to be muscular organs. I think it's important to separate them. The percentages will always vary though, but thats a general recommended range.
@@PawsofPrey hello, thank you for this excellent video. Wondering if gizzards are considered the same as muscle meat in your calculations? Thanks in advance.
I accidentally bought 6 months instead of 1 months worth of ingredients and cuz I was used to buying commercial food I thought it was a little expensive but legit said "well this is reasonable enough"
i have 8 cats, and i own a small homestead where i raise meat rabbits, chickens, ducks, and occasionally goats. i use TCfeline premix, which means i only need to add the powder to water, egg yolk, meat, and liver. for all 8 of my cats, im spending only about $100 a month - i feed half raw and half wet food. it does take more time(luckily for me, my husband does the hard work and processes the meat so i don't have to), but it's SO WORTH IT.
Lots of raw feeders use meat grinders. Some people are afraid to feed bone that isn’t ground up, and some owners have dogs with no teeth and need it ground up.
I have 6 dog and 1 cat and we are luckily in a place where we can start adding meat into their diets. i was wondering if yall could answer a really big question for us. for our dogs their weights are, 150lbs, 70lbs, 2-60lbs, and 2-30lbs, and a +/-5lbs cat. i know doing a complete raw diet is out of the question for us, ut i wanna add all these things into their diet but with their regular kibble. We are going to be using bone broth to make their food softer (except Holliday his teeth are extremely fragile so he has a different food then the rest. so the question i have is can just do a small portion supplement instead of having the meat the whole thing?
My GSD is on a raw diet, but I kind of have a blended approach for her. There is a local company in my area that sells premade meat-organ-bone blends at 80/10/10. It usually costs me $175 for 40 lbs of food, which lasts about 5-6 weeks.
Wow, your spending a lot more than I do and he is smaller than my dog. Have you considered going directly to an abattior butcher? Or is it just more expensive in where you live? The supermarket meat you get seems more expensive than my supermarket...
one thing no one talks about is the cost of CLEAN raw diets... I'm talking grass fed non vaccinated meat. probably the easiest way to come across a bunch of it is to find a farmer with crop destruction permits for deer granted that's not exactly grass fed but its pretty close
Question and suggestion from anyone. I have been feeding my pup since I got him at 11 weeks. He’s now 17 weeks. I have studied, watched videos to get raw feeding right. He transitioned well and loves the food. We have decided to do PMR. The problem is that he has dark tar like diarrhea. I thought I may have been giving him to much liver. But calculated, and recalculated the measurements. I may have been of by a small fraction. He was diagnosed with Giardia, and had a round of antibiotics. No hook or round worms. I gave him a weekend off from the raw, and only fed him white rice and boiled chicken heart. Him poop was solid and tan. Once I started him back in the raw. The diarrhea came back. HELP
It's possible your pup still has Giardia. I had to do a 2nd round of antibiotics to get rid of it. And if your dogs poops are still dark and runny, I would say you'd need a bit more calcium/bone content. You can also add slippery elm powder to their meal to help with diarrhea
Just an update. My pup is now negative for Giardia. Also by adding more bone he has a normal poop. Other than the grass he like to pull up and eat. Thanks for all of the advice. One more question. Any suggestions on how much kelp, zinc picolinate, e-oil, and slippery elm although this may be as needed or should I give in a regular basis?
Indeed, expensive but nothing is more expensive than a veterinarian bill. I've been feeding cats raw diets for 15+ years now. Never had any health problems, healthy teeth, fur, eyes, etc. I have 15+ cats that have the energy of a kitten. A raw diet is what a carnivorous animal should be eating period. Anyone that says differently is not educated and doesn't care for their pets' health.
Do you use pumpkin seeds for zinc instead of the zinc picolinate supplement? Of course, oysters is the best source of zinc whenever you can get it. Thanks 🙏
I'm going to be training my pup in competition Obedience. I really wanna feed raw but I want to hand feed my pup to train with. I can't seem to find any good info on training with a raw diet? Is it possible? Will I get less training reps? How do I hand feed and train with a raw diet?
In a rural area, and do not have the local sourced markets, nor the more foreign markets. Prices are also high for specialty items, if found, at the grocery store. Not sure if can provide proper balance, affordably, for an 80 pound dog.
I'm just starting gathering items for starting a raw diet for my cat. I'm a little worried about variety in muscle organs and the second secreting organ. I do have pork and chicken heart available which is a must. But far I can only really find chicken gizzard and beef kidney regularly. Would that be okay long term? I going to try scouting out the near by farms, so I might be able to get beef, elk, pork and lamb. But I'm not entirely sure
@@patriciaandjudgey1442 Thank you for giving me a heads up. I live in Canada so the risk of feeding pork is a bit lower. But I bought my pork heart from a local Asia market. It was just in a zip lock, so just to be extra save I will probably just cook it. I emailed a couple of farms, so hopefully I can get some good stuff. I am most likely dumb, but I also figured out that pacific canned oyster and eastern canned oysters have different nutrients. Go for the eastern ones for zinc since it has 91mg, pacific only has 16.1mg. If you are using the paws of prey formulator. Eastern oysters are the canned oyster in the system
My dog eats home cooked meals, about $80-100 per month (but like I'm buying meats that are 10-12 dollars a pound more than half the time) for a 23-pound dog.
Dat Mew Pin tho xD But on more serious matters, I'm conflicted with raw chicken as I think my dog may have an allergy to it, but it's the cheapest cuts I can get. I was reading that what chickens are fed imbalances their Omega 3 to 6 ratios tremendously which could result in skin inflammation in the dog. Is this true?
Hehe :p And yes this can be true with poorly raised/fed chickens, but if you can find chicken fed a species appropriate diet and raised in a proper environment, they tend to have a better 6:3 ratio! But if your dog has a true chicken allergy, you will need to eliminate it from the diet.
This 100%!! The ingredients in commercial foods are so crappy that even buying a high quality kibble or wet food is going to be full of fillers and carbs. It feels like such a waste of money when you can just get stuff from the same grocery store you use for yourself!!
@@jjradV that's not biologically appropriate and if you're watching this channel you should know that. watch literally any other video on this channel to learn more!
The pre-made raw (Viva or We Feed Raw) is significantly more expensive at over $450 a month for my dog vs $90 for a bag of kibble :( and that's not even adding any supplemental nutrition.
I am more worried how safe it is to buy meat at the market and feeding my pooch raw. Can you make a video after your shopping and how you store them when you get home plus preparation for that days meal. Thanks.
Treat raw food just like you would for yourself, clean your prep area before and after. Wash your hands anytime you need to touch anything that isn’t raw meat. Prep your meals in ziplock bags or plastic storage containers. Seal them and freeze them. Pull out two to 2 bags or however much you plan to feed for two days. Let it sit in the fridge and defrost. Once it’s defrosted feed them and then wash their bowls with hot soapy water or dishwasher. You have to remember that dogs contain enzymes in their stomachs to process raw meat. The same DNA from wolves are from where dogs came from. Look at their teeth and how their jaws work they are meant to kill and eat. Just we humanized dogs and cats to become house pets
Some people feed those things, while others only feed it when treating diarrhea. Starchy vegetables are controversial, so you will hear lots of conflicting info about it. I don’t feed it to my dog, but wouldn’t hesitate if I needed it make up a nutrient shortfall.
Great video, very well made and has excellent info. I do think you need to include the time spent on the road (to multiple grocery stores), prepping, and cleaning up. Because time is money. For me, I want the best for my cat, so I feed him premium wet food that's $0.58/oz, topped with good quality novel protein freeze dried that ranges from $3.89/oz to $4.34/oz. It takes me about 1 minute to prep for each meal, and another minute to clean up. I'm all for raw feeding, and am hoping to incorporate chicken feet/whole prays in the future as treats/small meals, but between working full time, volunteering, keeping up with my other hobbies, I just don't have the time to invest into feeding 100% raw.
Variety is key. I don’t want to feed any protein source every day. It can give them excess nutrients and nutrient deficiencies simultaneously. I am feeding a pre-made raw until I can source and stick up enough protein sources to make 3-4 unique meals. I have a chest freezer I can use for my protein hauls.
Processed diets, are typically the same prices all the time. Fresh food prices, vary. With a roomy freezer you can stock up on meats, when their prices are at their lowest.
I have 3 large dogs - 2 are German shepherds. It costs about $600 a month. They're worth it. I don't make it, I call in the order to the local butcher and they make it, pack it and I pick it up weekly. I'd rather spend a little more than go to the store, hunt for deals and do all the prep work. I save hours of time.
What's affordable for me is a balanced raw meal in though this is the bones meat and organs without the supplement and vitamins I buy and add them with 10% veggie's, fruit and nuts and herb/kelp supplement..I realise now I don't know what exactly they put in these meals but i do want to vary the meat ( deer, turkey,lamb, chicken, beef, fish,pheasant etc). But this is what I can affort and I think and believe,better then kibble
All my friends are so set on feeding the crappiest food ever (Purina) because they think it’s so expensive to feed raw (they are also convinced that the “meaty pieces”in the food is an added benefit and that’s part of their excuse). I was literally in a room with them hanging out and they ask each other what they feed their dogs but never asked me 🥲 even though I only spend maybe $170 a month to raw feed a cat and a German shepherd and literally NEVER need to go to the vet for anything, it makes no sense to me… kibble is so expensive and you aren’t paying for any kind of nutrition.. not to mention all their dogs are going insane from being ITCHY! They stink and have super flakey skin! Like WHY! Biggest money saver for me has been FREEZER CLEAN OUTS!!! Post on Facebook groups that you are looking for old meats people want to throw away, I’ve filled my chest freezer up so many times FOR FREE!
I beg to differ when it comes to Purina One at least. It’s approved by the World Small Animal Veterinary Association & it’s helped get rid of my dogs allergies actually. I’ve tried every other kibble under the sun and most foods either flared up her allergies or upset her stomach. She’s a huge fan and hasn’t been itchy since then so I’m pretty happy. I personally don’t trust myself enough to make my pets food, I’d be terrified of finding out I’ve been forgetting something vital.
@@skellie4580 I’m glad it worked for you, even though there is so much information to prove kibble is terrible for our pets and raw diet is the most appropriate diet.. I’ve worked and been around 100s of dogs and I can tell you 99% are suffering on kibble. You should try it one day, its not as hard as you think. You just have to have faith in yourself that you can do it. I highly suggest the book The Forever Dog. It will help you get started.
My dog has been on raw for about 4 months before I switched him back to kibble. Even with the Orijen dog food that I buy him, I am still paying less for his food. You say raw is cheaper but the numbers you're stating and the numbers I'm seeing on this video are not convincing me of that. I originally switched to raw because I had suspected that my dog's skin problems were caused by the kibbles I was feeding him. After 4 months on a completely raw diet, there wasn't even the slightest sign of improvement. In fact, just supplementing my dog's kibble with salmon oil has been the most beneficial for his skin and coat. I would love to have stayed on the raw diet, but I can tell you it is not for everyone and a bit patronizing to judge other dog owners for feeding kibble to their dogs. My dog is 12 years old and has lived with some health issues mainly due to genetics and not the food I've been feeding him. During the 4 months he was on raw, his health was mostly the same as always besides maybe his teeth looking cleaner. I get his teeth regularly cleaned and he has not had any dental issues yet even on kibble. One thing the raw diet helped my dog with was that I found out he could not digest any red meats (beef, pork, etc). When they were in kibbles, it didn't cause that much of a reaction, but when feeding raw beef, he just kept throwing it up. So now I know to stay clear of any foods that contain red meats and thankfully, orijen has options for that. Here are the issues I faced when I fed my dog a raw diet. I paid for a raw meal delivery service because I was unsure about how much of anything I had to feed my dog and this saved me a lot of time. However, in exchange for the time and headaches I was saving, this was a very expensive service. There was one instance where I had run out of the raw meals and wasn't getting the next shipment for another week, so I had to go out and prepare the raw meals on my own. This was a good way of seeing whether I could cancel the service and source the meats myself. I had to drive to multiple grocery stores (thank God I have multiple Asian grocery stores around me) in order to get all of the different types of meats and organs I needed. Then I had to weigh out and portion all of these to prep for the week. The one thing nobody ever seems to mention when they say how inexpensive switching to raw is, is the time you lose doing all of the shopping and preparing. Not very many people have the the time to do all of the research and shopping in order to maintain this diet for our pets. Finally, this may not be an issue for smaller dogs, but my dog is 75 lbs and the amount of fridge/freezer space his food took during the time on raw was not inconsequential. If we didn't have an extra freezer, there was no way we would've been able to fit even a week's worth of his food with ours in one fridge. Overall, I think it's great if you can afford to feed your dogs a raw diet, but it's certainly not for everyone and not necessarily going to solve every dog's health issues.
I want to feed my lab a raw diet or at least a better food but I’m a broke college kid and just my lab would need 1.5x the amount of food all three of your pets. So until I can get a decent job he’s gonna get kibble, meat table scraps and frozen deer bones. So far that seems to have worked out well. Now if I could feed him just straight deer meat I could do it pretty dang cheap
I have a 70lb wolfdog who eats about 2lbs of raw each day. On average it costs me about $100/month. I save money buying chicken quarters for her bone requirements (and this obviously comes along with some of her daily muscle meat too). As a large dog she can easily crunch through these bones. And because chicken quarters are usually one of the cheapest cuts of meat available, it brings down the overall cost per pound of her entire diet.
Yes! grocery store or farm to plate store they are always the cheapest cut❤ even compared to buying a whole chicken
Call your local butcher. I buy
meat scraps for $1.00-1.50 a pound. My Husky is happy.
Avoid pet store foods
I have a 12 year old dobermann and a 16 week old dobermann puppy. I use ready made and homemade meals. Ithink it costs me around $150 a month. This is only until the puppy gets to adult size and then I think itll be more like $100. Apart from being spayed, liv hasn't cost anything at the vets in her 12 years. Some might say it wasnt the raw food, but all her siblings died from cancers from the ages of 5 to 10 years old. Shes amazing and people think shes a youngster still. Raw all the way!
I was planning on getting orijen for my dog but this really opened my eyes. I never realized that raw food wasn’t so expensive after all thank you!! I’ll definitely looking into raw food for my dog now
I have a husky, who is about 40 pounds. She eats a balanced raw diet, thanks to this channel! I have done my research and I am so happy with the results. I have noticed now, that she only sheds when it's time to blow her coat in the summer (which is terrific). The only real downside is that my dog is picky and doesn't want to eat unless I feed it to her. So I have to grind the meat into balanced portions and hand feed her.
Anyways, I spend about $120 on my dog every month and she eats twice a day.
I was wondering whether you feed your pets twice a day.
Mariah feeds once daily for Matsu
I have a 25lb Pomsky and she is also picky and doesn't really wanna eat unless I hand feed her since that's how I started to avoid resource guarding.
I've been feeding her once daily now as well since she was only choosing to eat around dinner time (Which meant she only ate half of what she should have gotten)
I learned that a lot of dogs prefer not to eat in the morning.
If they don't eat their food when you put it down for them, seal it and put it back in the fridge for later. They'll learn that when you put food down, it's time to eat. Sometimes you need to be more strict where you take the food away until their next scheduled feeding or if you see them throwing up bile.
I feed Matsu a "breakfast soup" in the morning, which is a small portion of his meal with water or bone broth, then the rest of his food in the evening
I’ve heard feeding a husky is worse than feeding a picky toddle 😂
I only feed my boys once a day; first thing in the mornings after our walk/run
@@Aukami93what is a Pomsky? I've never heard of that. Please tell me it's not a mix of a Pomeranian and a husky.
I own 2 dogs over 72lbs. It is way more expensive to feed raw. Way more expensive to feed raw and balanced. Chicken is an inflammatory meat (it is hot and a very dirty bird) from a TCVM. The thing is, raw will keep a much healthier dog. Either you pay the Vet or you pay the grocer. We buy premade raw from the pet store for variety, but it is pricey. Kibble is garbage and continually going to a vet is not on my radar. Raw is expensive especially rotating meals, but we don't rely on a vet for pills as before when feeding kibble.
I’m sorry, but you should probably get going to a vet “on your radar” in case of emergencies. Unless you are highly educated in dog physiology, vets are necessary in so many circumstances. I’ve never exclusively relied on my vet for treatment, but with my own supplemental education and their professional diagnoses, it’s been essential to visit my vet when my dog was sick.
@Whimsical Wonders 100% agreed.
Vet verses diet is actually a fair argument (for the most part). I’d still have a vet and be on good terms with them, but your overall philosophy makes sense.
Easily one of the dumbest comments
@@robinfarrar3493 we only use a Holistic Vet. Honestly, my dogs are so much healthier with a holistic vet. Never using vets who are owned by Hills or Mars (a candy company). Over 50,000 vets in this country are owned by kibble companies.
You forgot to add in the cost of vet visits, cancer, yeast and other ailments our animals get from commercial food. Framed in that perspective, a raw food diet is far cheaper, while being so much healthier!
The food kept giving my dog ear infections, he shook his head, ended up with pillow ear TWICE 1K EACH time they wanted.... Emergency room as this snowballed 1,800 plus.... :/
I have a 15 month old Cane Corso (145lb male, intact). He eats 2145 grams a day (4.7lbs). I'm in Vancouver, Canada and I average about $2.5/pound of food. So with supplements and toppings, its about $12.5-15 per day or $375-400 per month. Homemade and balanced.
Toronto ,325$/mo for my GSD who eats 2 Ib day plus chewable . It is expensive but since he got the taste of it he refuses kibbles ☹️
Hi! We’re also in Vancouver, wondering where you are sourcing your meats? I want to branch off and introduce more proteins/organs but I’m having trouble finding anything beyond T&T and the occassional raw food store :/
Dang. I spend 125 on 3 of us humans every 2 weeks. I definitely don't spend that on dogs. I buy purina one for my dogs. I used to use science diet.
4.7lbs per day 😱🤯 I feel for you!! My adult presa gets 2.5lbs per day and I thought that was a lot 🥵
@@carinknopfer4434 same here, I wanted so much to feed my cat raw but even me myself eat mostly eggs or cheaper cuts lol
Thank you for doing this cost breakdown. I've been considering switching to raw for a while now (I've already weaned my 5 cats off kibble, including one who "needed" a prescription diet) but I thought it would be way too expensive. I'm currently feeding FF exclusively (I switched to it during the pandemic because it was the only canned food I could reliably find). @3:56 Your 14.6lbs haul for $40.15 gives a cost of $2.75 per pound. I just bought a month's worth of canned food from Amaz*n (the cheapest place I could find it). I got TWELVE 30-can poultry variety packs of two different combinations for a total of $265.51. The price per pound of the FF was $3.66 for one variety and $4.21 for the other. At 3oz/can, 30 cans per pack and 12 packs give a total of 67.5lbs. This video is about a year old so the prices have likely gone up, but for comparison sake if I use your cost per pound and apply it to the amount of FF I buy then my cost would be about $185.63 for raw, a savings of about $80/month. You sold me! This week I'll be going on tour of my local suppliers to see what I can find and start stocking up in order to prepare to transition them. Thanks Mariah!
I’d love to switch my boy to raw, and start my Doberman on raw when I get them, but I would probably start out with a commercial raw food, while learning how to make raw myself. I know that commercial raw is more expensive, but I would rather use that as the main meal while I learn. Especially since I have to avoid chicken for my Pomeranian.
Steve’s Real Food, if you can find it comes out to like $5-6/lbs. it also has my favorite ingredient list, minimal veg, only a few supplements, mostly Meat, organs and bones.
Look into a raw Co-Op in your area. It saves me lots of $$$
What puts me off raw is how complicated it is to make sure your feeding everything that's needed it's not just as simple as throwing a piece of raw meat to dog
I have two pups both just under three months one a border collie one a yorkie cross they're on dry food and I want to go raw but too scared ill screw up and give them the wrong quantities. I don't even have dog scales do keep track of their weight as they grow
This site has feeding chart cheat sheets, and I even purchased a formulator here for $19.00. You can also choose to purchase pre-made raw if DIY scares you. In this video, she balances the meal, and uses supplements to cover any nutrient shortfalls. You can also purchase base mixes to do that, if you are okay feeding some low glycemic fruits and vegetables. She appears to be following a modified Prey Model diet. I prefer a modified BARF model diet.
@dalebailey754 unfortunately the formulator did go up in price to 39.99 if it was 19.99 before 😅
@@britneypennington7189I just bought it in the last week, for $19 I think it was a discounted price though.
You have to add due to the currency difference even average dry kibbles are expensive in developing nations, feeding raw made more sense to me, i'll try it when my kitten is a bit older 🥰
I have never considered raw food in the past. I just got a puppy and am looking for a clean diet for him but isn’t raw food a big risk for salmonella and other bacteria??
It's also less expensive bc you won't have high vet bills as they get older . . . . just like humans. Thank you for showing how simple it is buying and shopping. I'm going to be more diligent when I go shopping. Trader Joes is usually very limited. I'm sure organic is better too.
Organic is better, but definitely more expensive. I intend to take advantage of sales and markdown meats. I also have a hunter in the family, and can get duck and deer for free when he hunts. Wild caught food is best to freeze for a while anyway to kill parasites. I usually get frozen meats from his kills when it has sat in the freezer too long and it’s time to throw out.
I feed my dogs often raw chicken quarters from Aldi. They are a Greater swiss Mountain dog (50kg) and a swizzy (40kg) and never had problems with digesting the bones.
They crack them a few times while gobbling them down.
I could buy bulk chicken pieces here in South Africa but they are all brine injected so I cannot feed that to my GSD. Because meat is quite expensive and we do not have special markets like Asian markets or the like I have no choice but to feed my boy a part kibble part raw diet. But despite this he is thriving and not just surviving. What is your opinion on bulk chicken pieces injected with brine? Is there a way to get rid of the brine before feeding it to the dog?
I'm sure if there even was a way to remove the brine, it wouldn't be worth the time. I highly doubt all that salt can be removed without also removing important nutrients from the chicken and blood.
Maybe soak the chicken in water or rinse it really well, might help with the salt.
One thing I do to save on the dog budget is to groom my own dogs. I save a couple thousand dollars a year doing this. I would rather spend this money feeding them a healthy diet.
Same here! Bought a blow dryer and everything. Makes everything so much easier and saves so much money.
I can partly groom my boy, but I have shaky hands and I’m not confident in shaping his coat. I mainly do his sanitary, and his paws. Doing this makes it where he only needs to go about every 2 months, which is far more affordable.
@@early_morning_sd_team Every little bit helps. Some people do have disabilities that prevent them from grooming their own dogs. However, most people I think are just fearful about doing it…just like they can be with raw feeding or learning anything new.
@@mamabear9389 I am a groomer and people are definitely scared but most dogs I groom are pretty aggressive and it would be dangerous for the average pet owner to attempt themselves.
@@tormor9019 I think it is best to start home grooming from little on. However, I would hate to hand over an aggressive dog to a groomer! Groomers should not have to deal with that.
I have 2 mastiffs. Im trying to source cost efficient organs before I jump in 100%. Im doing 20% raw now. But we are looking at 7lbs a day for both. It looks like it will cost about $15-20 a day. Thats a lot for me but im going to try and make it happen
No way it’s that much. You should be closer to $10 a day & that’s if you’re incorporating fish & nicer cuts of beef
i saw a study that showed that you can remove like 80% of the salt in certain canned foods just by washing them under water. you can also just test it by yourself. taste a piece of oyster before and after washing it, huge difference.
Run canned food under water? Won't it turn to slosh?
@@Godskeiki im speaking more of stuff like sardines
i worry about taurine intake for my cats, do you ever use supplements for this? or is the right taurine intake guaranteed in the meats?
as a ferret, i can confirm that shellfish are pretty selfish
Thank you for sharing this video - it was super informative! It is too bad that you couldn't find oysters! Also, who knew that wet food was so pricey???
Several people I know have switched to one of the latest fresh food diets like NomNom or JustFoodForDogs. I wonder how these would compare price wise. I also wonder about these diets in general, not that I am thinking of them. I am hooked on raw. However, they are definitely better than kibble and probably canned. There is a UA-cam channel called The Stumpey Brigade. He has five Corgis and some cats and feeds homemade raw.
I am currently on Farmers dog and spending $170 for 21 days worth of food for my 40lb dog. She is a senor so transitioning to raw is going to take time. but after watching this, im confident raw is cheaper than the human grade pre madefoods.
@@michellethomas6494 I think raw could be cheaper. I make my own but sometimes it helps to use some of the pre made grinds to start with and then you can add extras. My Pet Carnivore and Hare Today have reasonably priced whole prey grinds. What I don’t like about the fresh food diets I have looked at is that they are loaded with synthetic vitamins and minerals so the food cannot stand on its own. I really like making my own but the grinds could be helpful at first, especially the whole prey grinds because they contain parts of the whole animal.
would freeze dried fish be high in salt? :D
At this point my pup be eating better than me
56*4=224 a month for a 100lb dog and this is pricing from 2 years ago... oh my goodness...
How much it cost to feed Raw can really truly depend on where you live and what resources are in your area. many of us do not live in an area where we can source the right ingredients. This means we have to order it in which costs more. It's just something you have to consider.
I have a 50lb 2 year old border collie who eats 1~1.5lb per day costs around $150 per month sometimes slightly more sometimes slightly less.
Are there shops like this in Ohio?
Where are you getting your recipes from?
I make them myself
Can cats eat raw eggs? And how often should I add raw eggs to their diet?
They can, but I usually just feed the yolk unless it's a small quail egg. I usually feed egg a few times a week
Been feeding my kitties homemade raw for over a year now and it's actually much cheaper than any mid-high tier wet food and cheaper than most high tier kibble. Raw food rivals a few bottom tier wet foods in terms of cost for me. More expensive than mid and some high tier kibble on average but 100% worth the extra bit to be feeding fresh identifiable unprocessed human grade food.
List of ingredients I'm currently rotating through:
Chicken heart
Chicken meat
Chicken gizzard
Chicken liver
Chicken wing tips
Pork heart
Pork meat
Pork tongue
Pork kidney
Beef heart
Beef meat
Beef kidney
Lamb meat
Lamb liver
Turkey meat
Turkey liver
Duck meat
Duck liver
Smelts
Sardines
Salmon
Mussels
Shrimp
Kelp
Vitamin E
Vitamin D
Egg shell
Blueberries
Nutritional Yeast
Zinc
Bone broth
It's a long list but the price per day for both of my kitties is cheap for the quality of food. Usually about $1.50/per cat, per day so $3.00 a day to feed both. Absolutely well worth that for my kitties.
Do you freeze the extra food when you prepare this huge meal because it seems like a lot of meat and I keep reading that raw meat attracts a lot of bacteria way faster.
For my 7lb cat it's $88-109 for one to two month. And 1.94 a day. Raw that is.
YOU’RE IN GNV! Wards is great!
I had no idea ferrets ate so much 😅
Thank you! I've been wondering how much the price of raw compared to other things like dry and wet.
Raw is very expensive. Good quality meat, grass fed is expensive. Chicken is cheap, but it is an inflammatory to dogs with Leaky Gut, allergies or yeast which is 80% of dogs. Kibble and canned has no nutritional value. What you see on a label is not in the bag. If you look on most bags, like Hills it is owned by Colgate-Palmolive company. Toothpaste employees make the kibble and teach vets how fabulous the garbage is. Or a person can buy another bag of kibble Purina who's maker is Nestlé! So candy companies make your dog's food. Nothing compares to raw or gently cooked if the dog cannot handle raw which is rare. 🥰
@@jannellmeagher638 Blessings and thank you much for info, very good and informative God Bless
Isnt it possible to buy the meat in bulk and freeze whats not used. Kinda like meal prep?
Yes, most people do
I have a one year old female Newfie(100lbs) and a two year old 170lb male
I spend easy 400$ a month, but my dogs are huge
What do you use to weigh in the food? Does a kitchen scale suffice?
Well this is great, considering I'm in Gainesville! Did a double take when I saw you walk up to Wards in the video!
PS there's another asian store tucked back behind Peach Valley
lol!
I haven't watched a lot of videos yet, but (for cats), I've seen that your website states up to 55% muscle meat, and your video said 83% muscle meat, which one is best?
I can see how thats a bit confusing! So what I mean by "muscle meat" in my earlier videos includes both muscular tissue and muscular organs, so 83% muscular tissue WITH muscular organs. What I mean by 55% muscle meat now is 55-58% pure muscular tissue, and I reserve the remaining 20-30% to be muscular organs. I think it's important to separate them. The percentages will always vary though, but thats a general recommended range.
@@PawsofPrey ah, that makes much more sense. Thanks!
@@PawsofPrey hello, thank you for this excellent video. Wondering if gizzards are considered the same as muscle meat in your calculations? Thanks in advance.
Processed food will cost more vet bills.
You will visit vet regularly.
I accidentally bought 6 months instead of 1 months worth of ingredients and cuz I was used to buying commercial food I thought it was a little expensive but legit said "well this is reasonable enough"
i have 8 cats, and i own a small homestead where i raise meat rabbits, chickens, ducks, and occasionally goats. i use TCfeline premix, which means i only need to add the powder to water, egg yolk, meat, and liver. for all 8 of my cats, im spending only about $100 a month - i feed half raw and half wet food. it does take more time(luckily for me, my husband does the hard work and processes the meat so i don't have to), but it's SO WORTH IT.
Does anyone put this meal in grinder!
Lots of raw feeders use meat grinders. Some people are afraid to feed bone that isn’t ground up, and some owners have dogs with no teeth and need it ground up.
I have 6 dog and 1 cat and we are luckily in a place where we can start adding meat into their diets. i was wondering if yall could answer a really big question for us. for our dogs their weights are, 150lbs, 70lbs, 2-60lbs, and 2-30lbs, and a +/-5lbs cat. i know doing a complete raw diet is out of the question for us, ut i wanna add all these things into their diet but with their regular kibble. We are going to be using bone broth to make their food softer (except Holliday his teeth are extremely fragile so he has a different food then the rest. so the question i have is can just do a small portion supplement instead of having the meat the whole thing?
What amount should I feel my Doberman ??? He is 65 pounds
If you people only knew what goes into those commercially raised animals...
I know because I farmed for many many years
My GSD is on a raw diet, but I kind of have a blended approach for her. There is a local company in my area that sells premade meat-organ-bone blends at 80/10/10. It usually costs me $175 for 40 lbs of food, which lasts about 5-6 weeks.
Wow, your spending a lot more than I do and he is smaller than my dog. Have you considered going directly to an abattior butcher? Or is it just more expensive in where you live? The supermarket meat you get seems more expensive than my supermarket...
one thing no one talks about is the cost of CLEAN raw diets... I'm talking grass fed non vaccinated meat. probably the easiest way to come across a bunch of it is to find a farmer with crop destruction permits for deer granted that's not exactly grass fed but its pretty close
Most people can't get "grass fed non vaccinated meat" for their own consumption so let's just be realistic please.
Question and suggestion from anyone. I have been feeding my pup since I got him at 11 weeks. He’s now 17 weeks. I have studied, watched videos to get raw feeding right. He transitioned well and loves the food. We have decided to do PMR. The problem is that he has dark tar like diarrhea. I thought I may have been giving him to much liver. But calculated, and recalculated the measurements. I may have been of by a small fraction. He was diagnosed with Giardia, and had a round of antibiotics. No hook or round worms. I gave him a weekend off from the raw, and only fed him white rice and boiled chicken heart. Him poop was solid and tan. Once I started him back in the raw. The diarrhea came back. HELP
you may need a higher bone content :) not all pets need the exact same 10% bone that the guidelines suggest
@@Grey-wp5xu thanks that’s what I was thinking. I don’t think he’ll complain he loves chicken wings and paws
It's possible your pup still has Giardia. I had to do a 2nd round of antibiotics to get rid of it. And if your dogs poops are still dark and runny, I would say you'd need a bit more calcium/bone content. You can also add slippery elm powder to their meal to help with diarrhea
@@Aukami93 thanks. They did another culture yesterday. Just waiting for the results.
Just an update. My pup is now negative for Giardia. Also by adding more bone he has a normal poop. Other than the grass he like to pull up and eat. Thanks for all of the advice. One more question. Any suggestions on how much kelp, zinc picolinate, e-oil, and slippery elm although this may be as needed or should I give in a regular basis?
Indeed, expensive but nothing is more expensive than a veterinarian bill. I've been feeding cats raw diets for 15+ years now. Never had any health problems, healthy teeth, fur, eyes, etc. I have 15+ cats that have the energy of a kitten. A raw diet is what a carnivorous animal should be eating period. Anyone that says differently is not educated and doesn't care for their pets' health.
Do you use pumpkin seeds for zinc instead of the zinc picolinate supplement? Of course, oysters is the best source of zinc whenever you can get it. Thanks 🙏
I try to use animal sources when I can, but I have used them as a zinc source in rotation before!
Meat is so cheap in the US. I live in Norway and my 40 kg boxer costs me an arm and a leg in raw meats😅 love him though
I'm going to be training my pup in competition Obedience. I really wanna feed raw but I want to hand feed my pup to train with. I can't seem to find any good info on training with a raw diet? Is it possible? Will I get less training reps? How do I hand feed and train with a raw diet?
What's PMR?
Prey Model Raw?
In a rural area, and do not have the local sourced markets, nor the more foreign markets. Prices are also high for specialty items, if found, at the grocery store. Not sure if can provide proper balance, affordably, for an 80 pound dog.
I'm just starting gathering items for starting a raw diet for my cat. I'm a little worried about variety in muscle organs and the second secreting organ. I do have pork and chicken heart available which is a must. But far I can only really find chicken gizzard and beef kidney regularly. Would that be okay long term? I going to try scouting out the near by farms, so I might be able to get beef, elk, pork and lamb. But I'm not entirely sure
I think you’ll have a lot of success with local farms. In my area we even have some that offer online ordering and free delivery.
Gizzard are very good, however I would never feed my dog pork! Please do your research on it , it's horrible for your fur baby
@@patriciaandjudgey1442 Thank you for giving me a heads up. I live in Canada so the risk of feeding pork is a bit lower. But I bought my pork heart from a local Asia market. It was just in a zip lock, so just to be extra save I will probably just cook it. I emailed a couple of farms, so hopefully I can get some good stuff.
I am most likely dumb, but I also figured out that pacific canned oyster and eastern canned oysters have different nutrients. Go for the eastern ones for zinc since it has 91mg, pacific only has 16.1mg. If you are using the paws of prey formulator. Eastern oysters are the canned oyster in the system
Very informative. Thank you.
My dog eats home cooked meals, about $80-100 per month (but like I'm buying meats that are 10-12 dollars a pound more than half the time) for a 23-pound dog.
I pay $38 for 10 lbs for a health cat diet with limited ingredients. $62 is a rather extreme for 12 lbs. What a terrible comparison.
$38 fir 10lbs 8s ridiculous
How do you find the stores that sell local sourced meats that are not necessarily butcher shops? I'm in Austin, TX.
Ferrets eat a lot for their weight it seems! 😲
They really do! They have a very fast metabolism.
Dat Mew Pin tho xD But on more serious matters, I'm conflicted with raw chicken as I think my dog may have an allergy to it, but it's the cheapest cuts I can get. I was reading that what chickens are fed imbalances their Omega 3 to 6 ratios tremendously which could result in skin inflammation in the dog. Is this true?
Hehe :p And yes this can be true with poorly raised/fed chickens, but if you can find chicken fed a species appropriate diet and raised in a proper environment, they tend to have a better 6:3 ratio! But if your dog has a true chicken allergy, you will need to eliminate it from the diet.
If I buy a whole organic chicken for my cats, it costs me 12.- euros per kg. That's much cheaper than many of the cat foods I buy !🙂
I decided to switch my 20lb senior dog to raw. I want him to be healthy in his golden years. 💛
Look into a raw Co-Op in your area. I found one in NEngland…there are 2-3 others. Fantastic products…waaay less $$$
How much was the total cost of the food haul in this video?
Could you alternate the raw diet Nd the dry dog food would it be cheaper
You’re just as beautiful as I imagined listening to your videos 🥰
awww thank you ❤
look at the prices lol. I can't afford to eat that good anymore let alone feed my dog.
This 100%!! The ingredients in commercial foods are so crappy that even buying a high quality kibble or wet food is going to be full of fillers and carbs. It feels like such a waste of money when you can just get stuff from the same grocery store you use for yourself!!
@@jjradV from a quick google that seems to be a brand of 100% vegan dog & cat foods? is that right?
@@jjradV that's not biologically appropriate and if you're watching this channel you should know that. watch literally any other video on this channel to learn more!
@@jjradV ok 🤭🤭🤭
The pre-made raw (Viva or We Feed Raw) is significantly more expensive at over $450 a month for my dog vs $90 for a bag of kibble :( and that's not even adding any supplemental nutrition.
I think you will save money you spend on medication and vets too.
for small dogs and cats raw is fine but when your dog needs 700 grams a day it gets REAL expensive quick
That's not true. My Labs eat about 700g a day for $2 a day for each.
I am more worried how safe it is to buy meat at the market and feeding my pooch raw. Can you make a video after your shopping and how you store them when you get home plus preparation for that days meal. Thanks.
Treat raw food just like you would for yourself, clean your prep area before and after. Wash your hands anytime you need to touch anything that isn’t raw meat. Prep your meals in ziplock bags or plastic storage containers. Seal them and freeze them. Pull out two to 2 bags or however much you plan to feed for two days. Let it sit in the fridge and defrost. Once it’s defrosted feed them and then wash their bowls with hot soapy water or dishwasher. You have to remember that dogs contain enzymes in their stomachs to process raw meat. The same DNA from wolves are from where dogs came from. Look at their teeth and how their jaws work they are meant to kill and eat. Just we humanized dogs and cats to become house pets
I’m not feeding raw, but this definitely has helped me make the switch to making my own dog food with meats, fish, veggies and brown rice
that cool but you missed the point from this channel, dogs are not processing rice, especially brown.
@@daniification nope, I didn’t miss anything. It was all quite clear.
what about cooked mashed sweet potatoe or pumpkin?
Some people feed those things, while others only feed it when treating diarrhea. Starchy vegetables are controversial, so you will hear lots of conflicting info about it. I don’t feed it to my dog, but wouldn’t hesitate if I needed it make up a nutrient shortfall.
Great video, very well made and has excellent info. I do think you need to include the time spent on the road (to multiple grocery stores), prepping, and cleaning up. Because time is money. For me, I want the best for my cat, so I feed him premium wet food that's $0.58/oz, topped with good quality novel protein freeze dried that ranges from $3.89/oz to $4.34/oz. It takes me about 1 minute to prep for each meal, and another minute to clean up. I'm all for raw feeding, and am hoping to incorporate chicken feet/whole prays in the future as treats/small meals, but between working full time, volunteering, keeping up with my other hobbies, I just don't have the time to invest into feeding 100% raw.
Raw food is still more digestible, than processed food. So the real savings comes out, in the raw diet's 'feed conversion rate.'
Come to find out mackerel has a higher mercury level than tuna.
Variety is key. I don’t want to feed any protein source every day. It can give them excess nutrients and nutrient deficiencies simultaneously. I am feeding a pre-made raw until I can source and stick up enough protein sources to make 3-4 unique meals. I have a chest freezer I can use for my protein hauls.
Good job honey! Great one.
I would rather pay more than the dog bag stuff.
Processed diets, are typically the same prices all the time. Fresh food prices, vary. With a roomy freezer you can stock up on meats, when their prices are at their lowest.
I know id be saving by feeding my pets raw, instead of wet canned food! And it definitely is going to be healthier! Love these videos!
I have 3 large dogs - 2 are German shepherds. It costs about $600 a month. They're worth it. I don't make it, I call in the order to the local butcher and they make it, pack it and I pick it up weekly. I'd rather spend a little more than go to the store, hunt for deals and do all the prep work. I save hours of time.
It's still insane to me, how Choji out eats (calorie-to-weight ratio) Tangy and Matsu.
I wish my boy wasn’t allergic to chicken. 😩
What's affordable for me is a balanced raw meal in though this is the bones meat and organs without the supplement and vitamins I buy and add them with 10% veggie's, fruit and nuts and herb/kelp supplement..I realise now I don't know what exactly they put in these meals but i do want to vary the meat ( deer, turkey,lamb, chicken, beef, fish,pheasant etc). But this is what I can affort and I think and believe,better then kibble
That one plate of food with the black furry thing next to the egg ... wth is THAT?? 😮 it looks like a dead guinea pig. 😢
Did you notice what the ferret is eating at 0:20?
I just spent $200 on kibble and it may last a month. But then again, everything is so much more expensive now with inflation
wtf 13 pounds for $60?! where tf u at?
All my friends are so set on feeding the crappiest food ever (Purina) because they think it’s so expensive to feed raw (they are also convinced that the “meaty pieces”in the food is an added benefit and that’s part of their excuse). I was literally in a room with them hanging out and they ask each other what they feed their dogs but never asked me 🥲 even though I only spend maybe $170 a month to raw feed a cat and a German shepherd and literally NEVER need to go to the vet for anything, it makes no sense to me… kibble is so expensive and you aren’t paying for any kind of nutrition.. not to mention all their dogs are going insane from being ITCHY! They stink and have super flakey skin! Like WHY!
Biggest money saver for me has been FREEZER CLEAN OUTS!!! Post on Facebook groups that you are looking for old meats people want to throw away, I’ve filled my chest freezer up so many times FOR FREE!
I beg to differ when it comes to Purina One at least. It’s approved by the World Small Animal Veterinary Association & it’s helped get rid of my dogs allergies actually. I’ve tried every other kibble under the sun and most foods either flared up her allergies or upset her stomach. She’s a huge fan and hasn’t been itchy since then so I’m pretty happy. I personally don’t trust myself enough to make my pets food, I’d be terrified of finding out I’ve been forgetting something vital.
@@skellie4580 I’m glad it worked for you, even though there is so much information to prove kibble is terrible for our pets and raw diet is the most appropriate diet.. I’ve worked and been around 100s of dogs and I can tell you 99% are suffering on kibble. You should try it one day, its not as hard as you think. You just have to have faith in yourself that you can do it. I highly suggest the book The Forever Dog. It will help you get started.
The Forever Dog is great!
My dog has been on raw for about 4 months before I switched him back to kibble. Even with the Orijen dog food that I buy him, I am still paying less for his food. You say raw is cheaper but the numbers you're stating and the numbers I'm seeing on this video are not convincing me of that. I originally switched to raw because I had suspected that my dog's skin problems were caused by the kibbles I was feeding him. After 4 months on a completely raw diet, there wasn't even the slightest sign of improvement. In fact, just supplementing my dog's kibble with salmon oil has been the most beneficial for his skin and coat. I would love to have stayed on the raw diet, but I can tell you it is not for everyone and a bit patronizing to judge other dog owners for feeding kibble to their dogs. My dog is 12 years old and has lived with some health issues mainly due to genetics and not the food I've been feeding him. During the 4 months he was on raw, his health was mostly the same as always besides maybe his teeth looking cleaner. I get his teeth regularly cleaned and he has not had any dental issues yet even on kibble. One thing the raw diet helped my dog with was that I found out he could not digest any red meats (beef, pork, etc). When they were in kibbles, it didn't cause that much of a reaction, but when feeding raw beef, he just kept throwing it up. So now I know to stay clear of any foods that contain red meats and thankfully, orijen has options for that.
Here are the issues I faced when I fed my dog a raw diet. I paid for a raw meal delivery service because I was unsure about how much of anything I had to feed my dog and this saved me a lot of time. However, in exchange for the time and headaches I was saving, this was a very expensive service. There was one instance where I had run out of the raw meals and wasn't getting the next shipment for another week, so I had to go out and prepare the raw meals on my own. This was a good way of seeing whether I could cancel the service and source the meats myself. I had to drive to multiple grocery stores (thank God I have multiple Asian grocery stores around me) in order to get all of the different types of meats and organs I needed. Then I had to weigh out and portion all of these to prep for the week. The one thing nobody ever seems to mention when they say how inexpensive switching to raw is, is the time you lose doing all of the shopping and preparing. Not very many people have the the time to do all of the research and shopping in order to maintain this diet for our pets. Finally, this may not be an issue for smaller dogs, but my dog is 75 lbs and the amount of fridge/freezer space his food took during the time on raw was not inconsequential. If we didn't have an extra freezer, there was no way we would've been able to fit even a week's worth of his food with ours in one fridge.
Overall, I think it's great if you can afford to feed your dogs a raw diet, but it's certainly not for everyone and not necessarily going to solve every dog's health issues.
@@iluvcamping I’m sorry but I’m not reading all that lol you should have just written that as a comment instead of a response to mine.
Awkward moment when your puppies 50lbs and it’s been 300$ plus a month 😅
I want to feed my lab a raw diet or at least a better food but I’m a broke college kid and just my lab would need 1.5x the amount of food all three of your pets. So until I can get a decent job he’s gonna get kibble, meat table scraps and frozen deer bones. So far that seems to have worked out well. Now if I could feed him just straight deer meat I could do it pretty dang cheap
Please do not feed your dog RAW PORK! That' s extremely dangerous!!!!
You have literally no idea what you're talking about
It’s dangerous to humans, not to other animals