Raw Dog Food Make it Easy for You and Your Dog by Carina Beth Macdonald

Author:Carina Beth Macdonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dogwise Publishing
Published: 2010-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

Here is how I “hunt and gather” ingredients:

Chasing Chickens…Sources for Meat. Aside from the obvious — your local supermarket and bulk food warehouse — get out your phone book and look under “meat, wholesale and retail.” In most states you can buy directly from meat wholesalers. You may have to buy in 30-40 lb. cases, but if you’ve got a pack of hearty eaters and plenty of freezer space, it is a great way to go.

Check with favorite restaurants. You may find one that will order extra cases of meat for you.

If you live in a city, try ethnic markets. You can find animal parts you didn’t know existed! I buy cheap organic chicken feet from a Chinese market. If nothing else, the entertainment value of watching the dogs eat them little toes is worth a buck a pound! The storeowner does not know I buy these for the dogs and has given me chicken foot recipes. I’m starting to feel a bit guilty!

Watch for sales. Even large drug store chains, the kind that have a couple of food aisles, can be a good resource. I’ve gotten some incredible deals on bulk buys of canned salmon and mackerel.

Check the newspaper for organic meat suppliers. Join on-line supplier groups or search the internet for small ranches or farms that do their own processing (see Resources). I have gotten free freezer-burned emu meat, venison, and buffalo this way. If you’re in hunting country, put the word out that you will take deer leftovers. Some people pick up road-killed game but check with your local highway department to make sure it is legal and safe in your area.

Meat Storage Solutions. If you purchase your meat in those handy-dandy shrink-wrapped trays in relatively small units, you can just toss them straight into the freezer and defrost them as needed. If you think you are going to leave it frozen for months and months, you can rewrap it in freezer paper to avoid freezer burn, though honestly it won’t make any difference to your dogs!

If you purchase a rack of beef, pork, or lamb rib bones, you may want to cut them apart and then freeze them in smaller proportions so you can take them out as needed.

If your meat comes in a 40 lb. frozen solid block as mine often does, you can thaw it out in a sink full of cold water. I use the laundry room sink for this. As it defrosts from the outside in, I pry off and bag pieces before it completely defrosts and into the freezer it goes. Another way to do it (endorsed by my butcher) is to drop the 40 lb. wad of meat onto a hard surface, concrete for example, as hard as you can. This breaks up the ice that holds the pieces together and you can bag it up without defrosting.

Some friends of mine with two very large dogs have sweet-talked their neighborhood supermarket into keeping their cases of chicken parts, purchased at the market on special, in the butcher’s cold storage.

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