Originally Posted by
EWO
Good series of posts. I have fed both kibble and raw, back and forth for a number of years. My first stint with raw was a horrible, out of balance raw plan. I rented a house from a guy who was a butcher by trade and had a side business processing at home. I got a five gallon bucket of any and every thing daily. The dogs got what came out of the bucket as I passed by. Maybe be red meat today, leg quarter tomorrow or back to back on either. It was free. Not the best plan, but it was free. I used kibble when the girlfriend or the neighbor was feeding for me. That worked for a number of years.
When I moved (out of the service) I did not have the freebies anymore so it was back to bag food. In time I liked the way the dogs looked on the raw so I switched back. This time with more knowledge not only about nutrition, but balance in that nutrition. I am a raw feeder today.
It is less clean up and can be cheaper if storage is available. The time is the issue for lots of people. I work 12 hour rotating swing shifts with an hour or so commute. I have to pre mix as much as possible in order to feed raw. I leave just after 5AM and do not get home until a little after 8PM. There is no time to mix and prepare for a large number of dogs (and I understand the idea of less dogs makes sense, but we know how that goes) after 8PM. It would be near 10PM before I ate and then back up again before 5AM. So time is a huge issue for a lot of people. It is not a matter of being lazy (in some cases, yes, but not all). When I go on my four and five day stretches I have to pre-mix and prepare for all the dogs.
Feeding RAW is much more difficult time and effort wise than feeding from a bag. If the dogs were my livelihood and I had 6-8-10 hours a day, every day to devote to the dogs then I could see the point where there would be no excuse not to feed raw. The benefits are over whelming in comparison. Factor in a 12 hour shift with an hour commute and there is just not enough hours in the day. I feed RAW but I take a day to pre-mix the eggs/vegetable pulp/oils/rice. I mix it in a five gallon bucket. I make one pass with this out of the bucket and then another pass with the quarters or meats for that day. I have it down to a science without a wasted step.
If I did not have the days off in between, and my time off was at night and only two weekend days I would either have to go kibble and RAW, or get rid of a bunch of dogs. But again, the dogs are not my livelihood. EWO