If you are feeding straight from the grocery store RAW can be expensive and is a lot of pre-work, work to feed and post work. I have fed both ways and combinations of the two for years. RAW gets more and more difficult as the number of dogs go up. It can be tough. And it can get expensive.

My first experience was when it was raw instead of RAW. I rented from a guy who was a butcher by trade and also processed deer meat in the winter. I got five gallon buckets of everything every day. There was no rhyme nor reason to my feeding raw, whatever was coming out of the bucket as I passed that particular dog is what he ate. It was not the best diet but it was free, and free ain't bad when feeding dogs. I later moved and it was back to bags.

After that I searched out local butchers, local hunters, and local processors. A lot of the stuff they consider throw away is perfect for the RAW diet, especially the hunters and deer processors. Even if one lived in the city or the suburbs it would be worth the drive to the country once or twice a week/month to load up. Loading up on the cheap is the really important part when the number of dogs go up.

Buying straight from the grocery store can be costly. I buy the stuff about to go bad and I buy scraps from my local butcher. That is pretty much the bulk of what I buy. Starting next week I will start loading up on the deer meat as gun season starts here. Like most things one has to be creative and innovative when feeding RAW, especially when feeding a bunch of dogs. The rices and veggies and such are pretty much the same cost across the board, but with the veggies I hit the local farmers/gardens, they always seem to have collards/greens left over for free to real cheap picking.

If nothing else a reader can figure out I am rather cheap and I apply that to feeding the dogs as well. I do the best I can but I am always looking for an angle to shave some pennies when I can. A little more effort in the pre-work area can make the cost of feeding be reduced some, and sometimes dramatically. EWO