Quote Originally Posted by EWO View Post
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

Another excellent post, EWO, proving "where there's a will, there's a way."

Yes, if a person has a number of dogs, then getting a deep freezer is a mandatory part of the job. I did it; you did it; people who feed raw have to do it.
Yes, if a person is a full-time dogman, he will have an easier time feeding a group of dogs raw than if not.
But, yes again, if a person works a number of hours in a week, he can still make it his business to set aside at least a couple hours a week to prepare the food for his dogs, wrap it all up and get it ready for the week, and still effectively meet his dogs' needs. Absolutely.

Again, where there's a will, there's a way. There absolutely is. Everytime.

Thus, in the end, a person who says, "I don't have the time to feed raw," is just lying to himself.

The truth is, said person chooses not to MAKE the time necessary to get it done

Jack