I was doing my own diet, getting frozen raw meat delivered, but it was Durham Animal Products and I wasn't happy with the quality - the lamb and beef was mainly tubes [vessels] Then adding a mix of pureed raw veg and fruit, you need to feed a wide selection.
It's better to feed pureed than cooked veg - esp don't microwave anything as that destroys the vital energy in living things. I also fed a mineral supplement to get he correct dose of calcium and phosphorus. Although tripe is well balanced for the latter two, they are not in sufficient quantities.
However when I was ill it was hard for my husband to deal with all this, so we went over to Darlings. Although I thought this was very good, and as Tania says, you don't need to feed the amount they suggest, and by the time you've bought decent quality meat and veg and fruit etc, it doesn't really work out any more expensive.
Unfortunately they changed their system and now send it out frozen rather than chilled, which doesn't work for us as it takes 2 days to deliver it to here.
So we've switched to dehydrated raw - K9natural which I'm really impressed with.
http://www.k9natural.co.uk/index.php/about_k9_natural/
ingredients are:
meat, blood, ground bone, seasonal fruits and vegetables, heart, liver, kidney, green tripe, eggs, garlic and cod liver oil. All of these ingredients are of a quality deemed fit for human consumption, and all except the cod liver oil (from Norway) come from New Zealand farms and growers.
Because it's dehydrated, it doesn't need any special storage except keeping it dry [so no freezer running costs either!] it also doesn't take up much storage space. I got mine from
http://www.partnerspets.com/store/product/21831/K9-Natural-Freeze-Dried-Raw-Dog-Food-Lamb-4-Kg/ they did have a special trial offer but it seems to have finished - fortunately I stocked up!!
Lauren actually prefers this to the raw meat!! she picked it out of the bowl before the meat when I mixed the two.
K9natural recommend you also feed raw bones for their teeth cleaning and amusement effects! so we feed chicken necks [which I get from a wholesale butcher] for one meal - stand them on the worktop in the utility room with a bib on to keep them clean and feed them one at a time using pliers as one day I wasn't concentrating and Tommy bit through my nail EEK
Feeding necks for one meal and K9natural for the other works out at under £3 per day for the three of them including supplements - they have Carob flour, natural live [bio] yogurt, garlic granules, oatbran etc They often have Neem sticks for treats, also dried meat which I bake myself - liver, rabbit, chicken etc.
Even something like Naturediet works out around 78p per day each.
Karlin, If you haven't got a mincer for bones then you could wrap the bits in a tea towel and bash thoroughly with a rolling pin or mallet. or try Cutting up the meat into pieces with the garden pruners - brilliant tip from Tania
so no choking on bones. There are mincers around the £150 price range which do a pretty good job on chickens - used to do whole carcasses through them. They are not great at rabbit though, and tend to struggle with the chicken skin.
Everything fresh is frozen for 2 weeks before use, to kill off any parasites - it doesn't kill bacteria and you have to be extremely careful when handling raw meat. Richard Allport the homoeopathic vet actually recommends the use of Zoflora as a disinfectant.
We use bibs for the dogs as here
http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?37807-Bibs-for-messy-eaters&highlight=clever+tommy
I've discovered that the large size of the Junior Macare bibs are perfect, they do up with velcro at the back so adjust a bit, and are the perfect length so they don't drag on the floor.
Even with Darlings we were still struggling a bit with colitis - mucusy poos. That has cleared on the K9natural thank goodness. T|hey do still get the odd gurgly belly but it's much better.
