Raw Feeding - Costly?

[ldg]

Oh yeah, shipping from PA to CA would be expensive. What about looking into the charges if you use http://www.mypetcarnivore.com instead? They're based out of Gary, IN.

The other option is whole prey model raw, which we were discussing in this thread. Buy the meat when it's on sale. I ONLY buy chicken breast, thigh, pork and beef on sale, and so far I pay $1.99 per pound. Gizzards and chicken liver are cheap - as is beef kidney. I do pay $4.99 for lamb, but again, I only buy it when it's on sale. That's why I bought the chest freezer via Craigslist - so I can buy a lot when things are on sale.

 

[goingpostal]

Do a google search for a raw co op or group in your area, you probably don't need to order anything online, just need freezer space. 
 

 

[mschauer]

Are there any suggestions on how to keep your wallet from breaking over a kitten's diet? An adult cat (2-4%) is easy to pay for, but a kitten is so much more food.

I was looking at Hare Today to see how much I could get for a decent amount and wow, it's just pricey. The shipping charges are really expensive to me (not that I'm blaming them when they're shipping us tons of meat!), and I'm not sure what to do. 

I can get chicken, turkey, duck, and cornish hen, maybe something else locally, but rabbit would be nice to get. But I'm really at a loss at how everyone affords it. Again, it's not so bad to buy in huge bulk for an adult cat, but a kitten is just pricey. 

I tried adding more and more to the cart because I read that at some point, the shipping doesn't go any higher, but it just goes up and up. The shipping charges and the supplements really stack on and I'm worried that I can't afford it.

I feel like I might be missing something. Or I'm guessing that it's just something you have to deal with when you have a growing kitty. 

 But still, any suggestions to not completely slam the wallet would be great. If there's any alternative to ordering stuff (which leads to high shipping costs), that would be awesome. I live in Northern California, though, so it's hard to find things like that.

To keep costs down don't pay shipping for anything (don't buy online) and don't buy expensive meats like rabbit. Or just be very selective about when or how often you do.

I kept the receipts for ingredients for the batches of chicken, turkey, beef and pork I made a week ago. I haven't figured out the cost yet but I would guess they came out to around $2/lb. Maybe a little more. That was with me not really trying to find stuff on sale. If you're interested I'll see if I can find the receipts and figure out the actual cost. I meant to do that anyway I just forgot to. 

 

[ritz]

I heart you about the $$$.  I am fostering a large male cat who I would like to introduce to raw; high quality canned food is also pricey.

I am just now starting to order from Hare Today.  And getting a little more worried about nutritional deficiencies which as someone pointed out can take a while to develop.

So here is what I'm doing:  I get ordinary meats from the local large grocery store such as chicken, pork and beef (turkey parts are rarely on sale), very occasionally lamb.  I avoid meats with bone because I'm paying money for a part I can't use.  And I buy the meat that is at its 'sale by date' if it is further reduced in price, sometimes by as much as 30 to 50% depending on the grocery stores. 

From Hare Today I buy meats that I can't buy in the Washington, DC/Annapolis area such as venison, llama (HT recently had a sale on this), turkey and goat.  I will be buying coarse ground meat or boneless meat and supplements soon.

Another source of meat is where I work and Craigs List:  I posted on the intranet/Craigs List " wanted.... for health and safety reasons, I feed raw.  If you have any last years supply of game you'd like to get rid of..."  A woman at work has given me deer meat, which Ritz loves.  (In some jurisidictions, it is illegal to resell deer/game.  It isn't illegal to give it away for free.)

Finally a tip I learned a year ago (when I was just starting to feed Ritz raw):  Ice cube trays.  They hold around 1 ounce of liver/kidney/meat. 

I've also discovered styrofoam egg cartons hold about the same amount of food.  They come in colors, too; so I froze liver in blue egg cartons and kidney in white and once frozen repackage them in zip lock bags.  That way I don't get them confused (they look similar but feel different.)

Good luck and keep on asking questions cause it makes me rethink things.

 

[ldg]

Oh yes - google for a Yahoo B.A.R.F. group! 99% of the people are raw dog feeders, but where I'm located, they have a buying co-op, so doesn't matter if you're feeding a dog or cat.

 

[mschauer]

To keep costs down don't pay shipping for anything (don't buy online) and don't buy expensive meats like rabbit. Or just be very selective about when or how often you do.

I kept the receipts for ingredients for the batches of chicken, turkey, beef and pork I made a week ago. I haven't figured out the cost yet but I would guess they came out to around $2/lb. Maybe a little more. That was with me not really trying to find stuff on sale. If you're interested I'll see if I can find the receipts and figure out the actual cost. I meant to do that anyway I just forgot to. 

OK, here's the list of animal based ingredients I used with their cost (all purchased locally):

10 lbs beef chuck roast, trimmed of fat @ 4.68/lb 46.80

10 lbs chicken thighs, boneless skinless  @ $2.56/lb 25.60

10 lbs turkey thigh, boneless, skinless @ 3.25/lb  32.50

5 lbs pork loin roast @ 2.70/lb 13.50

5 lbs ground pork, boneless @ 3.50/lb 17.50

2 lbs chicken heart @ $2.00/lb 4.00

2 lbs turkey hearts @ $1.75/lb 3.50

2 lbs pork heart @ 2.55/lb   5.10

1 lb turkey organs (heart,liver,gizzard) @ 2.75/lb 2.75

2 lbs beef heart @ 2.38/lb 4.76

2 lbs beef organs (heart, liver, kidney) @ 2.75/lb 5.50

2 lbs pork organs (heart, kidney,liver,spleen) @ 2.25/lb 4.50

With water added to make it a nice consistency (it's ground food) I ended up with 62 lbs of food at $2.67/lb not including the cost of supplements (negligible cost if you don't use MCHA for calcium like I do), 4 cans of sardines and 16 eggs.

 

[cattreats]

Oh yeah, shipping from PA to CA would be expensive. What about looking into the charges if you use http://www.mypetcarnivore.com instead? They're based out of Gary, IN.
The other option is whole prey model raw, which we were discussing in this thread. Buy the meat when it's on sale. I ONLY buy chicken breast, thigh, pork and beef on sale, and so far I pay $1.99 per pound. Gizzards and chicken liver are cheap - as is beef kidney. I do pay $4.99 for lamb, but again, I only buy it when it's on sale. That's why I bought the chest freezer via Craigslist - so I can buy a lot when things are on sale.

Is this site safe? Everytime I go to it, I get a ton of warnings that "this site may be compromised" which I've only ever gotten from pretty bad sites. Even sites that I know are probably bad don't have that, but ones that I know are very bad do have that. I was planning to check them out but I stopped in my tracks because of that. 

I heart you about the $$$.  I am fostering a large male cat who I would like to introduce to raw; high quality canned food is also pricey.

I am just now starting to order from Hare Today.  And getting a little more worried about nutritional deficiencies which as someone pointed out can take a while to develop.

So here is what I'm doing:  I get ordinary meats from the local large grocery store such as chicken, pork and beef (turkey parts are rarely on sale), very occasionally lamb.  I avoid meats with bone because I'm paying money for a part I can't use.  And I buy the meat that is at its 'sale by date' if it is further reduced in price, sometimes by as much as 30 to 50% depending on the grocery stores. 

From Hare Today I buy meats that I can't buy in the Washington, DC/Annapolis area such as venison, llama (HT recently had a sale on this), turkey and goat.  I will be buying coarse ground meat or boneless meat and supplements soon.

Another source of meat is where I work and Craigs List:  I posted on the intranet/Craigs List " wanted.... for health and safety reasons, I feed raw.  If you have any last years supply of game you'd like to get rid of..."  A woman at work has given me deer meat, which Ritz loves.  (In some jurisidictions, it is illegal to resell deer/game.  It isn't illegal to give it away for free.)

Finally a tip I learned a year ago (when I was just starting to feed Ritz raw):  Ice cube trays.  They hold around 1 ounce of liver/kidney/meat. 

I've also discovered styrofoam egg cartons hold about the same amount of food.  They come in colors, too; so I froze liver in blue egg cartons and kidney in white and once frozen repackage them in zip lock bags.  That way I don't get them confused (they look similar but feel different.)

Good luck and keep on asking questions cause it makes me rethink things.

Yeah I'm thinking that if I find chickens and turkeys on sale, it'll help. I still feel nervous about feeding beef because I've heard both ends of the stick that it can be great and then also dangerous. 

 Or is it ONLY an allergy related issue, and how would you know? If you can feed beef, does that mean that I can just buy a steak then? 

I get nervous about craigslist only because there are a lot of scams and actually around here it was on the news that a lot of people were getting mugged, beat up, or abducted through craigslist. I'm sure that most of the time, that won't happen. And if you're smart, it probably won't happen. But still.

I do like the ice cube and egg cartons idea. Do you just use that instead of buying jars?

Thanks everyone for the ideas! I really want to do my best to keep the budget low but not let the diet suffer or anything.

Also, there are these two kittens at the shelter nearby that we just adore. Seriously. They are two brothers and I'm in love with them. They're so affectionate to us, and each other! I just hope they're still there when we move in (end of the month) .... But I'm trying to figure out how we'll budget TWO kittens.

I'm not worried about supplements or anything, just getting a variety of meats.

 

[carmina piranha]

The warning of "This site may be compromised" means this, according to google:

"If you see the warning message you can contact the webmaster  and request that they investigate and clean up the site if it has been hacked. In the meantime, you can continue to the site at your own risk, but you should be careful about providing personal information to the site. If you decide to proceed to the site, make sure that you have the most updated version of your browser. It’s also good practice to ensure that other programs on your computer such as Flash and Acrobat Reader have the latest security updates."

It means they do not currently detect malware, so it's probably ok to visit the page, just don't share your info.  I have visited n the past couple of weeks without Macafee detecting that anything went wrong.

Regarding your budget concerns, there are some people who feed part raw, part wet food.  I've read that Soulistic is very high-quality for its price.  Once the kitties aren't gobbling down tons of food each day, you could go to all-raw.  

Another idea is to feed them the cheap meats the most, but still include some other proteins.  Chicken is so crazy cheap where we live and shop, (about $1.50/lb cheap) so perhaps you could do 4 days a week on chicken, 2 days on another cheaper meat, and one day of a more expensive meat.  You can do more than 3 proteins, but they won't get them every week.  What do the rest of you think of that?

I've come across raw-buying co-ops in CA, I hope you find one near you.  My local BARF yahoo group led me to our super-excellent meat shop and other resources.

 

[cattreats]

The warning of "This site may be compromised" means this, according to google:

"If you see the warning message you can contact the webmaster  and request that they investigate and clean up the site if it has been hacked. In the meantime, you can continue to the site at your own risk, but you should be careful about providing personal information to the site. If you decide to proceed to the site, make sure that you have the most updated version of your browser. It’s also good practice to ensure that other programs on your computer such as Flash and Acrobat Reader have the latest security updates."

It means they do not currently detect malware, so it's probably ok to visit the page, just don't share your info.  I have visited n the past couple of weeks without Macafee detecting that anything went wrong.

Regarding your budget concerns, there are some people who feed part raw, part wet food.  I've read that Soulistic is very high-quality for its price.  Once the kitties aren't gobbling down tons of food each day, you could go to all-raw.  

Another idea is to feed them the cheap meats the most, but still include some other proteins.  Chicken is so crazy cheap where we live and shop, (about $1.50/lb cheap) so perhaps you could do 4 days a week on chicken, 2 days on another cheaper meat, and one day of a more expensive meat.  You can do more than 3 proteins, but they won't get them every week.  What do the rest of you think of that?

I've come across raw-buying co-ops in CA, I hope you find one near you.  My local BARF yahoo group led me to our super-excellent meat shop and other resources.

Well that's good to know. I just tend to stray away from any sites with any type of warnings on them, heh. I've wrecked my fair share of computers with viruses to be a tad paranoid with my more valuable ones.

I did post on a raw diet page that I had recently added on Facebook. They have a lot of active members, so maybe they could help. I didn't even think of that before.

Also what you said was part of the plan. I definitely want to feed a variety of proteins, but in order to save money, would probably have chicken a bit more common in their diet than, say, beef. Just because chicken is definitely cheap (especially on sale!), and doesn't massively dent the wallet. I'd still want all 3 (or more) proteins to get into their diet each week. What you had listed would achieve that - 4 days chicken, 2 turkey or something still cheap, 1 day of expensive.