Hi Cyndi,
Prey Model Raw is by far the easiest and cheapest way to feed raw, in my opinion. You can spend as much or as little as you want. Since you only have one dog, it isn’t necessary to have to stock up and freeze meat if you don’t have the room or money. Your 50 lb. dog will probably need only need 1 to 1 1/2 lbs. of food per day. Buy a pack or bag of chicken leg quarters, and work around that, filling in the rest of the diet with different proteins/organs that are on sale/clearance. This does not have to be complicated, and it’s all about “balance over time”.
Of course you will want/need to feed variety, but I find that this is very affordable when you make chicken the staple. If you can get some chicken backs at the meat market, start with those for at least a couple days. They are soft/bony and recommended to start with. If you can’t find them, you can use leg quarters. You are fine feeding just chicken for a couple weeks. You will however need to start alternating in some boneless meals (every other meal if you feed 2x per day or every other day) or your dog may get too constipated from the bone. All 3 of my dogs are different, and one dog can handle more bone. You learn these things as you go along, and you adjust the diet accordingly.
Once your dog adjusts to chicken, you move onto something like turkey for a couple weeks. You can alternative it w/meals of chicken. Then you will move on to pork, beef, etc.
Heart is very rich yet very nutritious, and it’s considered muscle meat, not organ meat. It can be a staple as well for most of your boneless meals. You are fine feeding a meal of canned sardines/mackerel instead of raw once a week or so.
You don’t even need to worry about organ meat for at least 2 months. When you DO introduce it, go very slow or your dog will most likely end up with diarrhea. I’d even personally start out feeding small amounts of it along with a bony meal. Only 5 to 10% of the diet needs to be organ meat. You need to feed liver, and it’s best you feed another organ as well. If you feed chicken backs at first, your dogs will get some of the little organs that are attached early on–I never removed any of them and all was fine.
Here are foods I feed/have fed: Chicken – Frames, Backs, Leg Quarters, Legs, Breasts, Necks (to my smallest dog), Thighs, Hearts/Gizzards, Feet, Liver. Turkey: Necks, ground. Pork: Butt, Chops, Roast, Heart, Kidney, Liver, Pigs Feet. Beef: Heart, Ground, Steaks, Roast, Liver. Duck: Heads, Feet, Wings. Fish: Various frozen (thawed) and canned sardines/mackerel.
I recommend you read WORK WONDERS by Tom Lonsdale. It’s a wonderful book and easy to read/understand. Even he says that many peoples’ dogs do fine on primarily all chicken. I know my dogs get a lot of it.
Also, check out: http://www.preymodelraw.com. This site helped me learn how to feed properly.
If you’re not comfortable, you could always do a partial raw diet. I have actually been doing that for almost a couple months because I am having a graduation party soon and desperately need my freezer space for that food. So, I have been feeding part PMR and part kibble to 2 of my dogs, and PMR/canned to my other dog. Once the kibble is gone and the party is over, I would like to go back to mostly PMR, but would like to incorporate some days of canned food. Maybe you could do that OR feed raw along w/the FreshPet.
Hope this helps. Again, these are my opinions and what has worked for my dogs.
