[Alasdair D]

Having a local butcher that you are on good terms with is about the most awesomest thing you can do for your dogs! Almost everything they want to get rid of is high quality dog food.

You should experiment with them – see what they have that’s cheap and then see how much your dogs like it. Pretty much everything will go down well I would expect. Chicken carcasses, lamb ribs, beef bones, there’s so much there that they can’t sell that is perfect dog food…

[Alasdair D]

Hi Sharon,

Thanks for the input – the information on flax seed is new to me. I don’t grind them myself and I hadn’t read previously that there would be no benefit if they weren’t freshly milled. I use them for a source of Omega 3, but may have to rethink if pre milled has no benefit. I do feed the girls sardines once a week, so they get plenty of fish oil anyway.

As for the chicken mince, I am lucky in that I have a poultry company nearby and am also friends with our local butcher. So they will just grind up chicken carcasses and add a bit of offal for me. I normally get about 50lbs at a time and they will freeze it in bulk then band saw it into 1lb chunks that I store in the freezer.

In terms of cost, this is pretty cheap for me – it costs less than £4 a day to feed both dogs raw and they are pretty big dogs. Mind you, deerhounds are very lean and don’t really eat a huge amount anyway. ( I am in the UK, so that may be expensive for you, but it’s cheaper than a good quality kibble here)

Personally, I don’t use any kibble at all. Just the raw food, plus some table scraps and even with the scraps I pretty much give them just the protein and fats with very little carbohydrates.

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