Feeding a dog the BARF diet

[Kara]

But I would be interested in learning more about raw diet options. Are there any options out there that are comparable to the convenience and cost of high-grade commercial kibble?

Depending on what you choose to feed & the resources in your area, raw can be very cost-effective, especially compared to the price of high-grade, premium kibble.

Convenience is raw diet's only drawback, IMO. You can get commercial raw diets, like Bravo, Oma's Pride, etc, but you'd still have to find a source for raw meaty bones and tripe, as most commercial products are typically just whole-ground animals...good stuff, but not necessarily a complete diet. If you're buying RBM in bulk, frozen, you'd have to thaw & repackage into meal-sized portions & then store in your freezer. Then there's the matter of thawing out the food for daily feedings, and if you're thawing enough for a couple of days, where you want to keep it so it stays refrigerated.

For perspective, Ryan & I buy 160 lbs of raw meaty bones at a time, and that lasts us about 6 weeks. It takes about 36 hours for the 40-lb boxes to thaw out enough to repackage, and repackaging 160 lbs into the quantities that we feed in a day (3 meals x 2 dogs) takes about 2 hours for one person, including time spent stripping fat & skin off of the chicken necks. Our main supplier is about an hour away from us (one-way) so we tend to buy a bunch at once. We get better pricing that way, and don't have to drive in as frequently to pick up food. It's a labor of love, but not terrible, and TOTALLY worth it IMO.

HTH!

K~