A little bit about us

This is probably going to be one of a couple post today...I feel chatty!:-D

Ok, so a little bit about us...Jesse is an electrician, and I am a legal courier....ok enough about the humans!!

The dogs, Rhett, Leo, Brody, Dixi (and of course Keeva as she will be here in less then a week), and cats, Ducki and Pidgin....well they are carnivores, and are fed as such.  We feed raw(meat, bones and organs)...I use This Blog as my main source of learning(thank you Jon and Natalie for your GREAT teachings), along with being a part of Dog Food Chat's forum and Raw Feeding on both facebook and Yahoo(and for the kitties rawcat on facebook).  How we feed mimics what carnivores eat in the wild, animal prey, so mostly meat(about 80% of the diet,) some edible bone(around 10%,) some liver(around 5%) and some other secreting organs(around 5%.)  My friend Tiffany, who is getting Keeva's litter mate Huginn, and who is joining me on my raw fed adventure wrote a great blog post about the scientific side of WHY for raw feeding(you can read it HERE.)

My dogs have never looked, felt or smelled better!  Their hair is SILKY, full and hardly sheds(even for Brody, who is part Pug, which is HUGE!)  Rhett was switched to raw at 14 weeks old and hasnt even once gone thru and of those weird growth spurts that put their rears WAY higher then their fronts, or vice versa!  Everyone's mouth is full of bright white, shinny, clean teeth(yes even Leo and Dixi where both fed a VERY low quality, grocery store brand "stew" style processed food!!)

So on top of training both dogs and their pet humans, training humans to properly feed their pet carnivores is one of my MAIN passions!
I post on facebook a lot about recalls in processed foods and treats, the main reason is I want people to really understand what they are pumping into their pets.  I am always very willing to help people better their processed food choices...but will ALWAYS HIGHLY suggest raw...but I can NOT stand to see pets fed a grocery store brand food, and thus will ALWAYS offer ideas on better processed foods!

I get lots of questions as to how we do it....about space and cost mostly so here is some of how we do it! :)

Currently Jesse, the boys and girls and I live in a house with about 600-650sq. ft.  We have both a fridge with up top freezer and a stand up freezer that is the same size as the fridge....I feed all 6(soon to be 7)carnivores from this arrangement and can easily store nearly 2 months worth of food for them and 2-3 weeks of food for us in them!  I also dont spend more then $1 per pound...try to spend under $.85/lbs! ;-)
We feed Rhett, Brody, Dixi,(and Keeva will as well) in their crates, Leo eats off of his mat....all in the bedroom.  They take no longer then 25min to eat unless given a fully frozen large meal, or a complicated one. (The kitties share the 2nd bedroom and are fed in there.)
I prep different ways;
1. Once a week and portion each pet's meal out per day(they are only fed once a day, other then Keeva who will be fed to her needs at 4 then 3 and then 2 times a day) which takes me between 1 and 3 hours, depending on how much thawing and hacking/cutting I have to do.
2. Once a day, having meat thawed in the fridge and hack it up per each pet's needs each morning(Ive been doing this mostly as of late....lazy season I guess!LOL)  This takes me between 8 and 15 minutes depending on what I am feeding and if I have remembered to thaw and dont have to speed thaw! ;-)

Neither way takes all that much time....I spend much more time a day on the computer then that....so I figure why not feed my babes properly.

Anyways, please feel free to ask me any questions, check into the links I provided, become part of DFC and again ask more questions PLEASE FEEL FREE!!! :-D
(I plan on trying to post a weekly post about what everyone ate the past week...so check back soon! :-) )