Two of my dogs have now been on raw for about 5 months and I have seen a major improvement in their coats, energy etc.

One of my girls has just whelped (all spoken for) and she has masses of rich milk, I think all down to the raw diet, her pups are good and strong and very chunky, gaining on average 90grms a day which is a lot considering they are cocker spaniels.

Thanks for the replies, very good and very helpful.

I had a look at the raw in P@H on Sunday and it comes in about £2+/kg

I need to look into suppliers that deliver to Midlothian - any recommendations anyone?

Looked at Freezers on ebay and I think you can pick one up second hand for about £20 to £30. I'll need to arrange a cupboard to get it in. Hoping to find someone in the £1/kg range to make it economical, but as long as its less than £2/kg it will work out compared to kibble.

When you feed the Raw do you defrost the food first?

I sometimes defrost, I sometimes (more than likely) forget so they get it frozen. Offal I feed frozen and whole rabbits - but only because they have a gaping hole in the middle where their guts have been took out and I don't really like the smell of defrosting dead bunny..

same here i feed both,sometimes together sometimes not,tonight they had ox heart in with their..shock horror...kibble

i tend to only give mine thawed food if its fresh that day...once its been in the freezer they get it frozen.

.. re the gaping holes,poor tupse watched me gut his bunnie...good as gold and patient ,should of seen his face when i shoved it in the freezer mwwwhhha ha lol

Thanks, how do you measure out the portions if it is frozen - the packs in P@H seemed to be blocks

Ahhh - I don't feed that way, I go by hand/eye and how much exercise and roughly the guideline amount. The blocks I get from my stockists are 454g. Louie's recommended is 540g - I don't/rarely feed him that much. I like to keep him lean.

However I mainly go on what exercise he's had these days, yesterday he was running around and training for about 5 hours in total so he got two of the blocks. On a normal day where he would get up to 2 hours walk he would just get one block and maybe some heart and a duck wing or a bone to chew on at night. And on other days where he gets up to an hours walk he just has a block.

Fatty Benjie and Sadie get Prize choice blocks. Sadie only gets one as they are over her recommended amount (and I can't really be bothered to cut and chop) but she does get around a lot so has never really put on the weight and Benjie wasn't loosing weight on the blocks Louie has (with exercise) so I've put him on PC as they are smaller (with exercise in the hope it starts to fall off him - he's about 3-5kg too heavy..

With Chicken carcasses, the elder two get 1 each with perhaps some heart chunks, Louie gets 2. With rabbits - I just throw them each a rabbit, although I am starting to look at what they do and don't eat and with Benjie's diet, him and Sadie shall be sharing a rabbit and Louie will have his one whole one.

I attempt to defrost but because they get through quite a bit a day and it's put in the fridge to defrost it's never fully defrosted when fed. It is defrosted enough to seperate though. I put it all in a washing up bowl in the fridge to defrost to stop blood leaking into the fridge and when I feed them one day I take the next days food out but even though it's taken out the day before because it's in the fridge it's semi defrosted when eaten.

SmokeyBear would have a heart attack at this - I mixed some Orijen in with tinned food the other day, two "complete" foods mixed together!!!! Oh the pointlessness of it!!

Is there not some method of excommunication for dog owners who do this?!

I often do not defrost the food if it is very hot as it gives my dogs something to cool them down, as for measuring stuff out, you start off that way and then you end up like me, bung it in freezer, bung it in bowl and then bung it to dog!

I am fairly relaxed about it all now, but then I would hope after nearly 11 years I would be!