What did you feed before?

JWB

What difference did u notice in your dog after changing to raw?

None

Which supplier do you use?
wholesalers, retailers, shops, various

I've seen the sticky guide to barf on here anyone recommend any good sites with similar info/variety info on?

See web links above

Do you include fruit/veg in the feed?

Yes see above

I'm a great believer in feeding by sight to make sure amount is right - can anyone recommend a ratio to start at - grams of food/kg of dog weight?

See above

What split do you feed - %meat/offel/bone?

I do not follow any of the so say "models" that other people quote, I feed what I think they need

How much on average would you say it costs u to feed raw?

See specific thread on forum

There is a plethora of information on here if you go through the RAW FEEDING threads.

HTH

I feed raw and I think the most important bit is do your research. Get her to stick raw feeding into Google - yeah, she'll find some duff sites with bad advice but she'll find a whole variety of opinions, there's not really one set way of raw feeding. I joined up to the Yahoo group BritBarf which is helpful but I think what helped the most, aside from just reading everything I could find, was the fact that one of the general dog forums I'm on has a high percentage of raw feeders and several are very "up" on nutrition, so their posts make for great reading.

When I was reading up about it, I looked at various views and decided the prey model diet made the most sense to me. This is based off the idea of wolves eating so much meat/bone/offal off their usual prey, accounting for the larger bones that they wouldn't eat. You aim to feed 80% muscle meat, 10% offal (liver, kidney, lung, pancreas, brain, etc. - heart counts as muscle though, not offal) and 10% bone (RMB - raw meaty bones - such as chicken carcasses, lamb ribs, etc., smaller edible bones rather than the larger recreational marrow bones, knuckles, etc). You then feed 2-3% of their ideal body weight, for example, Kiki is a good weight at 77lb, so gets about 1.5lb a day (on paper that's 1.2lb being meat, 0.15lb offal, 0.15lb bone, but you can balance it out over the week/month rather than every day needing to be perfect daily. So she may get 1.5lb meat one day, 1lb bone, 0.25lb meat and 0.25lb offal the next, 0.5lb offal and 1lb meat the next, etc. - you soon learn to get the right amount by eye too, so you're not constantly having to weigh things to the exact pound)

I found a specific raw food supplier who supplies meat for pet dogs. He goes straight to the abbatoir and chops things into chunks or minces them, bags up into 2lb bags and sells them on. Makes it very economical, but with the money saved I can buy slightly meatier cuts from the supermarket, as I don't think it's ideal to purely feed minces. For example, the supermarket had reduced steaks last night so the dogs had a big steak each for dinner, which gets their jaws really working. Another day I might find a kilo of chicken legs reduced, tons of meat on them and makes the dogs work for dinner. My supplier does sell bones too though - I buy 15kg boxes of carcasses, wings, etc. and portion them out, he sells whole rabbits, chickens, big double chicken legs, lamb ribs, etc. as well as selling liver and mixed offal. Basically I can buy everything I need from him but I think grab the odd bit from supermarkets to give some more variety in terms of meaty bits vs mince (plus fish). Having a chest freezer is essential to me, it lets me buy in bulk (my supplier isn't really local, I'm just on a delivery route he does once every 4-6 weeks) and I can grab real bargains knowing that I have the freezer space (for example, the time I went to the supermarket late at night and they had about 10 packs of reduced chicken portions - nabbed them all!). If your friend has the guts to do it (no pun intended, haha), there's even the roadkill option - I've stuck a dead bunny I found in the garden in the freezer to feed, and I'm gutted that the one time I drove past a dead deer right at the end of my road it was on a morning that I was mega late for work. Still regret not stopping to nab it, I bet my supplier would've taken it back to portion up for me for a small fee/percentage of the meat. I know a few people who contact their local hunt for leftovers from game and stuff so that's another option if she's near anything like that. Otherwise, butchers, abbatoirs, fishmongers etc. can be worth trying, thoguh unfortunately (over here at least), they're cottoning onto the whole raw feeding thing and often end up charging money for "pet minces" which are high in fat and offal and not very meaty.

I personally don't feed fruit or veg regularly - this tends to be more the BARF style of feeding. I do get green (uncleaned) tripe which is one of the main meats I feed though, lots of prey model feeders give tripe because it contains the vitamins and minerals from the partially digested food of the cow/whatever animal it's from. I add the odd extra though because I think variety is the spice of life - the more variety, the more vitamins/minerals you cover, plus it gives the dogs the mental stimulation of different foods.
I like to include fish fairly regularly as fish oils are good for the coat and joints, especially as wolves in mountain areas would often fish for salmon in streams. I tend to vary the fish - sometimes it's frozen white fillets, sometimes it's sardines, mackeral, etc. from tins (rinsed of oil/sauce first though), lately I've been feeding a pre-made salmon mousse because it was on offer and worked out a cheap way to feed salmon (it's 99% salmon) and works well as a Kong stuffer too.
I also feed raw eggs (chuck an egg in the bowl so it breaks slightly and let the dogs figure out the rest), they may get some yoghurt if I happen to have some left over but it's not a frequent thing, sometimes they'll get leftover veg or rice if I cooked too much.
I add salmon oil to their food occasionally and I do homemade treats with salmon oil, glucosamine, chondroitin, etc. in just for a little boost but I don't really add a regular food supplement (I have powdered seaweed, bought a big tub for the rats but it's huge so the dogs get it occasionally), the dogs are doing fine without anything added.

The dogs are doing very well on it, it's been a year and a half/nearly 2 years I think (switched not long after getting Casper), no health problems (other than a tummy bug that was going around), shiny coats, clean teeth, good weights. I'm very happy with feeding raw and my mum was so impressed that she's recently switched her pup onto 100% raw (she was giving it occasionally before) and pup is loving it. I will definately feed raw unless it becomes totally impractical/impossible.
It can seem quite overwhelming at first but it soon clicks. Just remember that humans don't eat/feed their kids a 100% complete nugget food (well, there's pre-made babyfood but beyond that), we manage to get a roughly balanced diet just by knowing that we need to have carbohydrates, proteins, etc. so if we can do it for ourselves, we can figure it out for our dogs. If your friend is that worried about getting the balance wrong then there are pre-made raw diets out there that may be worth looking into.