Homemade Raw Dog Food | How to Feed on a Budget

There are benefits and drawbacks to DIY raw feeding. Read on to find out what these are, as well as some helpful tips for how to feed raw on a budget.

DIY raw dog food is a preferred way to feed for many experienced raw feeders, though for convenience they often buy 801010 raw dog food and add their own ingredients on top.

Homemade raw dog food can be quite messy, as well as time consuming.

It’s also important to ensure the correct ratios of ingredients to provide balanced and essential nutrition for your dog.

A raw meal for your dog should consist of:

• High quality, varied meat/fish proteins
• Bones
• Offal (if your dog can tolerate it),
• Dog-friendly fruits, vegetables and herbs.

Find out more about the ingredients in raw dog food.

As a general rule of thumb, muscle meats should make up the bulk of the meal.

Bones and offal should comprise a lesser amount, and a small amount of vegetation, such as herbs, nuts and berries can provide additional fibre, prebiotics and antioxidants.

Bones must NEVER be fed cooked, and be appropriate in size for the breed and size of dog. Check out our guide for more about feeding bones to dogs.

Fresh meat and fish should be frozen for a week or so first to ensure any parasites are killed, and to prevent bacteria growing.

Organ meats should be varied, and limited for some breeds, or dogs with certain health issues.

The most important ingredient in a raw dog meal is high quality meat protein, closely followed by high-quality fat.

Both protein and fat are essential nutrients, and without them, dogs fail to thrive [1].

Balance is essential, so fat should be between 10-20% of the overall diet, with the remaining being protein, and a small amount of carbohydrates from vegetation.

Bone is also essential, as it provides minerals such as calcium; it should make up 10-15% of your dog’s diet. After the protein, bone, and fat requirements have been taken care of, get creative.

Berries, lightly cooked/ blended vegetables, raw eggs, and plenty of other foods can be hugely beneficial to your dog’s raw diet.

See our extensive A-Z guide for lots of safe and healthy foods for dogs (and the ones to stay away from).

There are actually plenty of ways to feed dogs a raw diet on a budget.

Our Economy Core budget raw dog food offers various options of premium quality meals at discounted pricing, making them more affordable.

Also, even a small amount of raw or fresh food along with your dog’s regular diet is still better than nothing; you can easily feed raw on a budget by giving smaller portions and subtracting equal amounts from their usual food.

This stretches your food supply further, whilst simultaneously increasing the health benefits for your dog.

We offer a variety of ways to save money too:

• Subscribe and save 5%
• Bundles (save up to 17%)
• Rewards programme
• Refer a friend credits

What to add to dry dog food

Even if feeding a dry, kibble based diet you can still add fresh or raw meat to your dog’s food whilst keeping your budget inline.

You can even create your own homemade raw dog food to add to your dog’s kibble with inexpensive proteins like green tripe, raw meaty bones and a small amount of offal from your butcher.

Offal is highly nutrient dense, and fantastic for most dogs’ health. This way, you still get to feed raw on a budget, whilst your dog enjoys nutrient enhanced food.

Certain breeds are more sensitive to offal than others, such as Dalmatians who need low purine dog food, so it’s a good idea to research this first.

Our Dalmatian feeding guide provides more detailed information about this breed’s dietary requirements.

Unless significantly experienced with the ratios, weights, and storage of raw dog feeding, DIY raw dog food can be tricky in a few ways.

Sourcing a good variety of proteins and offal may prove challenging and potentially costly.

The preparation of raw food can also be very messy, use our safety tips, and time consuming as you’ll have to cut, weigh, and portion the proteins.

And, most importantly, getting the balance wrong, or leaving out key ingredients, like bone, can have adverse health effects on your dog.

Calculating the correct ratios can be difficult and will vary based on your dog’s weight, lifestage, and energy requirements [2].

Our Complete and Novel Protein ranges are formulated with the help of veterinarians to offer your dog a nutritionally balanced, well-rounded meal.

The costs of raw feeding aren’t as intimidating as they seem, and can be even less so if you know where to look.

We created our Economy Core range to provide even more dogs access to their natural diet, to suit lower budgets.

Our reRAWds, subscribe and save, bundle discounts, and woofurrals schemes also provide extra discounted benefits, making it even easier to feed raw on a budget!

Our raw food for dogs is of premium quality, providing maximum nutritional value to your dog, providing you savings on vet bills in the long run.

Our expert feeding advisors are happy to answer any queries to make your experience even easier.