Group tackles raw food economics in bulk
Local coop delivers 6,000-8,000 pounds of raw meat for pets every month
Every second Sunday of every month, a group of about 60 people gathers in a parking lot in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, to disperse a shipment of 6,000 to 8,000 pounds of raw meat among themselves.
Tulsa Raw Fed Co-op Coordinator Jana Proffitt Davis said she also takes another 1,500 to 2,000 pounds to pet owners in Arkansas. It’s frozen and packed in flat boxes of 40 or 50 pounds each.
Some of it is pieces, some are primarily bones, some are fish, some are ground, some are coarse, some are fine, some stuffed into tubes, and some are just pressed into the aforementioned plastic-lined flat.
Last month my wife, DeAnna, and I joined this crazy crowd. We now plan to make it a regular thing. We picked up food for Whiskey, 50 pounds of frozen chicken necks, and 40 pounds of frozen “hi fat” chicken backs. With all the other stuff Whiskey eats, that order will last us a couple of months. A new venture in the process of keeping Whiskey on his BARF (bones and raw food) diet.
I’ve been feeding my hunting dogs this way since the mid-1990s, when my black Labs, Rascal and Tag, had some inexplicable allergy and auto-immune issues that cleared up after my “regular” vet introduced me to a holistic vet who pointed me toward the book “Give Your Dog a Bone,” by Ian Billinghurst. I’ve followed Billinghurst’s “commonsense approach” ever since.
Davis said the coop members all say the same things about raw food diets that I’ve heard for years; no allergies, about a third the volume of poop, fewer dental issues, softer and more supple coats, and generally better health.
We also came to this after Whiskey’s favorites, turkey necks purchased bulk from the local butcher in a 30-pound box, increased in price from 98 cents a pound to $1.70. Thank you, bird flu. Raw food is great, but getting good stuff at a reasonable price can be challenging.
The Co-op gets its stuff from Ross-Wells, a Wisconsin processor that handles raw meats for dog food. The company distributes to various places that make dog foods and distributes raw foods to sellers, including local co-ops nationwide. Davis said co-op distribution points have to be at least 100 miles apart. The co-op advantage is the savings on expensive shipping, fancy packaging, and middle-man handlers.
Stuff that might cost $4 a pound or more on grocery store shelves or ordered and shipped through a website is closer to $1 a pound through the co-op. Granted, the packaging is not “pretty.” We’re talking bare-bones here, pun intended.
Want a flat of frozen fish in a solid block or a 50-pound block of frozen tripe? This is your outfit. You get to spend some time unloading and stacking it on a sweltering Sunday in July or August or a freezing Sunday in December or January. Still, the co-op has the parking, unloading, loading, and dispersing down to an art form—thanks to a few ladies with well-honed vocal cords.
Generally, the group effort wraps up a 7,000-pound delivery in about 45 minutes, largely thanks to a few women with clipboards who have the plan and well-honed vocal cords.
Buying raw cheaply does require some at-home work. You’ll have to process it into your own packaging and own a large freezer.
We wanted whole chicken pieces, but they do offer two “blends,” Titan Red and Titan Blue, which come tube-packaged like hamburger meat. Those offer a “balanced” diet option with supplements included in a mix that is mostly beef or mainly poultry. Those cost closer to $2 a pound, but it’s a no-fuss, no-muss option—and from what we saw last month, a popular one. A lot of boxes of Titan came off that truck.
For Whiskey, I let the two boxes thaw on the kitchen table. As the mass softened bit by bit overnight and into the next day, I divided it into “weekly” bags for Whiskey. Each pack holds five or six meals, one “meal” being one back and four or five necks. Each meal will contain eggs and other supplements, like corn oil and vitamin E.
The process is pretty simple. A monthly text arrives about a week before orders are due. Usually a Monday early in the month. This month the order date is Monday, Aug. 7.
The text reads: “ORDER DUE 10 PM 08/07/2023. www.TulsaRawFed.com. For pickup 09/10/2023 …” I’ll check a box or two on the website and put in my payment. On the group’s Facebook page, Tulsa Raw Fed Group, I’ll watch for updates and see what other folks might be discussing about their food choices.
We’ve been feeding Whiskey with the raw necks and backs for a month, and it’s been good. The only weird part is the charcoal, which just looks gross. But that doesn’t bother Whiskey. It’s a US Food and Drug Administration requirement. When the meat touches the pet food supplier chain, it must be marked as pet-grade, not fit for human consumption.
Not every single piece is covered, and it is heavier on others. It looks like someone just took a handful and sprinkled it on the boxes as they passed. If we wanted to, we could quickly rinse each piece, but while the fine black powder makes things a little messy, it doesn’t bother Whiskey and easily wipes or rinses off anything it touches.
While this is a good added and relatively inexpensive food for Whiskey, his absolute cheapest meals are trimmings from the fish and game I harvest and bones I’m too lazy to turn into stock. I might sometimes leave some extra meat on the bones for him as I butcher a deer—because I’m a sucker for my dog that way.
Other Whiskey meals are just plain inexpensive. His “Rocky” breakfasts are veggie smoothies made with pulp leftover from the juicer, raw eggs, yogurt, bone broth, and brewer’s yeast. The mix costs pennies. We do the same with frozen vegetables, more so than fresh veggies with higher prices of late.
And as Whiskey gets older, he gets more veggies—Billinghursts guidance. The pup is eight now, our middle-aged man with bad knees.
Chicken quarters in 10-pound bags remain the best raw-meat-and-bones option at the grocery store, often found on sale for around 60 to 65 cents a pound. We stock up whenever they sell for less than $6.50 a bag. We fill the freezer. One of these days, I will divide up one of those bags and weigh the amount of water and chicken. I suspect a lot of that weight is water. A pint’s a pound the world around, you know.
Still, it’s a reasonable price. It’s not as fun as unloading your own in a Sapulpa parking lot on a Sunday with many other crazy people, but now we get to do both, and Whiskey gets healthy variety in his diet.