Sixty-one cents

I just finished cutting up over 75 pounds of meat, and I realized that I haven't done a cost post is AGES!

Yes, I am a bit tired, thanks for asking :)

I've had a few large cuts of beef and pork in the freezer, that I bought on sale a while ago, as well as two turkeys and one whole chicken.  And chicken legs are on sale this week for $1/lb, so I picked up ~20 pounds yesterday.

And I decided to portion everything out today, re-package and re-freeze it, in an attempt to organize the freezer a bit better!

One night in cold water (the meat, not me!), and 3 hours later of cutting and bagging later...

I have almost 11 weeks worth of meals for both dogs.  And I still have 3 huge pork shoulders in the freezer, and will be going back to get more chicken this week.

I didn't realize I had quite that much meat in the freezer :)

And after adding everything up... each meal costs 61 cents.  (Actually, one of the turkeys was free, and I estimated that is would have cost $15 to buy.  If I take that $15 out, then each meal works out to an amazing 51 cents!)

Sixty-one cents.

I can't even get a box of Kraft Dinner (Kraft Mac & Cheese for you Southerners) for 61 cents anymore.

In all honesty, I haven't been keeping track of the cost any more, but I do know all the meat I have bought since starting this has been $2/lb or less, and some of it was free (some venison from a co-worker, so freezer-burned and/or old meat from others, plus the turkey).

I am WELL under my target of $1 per meal :)


I started keeping track of costs, mainly in order to dispel one of the myths of raw feeding, that it is more expensive than kibble.  Obviously, it depends on the kibble, but I think I've shown how cheap raw feeding can be!

Gotta love it!

The magic white box (or, the most expensive part of raw feeding)

This is Kip's favourite new thing:

It's the magic white box that food comes from.  Apparently, if you sit in front of it long enough, it will dispense yummy food  (this works for humans as well as dogs).   And the space allocation is much more fair to those in the house that actually pay for the food*!

 

But...but...but...why is Kip's space empty???

What?  Doesn't everyone thaw 3 turkeys at a time in their bathtub**? 

Getting serious for a moment, I think having a freezer (even if it is small chest one) is really helpful for raw feeders.  Turkey was on sale for $0.99/lb - a great deal (well, better at least a better deal than the last time I bought some).  And I have found other meats on sale for that price, and limited the amount I bought due to freezer space (well, actually I didn't limit as much as I should have...).  Having a large freezer allows me to preserve food for myself, and stock up on cheap meat for Kip.  Yes, it's an investment, and yes, it takes up space I really don't have (which is why I spent more for an upright instead of a chest freezer).   In a perfect world, I'd have a freezer just for meat, which would allow me to take advantage of even cheaper (like free) meat sources (from hunters, butchers, etc.).  But, unless I build a back porch (which won't happen for a few years, if ever), there simply isn't room for two freezers, and I do need a lot of freezer space for myself as well - and not just for ice cream!! 

The freezer cost almost $700, and of course, there is the yearly cost for electricity.  But even if it was dedicated to just dog food, if it means I can buy a lot of meat when it's on sale, then the freezer will quickly pay for itself.

Other new raw feeding equipment:

I went to a meeting of the garden club my parents are members of, and oddly enough, one member works for a flooring company and had brought in old sample pieces of vinyl flooring as a fund raiser for the club.  So, for a $2 donation, I got a nice piece of vinyl that I'll use for Kip to eat off of, instead of the grungy towel he's currently using.  Cheap, easy to clean, and easy to store away when it's not in use.  And when the flooring guy overheard me chatting about getting a second dog one day, he gave me a second piece!  Which just goes to show you can find the most useful stuff in the oddest of locations!

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* Hey, the ice cream was on sale.  So were the carrots.  And those are individual-sized homemade chicken pot pies on top of the ice cream, waiting for me to wrap them up after freezing.

** Yes, the tub will be cleaned after the thaw!

Turkey - person, place or thing?

Turkey the person - that would be me. Turkey the thing - that would be the two turkeys I thought I was getting a great deal on.

It's Easter, and turkey was on sale for $1.79/lb. I figured there would be less waste (i.e. a higher meat-to-bone ratio) in a turkey than a chicken, and at that price, I'd be getting a good deal. Additionally, turkey would add a bit of variety to Kip's diet, always a good thing.

Let me stop for a moment and review some things. I want to stay at ~10% bone, averaged over a few meals. Chicken can range from 20% (breasts) to over 40% (wings and back) bone, and even averaged over time, any meal with 40% bone is not a good one, in my opinion. Kip eats around 1/2 a pound a day, and I try to portion that into 2 meals. So, 4 oz. of chicken breast (20% bone) can be followed by one 4 oz. meat-only meal, while 4 oz. of chicken leg can be followed by 2 meat-only meals. As a rule-of-thumb, boneless meat is more expensive to buy, so it's a balance between buying cheaper meats with bones and buying enough boneless meat to average out the total bone amount. Clear??

After portioning, I decided to take the breast meat off and feed as boneless, and to discard the rest of the rib/breast/back bones - they just appeared much too bony for my liking. Maybe it was just the way I portioned the turkeys, but when I looked at the back and breast sections, once the breast meat was removed, I saw a lot of bone, a lot of skin, a lot of fat - and very little meat. (They went into the stock pot to make turkey soup for me, so they weren't a complete loss).

So, at $1.79 a pound, I ended up with 22 days worth of food (44 portions) out of two rather small turkeys, at a final cost of $1.66 per day. That is by far the most expensive meat I've bought to date, when calculated by portion rather than by pound. To put that into perspective, I also bought 3 beef roasts at $1.99/lb, that worked out to $1.11/day - not bad for beef!

Now, if you had a larger dog that ate more than 1/2 pound a day, then whole turkeys (and whole chickens) might be a better deal, as the portions can be adjusted to have a better meat/bone ratio. But for me, from now on, unless whole poultry is really cheap, I'll stick to the legs I can by for $1.47/pound - they work out to be a much better deal, even though I'm not getting the breast meat.

And Turkey the place? It's just there to make the title flow better :)