Post by katt on May 13, 2012 21:43:51 GMT -5
I bring this up in almost every switch that I do, so I thought I'd make it it's own thread for reference. There are of course many ways to handle the preparation and storage of raw foods, but this method has been VERY successful for me and I know that many people here do this or something very similar.
I stock up ahead of time. I buy meat in bulk, and get whole animals when I can (i.e. an entire chicken as opposed to 6 packs of chicken wings). I try to buy everything in roughly the correct proportions (see below). So I might get a whole chicken, a whole duck, some pork and goat chunks, some turkey necks, and a butt load of hearts and organs all at once. Then I spend a few hours chopping the meat up and splitting it into sandwich sized freezer bags. I put a mix of meats and bones into all of the bags. Then I keep other bags for strictly organs, and strictly heart. Each organ bag is filled with 1/2 liver and 1/2 other organs (kidneys, uteries, brains, spleen, etc). Then the heart bags are filled with hearts only. This makes it pretty clear to tell between them even without labeling. Hearts are visible as hearts, and liver is nice and dark, compared to the other bags that clearly have bony meat chunks in them. Then into each bag I add my supplements if I am giving them (I don't have to do this as much now since his IBD has calmed down, but this is when I'd typically add a little of Koda's pancratic enzymes, reishi, and probios). Then the bags are sealed up and then CAREFULLY (bones can poke holes) smooshed flat so that they stack very nicely into the freezer. Very space efficient. Or just crammed into the freezer however you please.
I stopped this out of laziness, but it is a good thing to do if you can - Color Code! Either use a multi-colored pack of sharpies, or colored tape. Or even different colored bags. You can color code by protein (i.e. chicken is yellow, pork is pink, duck is blue, turkey green), bones vs non bones (orange dot for bones, no dot for no bones), and organs (red for heart, purple for organs), or whatever method you prefer. These are just some examples to help you keep track. If you are certain to buy everything in proper ratios to begin with, then things should balance out accordingly whether you label or not, BUT labeling is VERY helpful in maintaining a routine diet schedule.
It takes a few hours one day to prepare and freeze everything, and 5 seconds to "prepare" meals daily. Just move a bag of meat from the freezer to the fridge the day before to thaw, and drop it in the food bowl come meal time. Or run under water to unstick the meat from the bag, and feed it frozen on a hot day or for variety.
Here's the general guideline to follow: 10-15% EDIBLE bone (the pieces they leave behind do not count), 10% organ (at least half liver, and the other half should preferably be a variety of other organs), 75-80% muscle meat INCLUDING heart and gizzards. I typically shoot for about 10% of the total diet being heart.
SO say you feed 2 meals a day, that's 14 meals a week. In any given week, they should get roughly 1.5 meals of organ and 1.5 meals of heart. A good way to do this is to give one meal organs, one meal hearts, and one meal organs and hearts.
With the above preparation method, feeding in balance becomes easy! Pick one day of the week to be your set organ day. Say weekends. So Friday night you take out one bag of hearts (heart only) and one bag of organs (should already contain half liver, half other organs) and put them in the fridge to thaw. Saturday feed one meal of organs only, and one meal of hearts only. Then Sunday for breakfast give one meal of half organ and half heart (this should be the remaining food in the 2 bags you thawed, it might take some practice to gauge the amounts to put in each bag right, but it should be easy enough if you know how much they eat in a day). Then the rest of the week, you can feed the rest of the bony meats.
Hope this helps someone!
I stock up ahead of time. I buy meat in bulk, and get whole animals when I can (i.e. an entire chicken as opposed to 6 packs of chicken wings). I try to buy everything in roughly the correct proportions (see below). So I might get a whole chicken, a whole duck, some pork and goat chunks, some turkey necks, and a butt load of hearts and organs all at once. Then I spend a few hours chopping the meat up and splitting it into sandwich sized freezer bags. I put a mix of meats and bones into all of the bags. Then I keep other bags for strictly organs, and strictly heart. Each organ bag is filled with 1/2 liver and 1/2 other organs (kidneys, uteries, brains, spleen, etc). Then the heart bags are filled with hearts only. This makes it pretty clear to tell between them even without labeling. Hearts are visible as hearts, and liver is nice and dark, compared to the other bags that clearly have bony meat chunks in them. Then into each bag I add my supplements if I am giving them (I don't have to do this as much now since his IBD has calmed down, but this is when I'd typically add a little of Koda's pancratic enzymes, reishi, and probios). Then the bags are sealed up and then CAREFULLY (bones can poke holes) smooshed flat so that they stack very nicely into the freezer. Very space efficient. Or just crammed into the freezer however you please.
I stopped this out of laziness, but it is a good thing to do if you can - Color Code! Either use a multi-colored pack of sharpies, or colored tape. Or even different colored bags. You can color code by protein (i.e. chicken is yellow, pork is pink, duck is blue, turkey green), bones vs non bones (orange dot for bones, no dot for no bones), and organs (red for heart, purple for organs), or whatever method you prefer. These are just some examples to help you keep track. If you are certain to buy everything in proper ratios to begin with, then things should balance out accordingly whether you label or not, BUT labeling is VERY helpful in maintaining a routine diet schedule.
It takes a few hours one day to prepare and freeze everything, and 5 seconds to "prepare" meals daily. Just move a bag of meat from the freezer to the fridge the day before to thaw, and drop it in the food bowl come meal time. Or run under water to unstick the meat from the bag, and feed it frozen on a hot day or for variety.
Here's the general guideline to follow: 10-15% EDIBLE bone (the pieces they leave behind do not count), 10% organ (at least half liver, and the other half should preferably be a variety of other organs), 75-80% muscle meat INCLUDING heart and gizzards. I typically shoot for about 10% of the total diet being heart.
SO say you feed 2 meals a day, that's 14 meals a week. In any given week, they should get roughly 1.5 meals of organ and 1.5 meals of heart. A good way to do this is to give one meal organs, one meal hearts, and one meal organs and hearts.
With the above preparation method, feeding in balance becomes easy! Pick one day of the week to be your set organ day. Say weekends. So Friday night you take out one bag of hearts (heart only) and one bag of organs (should already contain half liver, half other organs) and put them in the fridge to thaw. Saturday feed one meal of organs only, and one meal of hearts only. Then Sunday for breakfast give one meal of half organ and half heart (this should be the remaining food in the 2 bags you thawed, it might take some practice to gauge the amounts to put in each bag right, but it should be easy enough if you know how much they eat in a day). Then the rest of the week, you can feed the rest of the bony meats.
Hope this helps someone!
thanks!!
