Hello all,

I know there are plenty of raw feeders on here.  I've dabbled, but have never had a dedicated freezer.  I want to take advantage of the bulk prices, and would probably buy a month's worth of food at a time.  I have 3 (hopefully 4 one day) Labradors.  I have no concept whatsoever of size, so please can you tell me what kind of size freezer you have and how much food you can fit in it?

Thanks,

Clare

Not sure what others will say, we only have 2 dogs on raw but managed to buy a second hand freezer from gumtree for £50 it is an upright with six drawers, it holds enough for about 6 weeks for us.  Maybe a bit longer just depends what we buy. 

I have two freezers ,one small chest which takes about 60 /70pks (1kg) + 1 larger chest which takes 3 boxes of chix wings + 1-2 small items for human consumsion That is a monthly order for 4 GSD's ,some months need more mince ,some months need a extra box wings ,so send some to my daughters.

I have a small under the counter freezer and this will hold about 2 weeks worth for a large breed dog..

God I miss being at my Dad's where I had access to a tall upright, a large chest and the small under the counter freezer, that was sufficient for 4 weeks worth of meat for 2 large breed dogs!!

I have a standard under work top freezer and it holds 80 1lb packs of minced food, I took out the draws and stacked the food on the shelving.

I have a small chest freezer holds enough for 3 Bernese for 6 weeks. 40 pks tripe 20 pks each of compete and offal mix 6 bags carcasses 6 bags chunky beef 3 bags hearts 3 bags liver and whatever else I get free from other sources. It's all in the packing...gardening gloves needed or it's a case of frozen fingers!!
Aileen
I don't use large bones except the odd freeby from the butcher and they have them on the day as recreational.
Oh and 6 bags necks....

Hi Clare

We recently bought this Beko freezer - which has a capacity of 374 litres.

I feed 3 dogs and buy the following every 6 weeks or so:  35 minced tripe, 35 economy mince, 35 best minced meat, 35 minced chicken, 35 minced lamb.  The mince is frozen in 1lb blocks/tubes and this 175lbs in total.  In addition I generally buy 4 x 5.5lb bags of turkey necks, 2 x 5.5lb bags of chicken wings and 4 x 1lb blocks of liver.

This pretty much fills me to capacity, and I do have to pack the food in properly (using gloves as Merlot also mentions!!) but I can still use the 3 baskets for our overflow food.  If I reduce the bags of poultry I can take 200lbs of mince quite easily.

Does that help?  I'm expecting a delivery on Tuesday next week and can take a pic to email if you like...

I would say the biggest you can afford and get in the space whatever you buy you always seem to need thenext size up. I have a 4ft by 3ft approx chest freezer and an 8 drawer upright which I use about half for the dogs and half for us. I also have 6 drawer upright but that is for the humans. WIth that lot I order about 130 kg at a time which lasts about three months for my 3.
If you pack the chest carefully it is the one I prefer for the amount it can hold.  

When i switched to raw last year i had a 5ft Beko frost free upright. The plan was to get rid of it and buy bigger capacity chest freezer with a seperate compartment for the dogs meat. However it didn't quite work out as i thought. I bought a chest freezer which is full of allotment fruit & veg and the dogs have the Beko upright. It has two half draws and four full ones and i can fit 10k of mince in it and 10k of chicken carcases. 5k of offal. Their minced veg and yoghurt cubes which i make in advance, bag up and freeze and about 2lbs of liver cake. This will last my five medium sized dogs for approximately two weeks. Now that i have two seperate freezers i would never consider putting the dogs meat in with human food as i am surprised at how much leakage & debris occurs from the meat bags even when its frozen. 

> I have a standard under work top freezer and it holds 80 1lb packs of minced food, I took out the draws and stacked the food on the shelving.

I never thought to do that! I could probably squeeze a bit more in doing it that way

wow Clare, are you going for it??? I'm after a freezer too so will watch this with interest :-)

Thanks for the help everyone, and yes please, photos of your well packed freezers would be much appreciated!!! 

Judy, I'm hoping to 'go for it' as soon as I can get a freezer.  We can share a Durham Animal Feed order if you're interested?  Anything over £50 is free delivery, but without buying a freezer way bigger than I can afford, I don't think I can get up to the £50 threshold!

Clare

Dog food arrived today and I've emailed you some before and after photographs :)  Hope it helps

Not sure if you already know this, but some of the big electrical retailers have auction websites where they sell off Ex-display or clearance stock and you can usually get a good bargain on fridges/freezers etc.

http://www.clearance-comet.co.uk/kitchen-home/fridges-freezers.html

Wow...that is useful :)

Have you tried freecycle.  I got my 'dog' freezer from my local freecyle and keep it in the garage.

Thanks, I've ordered the giant freezer that dogs a babe recommended :-)

I did have a look at freecycle, gumtree and ebay, but there weren't any big enough.  And, I know it sounds daft, but because my dogs are left for a portion of each day when I go out to work, I really really really worry about fires.... and (irrationally perhaps) I am quite scared of old and free/cheap appliances.