One of the most cost effective ways for you to buy food for your pets at A Place For Paws is to purchase it in bulk.  To that end, we offer the 50 pound bulk box.  Consisting of 10 five pound rolls or chubs, these boxes can cut your per pound price significantly when compared to our two pound containers.  Many people balk at buying the 50 pound boxes because they don’t feed 5#’s of food in a day or two, because they don’t want to feed the same protein more than a day or so in a row, and because they find them harder to handle than the convenient two pound containers.  While all of these thoughts are valid, there are ways to make the use of the 5# chubs manageable and ‘right’ for each individual situation.  All it takes is some simple maneuvering and a little thinking ahead.

The 50# boxes consist of one variety of proteins from our raw food menu.  The boxes are not mix and match and when purchased, you purchase 50#’s of one item.  The food itself is packaged into chubs instead of deli containers which is another way in which we can keep costs down and offer them at such a discounted price.  The fact that the price is absolutely ‘right’, makes it common sense to look into purchasing at least some of your raw products in this form.  Who doesn’t need to save some cash?!

As anyone who has used the chubs knows, they do take quite some time to thaw out.  Many people are frustrated by this.  The fact is that they are deeply frozen at our processing plant and being a denser packed higher weight product, they do take longer than a two pound container to thaw.  If you are a member of the camp that thaws their pet’s food out in the refrigerator, it can take quite some time to get it into a workable level of ‘thawed-ness’.  Personally, I thaw all of my food, including 5# chubs, in a container of hot water on the back of my sink.  Generally, by end of day feeding time, it is thawed and ready to go.  More often than not it still has a definite chill to it but occasionally it is closer to room temperature – a fine place to be and often preferred by many raw feeders.  Either way that you choose to thaw, simply manage your time and think ahead and the right scenario will work itself out for you.

More often is the complaint that you simply aren’t feeding 5#’s in the course of two or three days, and that you would prefer to not have to feed the same protein source each and every day.  Completely understandable.  Most all of us know that variety is the spice of life when it comes to raw feeding, and as such we tend to feed something different every day or every other day. For someone who has a 25 pound (or smaller!) dog this can pose a problem since they are only feeding approximately 1/2 pound a day.  One chub lasts TEN days!  The other complaint is that the chubs are simply too messy to deal with.  Fortunately, there are ways around both of these issues.

One of the easiest ways to deal with both of these issues is to thaw your chub only partially and to separate it into portions that work for your household.  Instead of thawing out the chub until it is thawed all of the way through, utilize the fact that its a longer thaw and get to work on it before it is thawed all of the way through.  As soon as its soft enough to get a knife through, your portion splitting work can begin.  Because the raw food is still partially frozen, you will have less mess, less juice, less leakage.  Cut it into workable portions for you.  If a pound at a time is what you are comfortable with, cut it into 5 equal pieces.  Use freezer bags to refreeze the smaller portions, keep out what you wish to use first.  Its that easy.  Even if the meat is completely thawed and just cold, you can still refreeze.  It will not harm the meat and it will not harm your pet.

While they seem somewhat large and hard to handle, using these simple tips can make the 50# box a viable option for you when you order your food.  You can tailor your order in such a way as to promote variety as well by picking one staple such as Tripe or Tripe Plus as your main food and supplement with two pound containers of the other varieties of meats.  In this manner you can switch around and feed several things each week – the optimal way to feed raw.  By incorporating the bulk boxes and choosing to feed whole raw meaty bones like chicken necks, backs or turkey necks, you can save even more.  Need help figuring out a cost effective way to feed your pups?  Give us a call – we would be happy to help!  Merely investing in some freezer bags and a good knife can make all the difference where our 50# boxes are concerned.  They don’t have to be messy, they don’t have to be a pain in your neck!  With the per pound price so significantly cheaper, the 50# bulk box might just be something that YOU should give a chance!