I am thinking about switching my husky Quinn who is almost 2 over to a raw diet. She is on INNOVA dog food right now and weighs 40LBS. Where would be the best place to start for the switch?

Depends on where you live. A lot of people just go to butchers/grocery stores and buy all the meats separately. There are also some places that specialize in raw food for dogs. I buy food for Gabby from www.mypetcarnivore.com . They are Indianapolis based but deliver throughout the midwest. I like buying things from them since I can easily balance the food for the prey model diet. There is also some of the pet store brands like Instinct, Primal, etc. Some of the store brands add filler stuff to them, just make sure you do your research if you plan on setting up the diet yourself so your pup gets everything they need.

http://www.bigdanstrucking.com/ has cost effective food. I think their whole ground turkey is a great base to start with and then I would probably add rabbit from somewhere else to it before going to red meat. dans trucking is denatured meat that means the animals were not considered suitable for human use and something is added to make humans not eat it. Denatured meat is controversial but many have fed it for years. The laws for what can be butchered for humans are very strict so the animal just not wanting to stand up can be good enough reason to turn it into denatured meat as well as injuries that have no impact on the quality of the meat. A variety of products are used for denaturing meat. Dan's trucking just uses liquid charcoal which is used even in humans for a variety of reasons.

I tend to feed beef, chicken, turkey. I agree ground turkey is a good start, however, if you plan to feed all raw, you need to understand that you must feed organ meat and bones. Switching to raw is far easier than switching from different brands of kibble where you have to transition slowly over a course of a week or so. The biggest advice is to feed kibble 8-12 hours apart from feeding raw, they digest at different rates, while you are making the transition. To add variety certain fish is good, as well as the above mentioned rabbit as well as lamb. I personally feed human grade meat, but there are co-ops and other avenues to get your raw meat. Lastly read the threads here on the raw feed forum, you will get a ton of info on how much, what and how to feed raw.

Whole ground turkey does include the organs and bones. The same with any "whole" product on my pet carnivore. If you start getting chunks or meaty parts of an animal then you have to start watching the ratios. It's also good to give something other than ground for mental and physical health.

Kaliska, great web site, and an awesome inexpensive way to get raw. However I did not see anywhere on their website that the ground turkey included organs and bones, I am speaking of the Dan's website. On my end I use ground turkey that is for human consumption, and in that case, yes organs and bones need to be added to the meal. Thank you for posting that website and thank you Lepp for posting up the other website.

Honestly a big part of it depends on where you live. There are co-ops and other avenues where you can buy bulk. Having a freezer dedicated to your dogs food will be your best investment as well. You will want to feed at least a 50% red meat diet once you transition to raw though you do have to include bone and organ like Renee said. Feeding an unbalanced raw diet is worse than feeding kibble.

Personally I buy some things from my local grocery store when things are on sale but I buy the majority of my supply from Raw Feeding Miami as it provides a much more affordable and bigger variety than I can find locally.