Storing and defrosting raw dog food

The short answer

Freeze it until the night before. Defrost it in a lidded tub in the fridge. Feed it within the time on the label, or within 24 hours if there is no label or you are not sure. If you forgot, defrost it in cold water, not warm. Do not microwave or cook anything with bone in it. Wash the bowl, board, knife and your hands after every meal, and lift the bowl after 20 minutes. That is the whole routine.

Storage times

Why the 24 hour figure when brands say longer? Brands test their own products and their labels are reliable for food defrosted in the fridge. The FSA's 24 hour rule for raw meat for people is the conservative version that holds for every product and every way of defrosting, which is why this site's transition guide uses it. Follow the label if you have one and defrosted in the fridge; follow 24 hours if either is not true.

Defrosting: slow, fast and never

Slow, in the fridge (the default)

Move tomorrow's food from the freezer to a lidded tub on the bottom shelf of the fridge tonight. A 500 g tub or 454 g block takes 12 to 24 hours; a 1 kg block or a whole carcass takes 24 to 36 hours. Food stays below 5°C the whole time, so bacteria barely multiply. For a dog on 500 g a day, keeping one day's food defrosting while another is being eaten is the rhythm that works.

Fast, in cold water

Sealed pack or lidded tub in a bowl of cold tap water. About an hour for 500 g, two to three hours for 1 kg. Change the water every 30 minutes. The outside never gets warm, which is what makes this safe where warm water is not. Feed it the same day and do not refreeze.

Never

• On the worktop or in warm water. The outside spends hours in the temperature range where bacteria double every 20 minutes while the middle thaws.
• In the microwave, if there is bone in it. Hot spots cook the bone and cooked bone splinters.
• In the sun or on a radiator. Same problem as the worktop, faster.

Or do not defrost at all

Many dogs happily eat frozen chunks, nuggets or a frozen chicken wing, and in summer a frozen meal is a slow feeder and a cooler in one. Free flow nuggets and small portions thaw in minutes at room temperature, which is short enough to be safe. Large frozen blocks are harder work for small dogs, and frozen food is a bad idea for a dog with poor teeth.

Refreezing

The FSA position for raw meat for people is that food defrosted in the fridge can be refrozen, with a loss of texture, as long as it has not been out of the fridge. That applies to raw dog food too. Food defrosted in water, in a microwave or left out should not go back in the freezer. Many brands print "do not refreeze" because they cannot check how you thawed it, and because the texture of a refrozen mince is poor. The practical answer is to portion before freezing: split a 1 kg block into daily tubs on the day it arrives, so you only ever defrost what you need.

Can you cook raw dog food?

Boneless food can be lightly cooked. You lose some B vitamins and taurine and gain nothing the dog needs, but it is a reasonable choice in a household with a baby, a pregnancy or someone immune compromised, where the bacteria question matters more. Anything with bone in it must not be cooked, and almost every complete raw product has ground bone, so check the ingredients before the pan goes on. If you want a cooked diet long term, a complete cooked food is the right product. The evidence page compares raw, kibble and fresh cooked.

How much freezer you need

The calculator gives a monthly weight. Raw food is dense, so 1 kg takes up roughly a litre of freezer space in tubs, a bit less in flat blocks.

A second hand chest freezer is the standard raw feeder purchase, because bulk buying is where the savings are: 10 kg boxes and 20 kg orders are cheaper per kg than tubs, but only if there is somewhere to put them.

The hygiene routine

This is what protects the people in the house. Dogs rarely get ill from the bacteria on raw meat; children, older people, pregnant women and anyone immune compromised can. GOV.UK publishes guidance on handling raw pet food and it comes down to this.

1. Keep it separate. A board, knife and tubs used only for the dog's food, stored apart from human food in the fridge.
2. Wash after every meal. Bowl, board, knife and surfaces in hot soapy water, or a dishwasher. Stainless steel or ceramic bowls, not plastic, which scratches and holds bacteria.
3. Hands. Soap and warm water after handling the food, the bowl, or the dog's face for an hour or so after eating.
4. Lift the bowl. Anything not eaten in 20 minutes goes in the bin, not back in the fridge.
5. Pick up stools promptly. A raw fed dog sheds more Salmonella and resistant E. coli in its faeces than a kibble fed dog for a few days after a contaminated meal. Bag it straight away, especially in gardens children use.
6. Feed where you can clean. A hard floor, not a carpet. A mat under the bowl that goes in the wash.

Sources

• GOV.UK, raw pet food: handling and hygiene guidance
• Food Standards Agency, chilling, defrosting and refreezing food
• Food Standards Agency, cleaning and avoiding cross contamination
• Schmidt et al., 2015. Antimicrobial resistance risk factors and characterisation of faecal E. coli isolated from healthy Labrador retrievers in the United Kingdom. Preventive Veterinary Medicine. doi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2015.01.013