# Inside your freezers...



## meggels (May 30, 2010)

I would love to see pics of your guys storage and organization systems inside your freezers (esp if you work mostly out of your normal freezer/fridge)!

Trying to get ideas for once I start buying in bigger quantities. I thought about maybe buying some plastic storage containers with color lids that would each represent diff proteins...but besides that, i"m clueless!


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## Unosmom (May 3, 2009)

I'll have to take a pic when I get back from visiting my family. But basically I prepare about a month worth of food into zip lock bags, then keep all those in a regular plastic bag where its most accessible, so I can just grab and thaw. Once I need more meat, I remove those bags from the top and dig up the stuff thats sitting underneath.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

OK Meg, I'm going to share with you my ultra secret and highly sophisticated method of labelling, indexing, and storing my dog food. Now this is a photo of the freezer inside the house - the one in the garage is so much better than this (because it has more meat) that I'm sure it's too complicated a system for anyone to understand.

I'll give you a hint - it involves opening a Cool Whip bowl and seeing if I can figure out what the heck I put in there.


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

You don't want to see mine! I have three giant turkeys tossed in whole, several packages of chicken quarters piled on top, and a lot of clearance meat all piled on top of that. This was all gathered while I was taking 19 credit hours this semester plus a continuing ed class and just tossing meat in as I came across it! 

I looked in there last night and was really hoping I could find some chicken within easy reach to leave on the counter all night so the dogs could have breakfast this morning. Luckily I did, and they got breakfast.

I promise, I will get the freezers organized sometime over the holiday break  I have freezer envy when I see some of the freezer's on here!


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

chowder said:


> You don't want to see mine! I have three giant turkeys tossed in whole, several packages of chicken quarters piled on top, and a lot of clearance meat all piled on top of that. This was all gathered while I was taking 19 credit hours this semester plus a continuing ed class and just tossing meat in as I came across it!
> 
> I looked in there last night and was really hoping I could find some chicken within easy reach to leave on the counter all night so the dogs could have breakfast this morning. Luckily I did, and they got breakfast.
> 
> I promise, I will get the freezers organized sometime over the holiday break  I have freezer envy when I see some of the freezer's on here!


yes, i got some great deals on whole chickens and chicken quarters but man, they are on top and I have a hard time digging down to see what's under them. BUT when we move, I'm going to take it all out and organize it, and put it back in. That should last a week or two after we get moved.


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## naturalfeddogs (Jan 6, 2011)

Ours right now is crammed full with small (13gal) trash bags of deer. Bones and boneless, but I couldn't tell you what is what. Just yesterday Wayne and I were talking about needing to organize better so we know what is what. But right now, organazation is NONE!! lol! I'm just glad its there.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

in my chest freezer, all you'd see are big plastic bags holding meal sized proteins in a variety of pork, sardines, beef, venison, venison hearts, lamb livers and kidneys, beef liver, lamb, goat.....quail, duck necks, emu, pork ribs, turkey, beef tongue, mackerel, rabbit

in my stand up freezers are amounts of the proteins taken from the chest freezer....and in my house, there are bags of food taken from the stand up freezer.

when the house supplies start running low.....i go out to the standing freezer and go shopping and when that runs low, i go into the chest freezer to resock the stand up freezer


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

naturalfeddogs said:


> Ours right now is crammed full with small (13gal) trash bags of deer. Bones and boneless, but I couldn't tell you what is what. Just yesterday Wayne and I were talking about needing to organize better so we know what is what. But right now, organazation is NONE!! lol! I'm just glad its there.


That's like me - I'm just happy to have food. And even though some things are packaged in ways that i know what they are, like turkey necks and beef ribs, some stuff is in bowls and bags I can't see through. 

There is something to be said for opening up something and it's some cool meat you forgot all about. Last week I found half a rabbit and I thought I was completely out. yesterday I found two bags of whiting. I like the surprise aspect of a messy freezer.


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## ciaBrysh (Dec 16, 2011)

I have a small chest freezer, but since I rarely cook my kitchen freezer isn't full so what I do is put all of my larger quantities into the big freezer and separate a weeks worth of food for the dogs in storage containers and freezer bags which stays frozen in the main freezer, THEN in my fridge I keep two days worth of food (at least) thawing. So far this is working for me, but we will see once I start ordering bigger cuts!


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## kady05 (Jul 29, 2011)

Here's my inside freezer (aka the human one LOL):










I love love love my fridge.. it's one with the double doors, and the pull out freezer on the bottom. The top basket section is for the dogs food, bottom level is for us. Piper's stuff is on the left, Sako's in the middle, Wilson's on the right. Works great! 

I store most of their portioned out meals in the inside freezer, and keep the large quantities in the outside freezer (which is solely dedicated to the dogs). 

I really do need to think of a better way to store their meals though.. I feel like I go through 574563 plastic bags LOL. But I'm so OCD about stuff being labeled, and portioned out correctly that I'm not sure any other way would work.


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## Donna Little (May 31, 2011)

Well I just got a freezer for Christmas. Yay! So now I'll be able to stock up and store more finally. I have a fridge in the dogs room and since getting the new freezer I'll keep my portioned meals in that. So here's the little freezer.









And the sad mostly empty new freezer. I need meat....:frown:


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## naturalfeddogs (Jan 6, 2011)

kady05 said:


> Here's my inside freezer (aka the human one LOL):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I love that! I would love to have a fridge like that. Now it's got me thinking. What a great way to organize! Hmmmm......"Wayne, something happened to the fridge. It just quit. I guess we need to go get a new one..." It sounds good to me! LOL!


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## shellbell (Sep 24, 2011)

The extent of my organization is puttting organs in the top storage trays of one of the chest freezers. Otherwise, it's all pretty crammed. I usually put on gloves when I have to dig through a freezer to find something b/c I hate my hands getting cold. My sister's new b/f gave me an entire deer (quartered) on Christmas Eve. Didn't have time to do anything with it other than throw it in trash bags as is and wrestle it into the freezer. Now it is crammed, and I ordered freezer number three today, lol. I will be glad for more space b/c right now if I want to dig anything out of my main freezer, I have to move aside about 80 lbs of deer. I think hubby and I's weekend project will be going at the deer with a sawzall and getting it into more manageable portions....


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## kady05 (Jul 29, 2011)

Donna Little said:


> Well I just got a freezer for Christmas. Yay! So now I'll be able to stock up and store more finally. I have a fridge in the dogs room and since getting the new freezer I'll keep my portioned meals in that. So here's the little freezer.


Oh now see, yours is SO organized! And you can reuse those containers. Do you put a meal per container? I think that's what I might start doing..



naturalfeddogs said:


> I love that! I would love to have a fridge like that. Now it's got me thinking. What a great way to organize! Hmmmm......"Wayne, something happened to the fridge. It just quit. I guess we need to go get a new one..." It sounds good to me! LOL!


Oh it's awesome, the fridge was one of the things that made us buy the house LOL.


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## tem_sat (Jun 20, 2010)

The freezer...









No need to label. That freezer was so packed full that I had to use packing tape to secure more bags of meat to the bins. Now it looks a bit more respectable. :becky:


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## Donna Little (May 31, 2011)

@Kady-For some reason it wouldn't allow me to answer with your quote....

Anyhow, I feed twice a day and both meals are in one container. When I get them out for breakfast I just grab approx half of the food out, toss it in a bowl and give it to the dog. Then I stick it back in the fridge til dinner. So I only have to wash them one time a day. Sometimes I put them in the dishwasher and sometimes just wash them by hand. Depends on how full the dishwasher is...
I have the feeding of 10 dogs down to a finely oiled machine. Takes about 3 minutes and I'm done!


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## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

Well mine was organized. Then I decided to make individual meals daily to be able to adjust their diet as needed. Therefore my freezer is a menagerie of labeled bags. Every few days I pull more out and feed them accordingly. 

Before 










And today. The drawers have deer leg bones in them and the majority of what's in there is venison, pork, turkey and chicken. Mostly venison! Lol the top shelf on the door is venison burger balls  The container at the bottom is so I can better utilize that space. I'm working on getting large plastic containers so I can get rid of leaky bags.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

I'm so proud of all you raw feeders. So organized! 

I've long since gave up on such precise organization to the freezers. We now have four GIANT ones packed nearly full. No real organization whatsoever other than cramming things in like a meaty game of tetris. Some things like boneless meats are in our containers we've used for years, some things are bagged (like whole front and hind quarters of animals, ribcages, pelvis bones, etc) since they are large and awkward for the containers. 

Our "daily" standup freezer is somewhat organized. I try to keep a good variety of different proteins in there to rotate out with the girls. It usually looks like this:


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## SpooOwner (Oct 1, 2010)

I got this book as a gift last week. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a section on raw feeding, so getting something from my freezer is still like a game of Jenga.


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## Liz (Sep 27, 2010)

*Freezer*

I love to organize. We use containers on the top shelf fo organs - because I hate leaks and hate cleaning the freezer. In the door are sheltie foods in sandwich bags like duck necks, chicken legs and quarters, ribs, cornish game hens. The other shelves have bigger gallon bags of meat for two to three days of food for the collies. Most of the other cuts are too big for containers so bags work great. The only other things that go into containers are hearts because they tend to be bleed over my freezer. Individual bagging dosn't work because we have at least 7 dogs and sometimes puppies added in. We buy bags from Costco or Cash n Carry in 100 packs. LOL:smile::smile:


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## Kat (Jul 12, 2011)

Oh I wanna take pics of mine lol. im so proud of my meat collection  I tried the plastic container thing for a while, but they always broke or cracked. And once my silly cat jumped in the chest freezer when it was open thinking he could make it, and broke half my plastic containers, so now I use smaller ziploc baggies inside of bigger ziploc bags to seperate all my proteins, with post it notes telling me whats inside


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## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

Liz said:


> I love to organize. We use containers on the top shelf fo organs - because I hate leaks and hate cleaning the freezer. In the door are sheltie foods in sandwich bags like duck necks, chicken legs and quarters, ribs, cornish game hens. The other shelves have bigger gallon bags of meat for two to three days of food for the collies. Most of the other cuts are too big for containers so bags work great. The only other things that go into containers are hearts because they tend to be bleed over my freezer. Individual bagging dosn't work because we have at least 7 dogs and sometimes puppies added in. * We buy bags from Costco* or Cash n Carry in 100 packs. LOL:smile::smile:


Thats what we have done since the beginning but they ALWAYS leak when I defrost them. I'm sick of it! LOL. I am switching to plastic containers.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

I was using so many bags I started getting environmentally aware about it - even with recycling that's alot of bags, and I'm not convinced recycling is really all that helpful.

The cheaper Glad plastic containers tend to get brittle and break. So that's why I went to Cool-Whip bowls. They are sturdy and if something falls out of the freezer (which it does in mine all the time) it doesn't shatter in 10 pieces.

Also, for the things I do put in bags, I wash them and re-use them. I also use plastic bags from the grocery store that I already have to wrap stuff like turkey necks that I buy in bulk - I figure I didn't buy them specially for the food. And I do recycle those.

And yes if it's in a bag it's on a plate when it defrosts - I was cleaning up too many bloody shelves. I also got Sham-Wows so I could quit using so many paper towels. Those things are amazing - one of the few TV things that lives up to the claims.


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## Liz (Sep 27, 2010)

If you get containers make sure they are good quality. I think the freezing and defrosting makes them brittle and they break easy. I use bins to put my bags in - like the ones they use in restaraunts to clear tables.


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## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

Liz said:


> If you get containers make sure they are good quality. I think the freezing and defrosting makes them brittle and they break easy. I use bins to put my bags in - like the ones they use in restaraunts to clear tables.


Yeah thats what I'm talking about. A thicker, plastic bin. The big giant blue one in the photo I picked up at a thrift store for a 1$.


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## Kat (Jul 12, 2011)

I reuse my ziploc baggies, and the ones that leak I use just as freezing baggies, not defrosting ones. I still have the same baggies from August, I try to be earth concious


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## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

Kat said:


> I reuse my ziploc baggies, and the ones that leak I use just as freezing baggies, not defrosting ones. I still have the same baggies from August, I try to be earth concious


I've been reusing most of them. I'd like to be earth concious too and just use containers that can be used 100's of times


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## shellbell (Sep 24, 2011)

Yeah, I have the same problem with the bags leaking....ugh.


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## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

shellbell said:


> Yeah, I have the same problem with the bags leaking....ugh.


Its nasty! LOL I don't know where all that liquid comes from cause it wasn't there before! I repackaged 40 lbs of venison a month or so ago that wasn't drippy really and when I defrosted a bag yesterday it had 2 cups of liquid in it. 

Is it safe to feed that to the dogs?


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## MollyWoppy (Mar 19, 2010)

Well, this is Mollies and Windy's (ha ha) freezer. It doesn't look as bad as it is in real life, thats for sure - it's normally an avalanche when I open the door. However, I'm really trying to dig down deep to get food when I feed Mol nowadays, I have absolutely no idea what is in there, but I want to clean it out and try to have some type of organisation each time I buy meat in the future. I come across packets and packets of stuff that I have no recollection of buying right now.
Think I'm getting there at cleaning it out though, there's a bit of a dent in it now.


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

Sprocket said:


> Its nasty! LOL I don't know where all that liquid comes from cause it wasn't there before! I repackaged 40 lbs of venison a month or so ago that wasn't drippy really and when I defrosted a bag yesterday it had 2 cups of liquid in it.
> 
> Is it safe to feed that to the dogs?


I package all my meat in Ziploc Bags and have never had a leaking problem....What kind of bags are you using? If your using the "no name" brand I think it might be worth to upgrade. I keep reusing my bags probably 4 times after the initial use. And I also put my bags in a plastic container in the fridge after I've taken it out for the week so I might have 4-5 different sources in the container at once...


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## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

whiteleo said:


> I package all my meat in Ziploc Bags and have never had a leaking problem....What kind of bags are you using? If your using the "no name" brand I think it might be worth to upgrade. I keep reusing my bags probably 4 times after the initial use. And I also put my bags in a plastic container in the fridge after I've taken it out for the week so I might have 4-5 different sources in the container at once...


I use Ziplock brand bags and some Glad bags. About 75% of them leak, even the bags with boneless meat. I put them in the freezer and don't shuffle them around much.

When I defrost them, they go in a draw in the fridge or the sink.


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## shellbell (Sep 24, 2011)

I use either ziploc or hefty and both leak. Most recently I had some deer ribs with a lot of clotted blood that were major drippage. I even double bagged the ziploc bag with some Target plastic store bags, and it soaked through all that. The dogs seemed to love the bloody mess though....


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## meggels (May 30, 2010)

Does anyone have any tips for organizing mine? I'll be feeding Murph (20lbs) and Abbie (32lbs) so I don't think mine will be quite as packed as yours (esp cause I'm working out of my lil old freezer...


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

Sprocket said:


> Well mine was organized. Then I decided to make individual meals daily to be able to adjust their diet as needed. Therefore my freezer is a menagerie of labeled bags. Every few days I pull more out and feed them accordingly.
> 
> Before
> 
> ...


i still giggle at the chicken livers.

nothing leaks in the freezer. it does after it's defrosted. that's where the open containers come in. i have two on the bottom shelf of my fridge. defrosting items go in one and defrosted items go in the other...

if it leaks, it leaks into a container that i wash every few days.....once it gets to that point, i don't care if it leaks....not everything is portion controlled.......i serve from four or five proteins i take out every few days....


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## CorgiPaws (Mar 31, 2009)

Mine looks a lot like Natalie's. We have five freezers right now, two chests and three uprights. One chest is just packed with packages of stuff I see on too good of a deal to pass up. The other chest is full of things like whole pork legs, whole lamb shanks, and other things that don't fit in out 16 quart containers. 
The uprights are jammed full of 16 quart containers that are each filled to the brim with a variety of meats in each. I also keep one full of just turkey necks and chicken backs on hand in case we need them for anything. 

On meat storm day, as we call it, we pick up 500-1000 lbs of meat from a bulk supplier, thaw it in the garage, and just start chucking random parts in each bin. I make sure some beef heart gets in each one, and something bone-in. Otherwise, I don't really have any kind of feeding agenda. Just some random animal parts for everyone!!


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## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

magicre said:


> i still giggle at the chicken livers.
> 
> nothing leaks in the freezer. it does after it's defrosted. that's where the open containers come in. i have two on the bottom shelf of my fridge. defrosting items go in one and defrosted items go in the other...
> 
> if it leaks, it leaks into a container that i wash every few days.....once it gets to that point, i don't care if it leaks....not everything is portion controlled.......i serve from four or five proteins i take out every few days....


Hey! Half of the livers are gone! 

I did actually have some crab leak in the freezer. Nothing else has though, it always leaks when defrosting. I wash the bottom drawer in the fridge every other day. I'm afraid I'm going to break it from taking it out so often. =\


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

Plastic in Fridge Chest w/compartments Upright #1 Upright #2 Notice the venison from New Zealand








And because I found this one of Kenzie I thought I'd ad her in too!


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

And because I'm in the mood and it's here


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## Ania's Mommy (Feb 8, 2009)

Boo ya!








This isn't a real recent picture, but it looks pretty much the same. Maybe a tad less organized... Just a tad, though...

And no, I'm not 6'5". I stood on a stool to take that picture. 

ETA: Also, when you remodel your laundry room in order to accommodate a giant freezer, keep in mind that freezer doors are ALWAYS hinged on the right. You can't change them to the left like you can any other refrigerator door. So take that into consideration when you figure freezer placement and move your plumbing for the washing machine to the one spot that would make opening said freezer a snap.


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## BrownieM (Aug 30, 2010)

I've tried every brand of baggies out there. They nearly always leak for me. I have started putting the baggies in a plastic Ziploc rectangular container in the fridge so the liquid that leaks is caught in the container. I wash that plastic container about once to three times weekly, depending on how much leakage.


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## luvMyBRT (Mar 8, 2010)

I do exactly what Brownie does. I have always used ziplock bags, and I usually reuse them at least 3 to 4 times before they start leaking. I always pay a bit more to get the name brand as they seem to last a bit longer, imo.

When I thaw them out I just put them in the plastic container in the fridge that is the designated raw dog food container. Works great for us.


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## nikkiluvsu15 (Jun 9, 2010)

The only thing you can see in the freezer is Chicken Quarters.... I had bought two bags of Quarters and bagged them. Then the next week there was a sale at Save-a-Lot $20/per case of Chicken Quarters, so I got that. There is about 50-60lbs of Leg Quarters out there right now and the freezer door barely shuts, LOL. There is some other stuff crammed underneath the stuff, but you can't see it. :tongue:


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## GoingPostal (Sep 5, 2011)

Top shelf is organ meat plus beef and pork stuff
Middle is chicken quarters and wings
Turkey necks, wings, etc plus two turkeys behind that, one of those is ours
Bottoms got some more turkey necks, couple CGH
Blue containers are two days worth of mixed turkey/chicken/pork, not there yet but the pork was thawed so figured I would prepare some

Shelves have boneless turkey and chicken, then rats, then quail and guinea pigs and finally a bag of strawberries (MINE!) There is a empty chest freezer right next to this one that will probably get put back to work come tax time when I make a hare today order.


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## AveryandAudrey (Sep 20, 2010)

xellil said:


> I'll give you a hint - it involves opening a Cool Whip bowl and seeing if I can figure out what the heck I put in there.


That is too funny


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## Sprocket (Oct 4, 2011)

GoingPostal said:


> Top shelf is organ meat plus beef and pork stuff
> Middle is chicken quarters and wings
> Turkey necks, wings, etc plus two turkeys behind that, one of those is ours
> Bottoms got some more turkey necks, couple CGH
> ...


I just saw the rats...hahaha those are big!


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## Khan (Jan 17, 2010)

shellbell said:


> Yeah, I have the same problem with the bags leaking....ugh.


Because of this nastiness, I went and bought some drawer organizers. I bring in about 5 days worth of food from the freezer to thaw in the fridge.
Each one has their own container. That way If the bags leak, they leak inside these!!

We have an upright freezer that is looking pretty bare since I haven't made a big meat purchase since November. I'm a little OCD, so everything is labeled. I use the big freezer for storage, then move the "supply" into the smaller freezer. As you can see I need to move some of the stock around!! HA!!


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## funshine (Jan 21, 2010)

Here's our upright :smile:
We feed about 3lbs. a day; the meat mainly packed in containers (14 cup I think) that last about 3-4ish days for our two dogs. We have 3 different kind of containers of that size and some smaller ones (if you see a blue lid). Most of them have some bone-in and some boneless we order in bulk, thaw in a biiiig cooler, and repack. Mixed meat is always unlabeled. Some are deer containers that are labeled since I don't want them to have it all at once (gotta eat sparingly).
The top row is for people food now (and the ice-cream on the second self) and the bottom basket has vacuum packed lamb breast, 2 pieces in one packet (I love when the meat you buy surprises you with some ready packet stuff :biggrin the rest... not sure so it's "all mixed". The door has some mixed people & doggies stuff (at least some sliced kidney in a zip-top bag).

We also have a small chest freezer, but a pic doesn't really tell much. There's some random stuff, containers, bags of small bone-in deer parts, and some beef kidney bags (that need to get portioned). And of course dogs take over the bitty one on top the fridge as well  but again that falls under "not so organized" freezer.


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## meggels (May 30, 2010)

These freezers are making me very jealous.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

funshine said:


> View attachment 5539
> 
> 
> Here's our upright :smile:
> ...


come over and organise mine 

actually, mine were organised and then little by little, they get disorganised...and then we have to go out and redo them....especially when something unexpected comes in, like sardines the third party never picked up....1/3 of a fifty pound order....sigh.

inside, i do what you do...mine are in baggies in polypropylene containers....they can leak all they want...


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## Herzo (Feb 5, 2011)

I want mine to look like some of yours. My little upright I have moved all the people food into(there is some dog food in there also). So the chest freezer in the basement is where most of the dog food is. I needs cleaning and organizing but is hard to organize a chest one. I would love to get another upright and was going to but haven't got it yet. I also need much more meat in there getting a little low.

Eek the rats and guinea pigs. Do you feed those to your cats?


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## funshine (Jan 21, 2010)

magicre said:


> come over and organise mine


Sure, if you let me steel some of your awesome co-op goodies :biggrin1:
We can only dream of cheap veal, cases of venison hearts, etc. :tongue:

Anyways, I think the secret to current organization (believe me, it's not all organized) lays in big containers. If I'd had 2 smaller dogs, I'd need smaller containers and that would mean a lot more containers to pack and a lot more cutting... Not sure if I could handle that :redface:. But with the current containers the freezer fills up pretty quickly and looks fairly decent. The small chest freezer that holds the odds and ends that didn't fit to the containers (and got bagged) is a different story... :heh:


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## GoingPostal (Sep 5, 2011)

Herzo said:


> Eek the rats and guinea pigs. Do you feed those to your cats?


My ferrets, the cat eats mice but refuses anything larger.


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