Question About A Commercial Raw Diet

Yesterday I received the following question concerning raw diets -

Below is a list of ingredients for Bravo Balance ground raw frozen dog food. This is the chicken. In your opinion, is it better to use this and maybe add my own veggie mix or order only the ground chicken, which is chicken, frames, organs, and do a veggie mix? There doesn't seem to be many veggies. I do not know what ferrous sulfate, and manganous oxide are.   I can order chicken backs and necks, and turkey necks, but for the ground version, I am not sure which is best. Thanks for your comments.

Ingredients:
chicken, chicken frames, chicken organs (liver, gizzards, hearts), green beans, broccoli, acorn squash, salt, potassium chloride, vitamin E, zinc oxide, copper sulfate, ferrous sulfate, manganous oxide, potassium iodide, vitamin D

Bravo seems to be a quality product and I know a number of people who use it.  Some use it regularly, while others use it when they travel, if they board the dogs or have a house sitter, or when just too busy to prepare the normal diets.  The ingredients list sounds fine, although I don't see a source of EFAs (fish oil or flax seed or something similar).  Prepared raw diets can be very convenient to use, but of course you have lost control of what you are actually feeding your dogs.  If this was fed once a day, the other meal could be used to add some other type of protein source such as turkey, eggs, or possibly cottage cheese if you choose to feed dairy products.

I have two concerns here. 

1. When we feed raw to Dals, organ meats are always something to consider.  Because organ meats are high in purines, and because purines can trigger urate crystal/stone formation, that can be a problem.  On the other hand we don't KNOW whether most kibbles contain organ meats and it's quite likely that many of them do, as it's highly unlikely they contain only muscle meat.  Even the best kibbles would be made from a variety of "body parts", so a good raw diet may not be higher in purines than the kibble you might otherwise use. 
2. And although green beans, broccoli and squash are all good food items for Dals, the first two are relatively high in oxalates.  Oxalate crystals/stones are relatively rare in Dals, but are common in some other breeds.  That's the reason veggies mixes should contain a variety of fruits and vegetables, so you are not unwittingly adding too much of something that could conceivably cause problems.

If the Dals being fed are females, and if they have not had a problem with crystals or stones, the diet is probably safe to feed.  If the Dals are males, you might choose to be a bit more cautious about knowingly adding organ meats.  Although organ meats are suggested for almost all homemade raw diets, most Dal people do not add them.    One of the reasons I feed lots of eggs is because I don't add organ meats.  On the other hand, our chicken backs often come with a few organs attached and I don't remove them before feeding.  I have several friends who feed a lot of Bravo and are very pleased with the quality and convenience.

Remember that all Dalmatians have the ability to form urate stones, but the vast majority of them will never have a problem.  The health surveys submitted to the CHF show just 3% of the dogs having had a problem with crystals or stones, and a huge percentage of those dogs are males.  It's just wise to remember that when feeding Dals we want to be sure they are drinking well (to keep their urine well diluted) and to remember that purines are the culprits in urate stone formation.