Kibble, Just what is in it....

Well....on the topic of cost....I just got back from purchasing my dogs some food....which I know has no corn :razz: and for $35 I was able to get 40 lbs of chicken 1 1/2 lbs of liver and some natural pork hocks and neck bones for treats. With this purchase and the two free deer carcasses that I got this week, my current average price is UNDER 80 cents a pound!!! Please don't get me wrong...I'm not preaching raw...I'm just really proud of my bargains!
 
I love bargains! I got free venison too. I'm on the look out for duck hunters in the spring to get some duck too!!!
 
Ania said:
I love bargains! I got free venison too. I'm on the look out for duck hunters in the spring to get some duck too!!!
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Oh me too! I actually joined some of the Yahoo! Groups for hunters to ask the guys for their leftovers or for anyone that likes to hunt but not eat the food! I have gotten 3 whole deers and about 7 carcasses with two still hanging this season! Not to mention the free wrapped meat that I have gotten! I've only gotten free meat off of freecycle or CraigsList twice and not really worth it for me. I need about 12 - 15 lbs. a day so a package of chicken breast sometimes isn't worth the drive LOL

Mine haven't had duck yet but I'm looking forward to them trying it! We've done beef, pork, chicken, venison, goat, and lamb....so nothing too exotic but still a good variety :smile2:
 
I'd feed that to mine, too if I could get it at that type of price Crestlynn (as I do consider it the healthiest way I could feed my dogs). I've looked into it here before, and it was going to be ungodly expensive to feed mine raw. The co-op here was getting meats for something like $3-$4 per pound :dead: There's no way I could afford that type of price. I think in a week I'm feeding between 40-45lbs of dog food. At the prices they're wanting here, I'd have to spend somewhere around $120-$160 per week in food. Bad enough paying $60 :x
On a good note, they are getting what I consider to be one of the best kibbles out there... Taste Of The Wild for the adults, Wellness for the pups (as I have yet to have found a puppy formula without grains, with the exception of Orijen, which isn't carried anywhere around here).
 
For the price I use an average of all the meat, both bought or free. Add it together and divide it by the weight. So all of the free venison has helped out alot! Some people thought I was crazy wanting their carcasses but I always tell them how much meat that I was able to use that they would have thrown out and that makes them pretty happy :wink2: Then the next time they are more than willing to save stuff for me! In the beginning it was a lot of time and effort to find the deals but now I have a routine and I know where to go to get the stuff and it is not different than going out for the kibble.

I haven't used the co-op yet as I haven't had to. We have a good chicken place by us and I had some friends give me their old meats from cows and pigs they had slaughtered. Then I watch the sales ads and pick stuff up from there. My goal price was not to go over $1 a pound so now it is like a game to see how cheap my bottom line can get LOL

I'm sure after deer season, I will have to use the co-op and my price will go up, but it still can't be as bad as some of the kibble out there (cost wise)! Ohhhhh....and their teeth are soooo pearly white and clean....no more scrapings for my babies :winkgrin:
 
Dog food ingredients to look for and to stay away.

Here is what you want in a QUALITY Dog Food:
a- turkey, chicken, turkey meal, chicken meal
b- deboned chicken, chicken meal, turkey meal, russet potato
c- salmon meal, brown rice, oatmeal barley, canola oil
d- lamb meal, ground whole brown rice, oatmeal, rice bran

Stay away from food with Corn as it not good for dogs. How often do you see a dog eating ears of corn out in the cornfield ? Anyway and unfortunately most dog food especially the heavily advertised varities of dog food are poor quailty. Really it can be difficult to find quality dog food. Do yourself and your Dog a favor and do some research in to dog feed and you will quickly realize that most dog food is very bad for our dogs

I hear a lot of "well he has done fine on it so far" or "he won't take to or gets the runs with other foods." You may have to try several brands before he likes it. You have to mix the new food in slowly with the old taking a few weeks to get your dog switched over.
Watch out for this in your dog food, it’s a cancer carcinogen. Meadione Sodium Bisulfite
 
I feed my dogs Halo after much research. It is considered holistic and the improvement in my dogs health is unreal. My vet now highly recommends it to dogs with poor coats, and various health issues. He says it is better quality and ingrediants then the diet foods that he used to recommend. Halo has mad him a believer in this as a special diet now
 
dmoore132 said:
Here is what you want in a QUALITY Dog Food:
a- turkey, chicken, turkey meal, chicken meal
b- deboned chicken, chicken meal, turkey meal, russet potato
c- salmon meal, brown rice, oatmeal barley, canola oil
d- lamb meal, ground whole brown rice, oatmeal, rice bran

Stay away from food with Corn as it not good for dogs. How often do you see a dog eating ears of corn out in the cornfield ? Anyway and unfortunately most dog food especially the heavily advertised varities of dog food are poor quailty. Really it can be difficult to find quality dog food. Do yourself and your Dog a favor and do some research in to dog feed and you will quickly realize that most dog food is very bad for our dogs

I hear a lot of "well he has done fine on it so far" or "he won't take to or gets the runs with other foods." You may have to try several brands before he likes it. You have to mix the new food in slowly with the old taking a few weeks to get your dog switched over.
Watch out for this in your dog food, it’s a cancer carcinogen. Meadione Sodium Bisulfite
Click to expand...

Same thing with cats (regarding quality). It's so dang hard to find GOOD cat food. Almost all of the foods I looked at had corn as the first ingredient...

Also, stay away from ethoxyquin. Nothing's been proven, but many breeders have had a problem with dogs getting cancer after feeding their dogs food with that preservative.
 
I use a brand of kibble I haven't seen mentioned here Eagle Pack Holistic. It was recommended to us by a good friend of ours who owns an English Shepard and Edan has done very well on it. Edan also may have a slight wheat allergy so I try to be careful to avoid any wheat products and has a sensitive digestive tract (2 UTI within the first 6 months he was living with us - the first one, within 1.5 months of bringing him home, requiring 24 hours on IV and scared the heck out of me because I thought I was going to loose my dog. We didn't know something was wrong until we saw blood in his stool. He was on Eukanuba at the time because that is what the breeder was feeding him.)

Many years ago, before it was available in the normal grocery store, we fed our Malamute (who left us in 2005) and Finish Spitz Iams dry food and both thrived on it. We have since switched the food our Finkie eats because she stopped eating the Iams food when she was 15. We tried a few different foods for her and he kept turning her nose up at it. What did she decided she wanted to eat - Edan's Eagle Pack; and given her age we weren't about to argue. We're just glad she's still with us. (She turned 17 on New Year's Eve.)

The ingredients list for the Eagle Pack food is pretty good, based on what I'm reading here: Chicken Meal, Ground Brown Rice, Ground White Rice, Oatmeal, Chicken Fat (Preserved With Natural Mixed Tocopherols), Pork Meal, Dried Beet Pulp, Anchovy, Sardine & Salmon Meals, Flaxseed, Dried Egg Product, Tomato Pomace, Menhaden Fish Oil, Carrots, Peas, Sun-Cured Alfalfa, Salt, Potassium Chloride, Quinoa (Organic), Blueberries, Apples, Inulin, Beta-Carotene, Cranberries, Dehydrated Kelp, Glucosamine Hydrochloride, Yucca Schidigera Extract, plus various vitamins and supplements.

I'm also really picky about what is in the treats they get, especially since I use quite a few treats in Edan's training. In fact, for Christmas this year we asked my in-laws to let us pick out the gifts for the dogs since we need to watch what they eat.

I don't have enough storage space to really consider a raw diet for Edan. Honestly, as long as he's doing well on the food we are giving him, I'm not really worried about it.

ETA: For those who are interested Eagle Pack also has Holistic cat foods.
 
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