What Do You Feed And Why

[Sayreovi]

What: My dogs get a variety of food, at the moment they are fed raw food. They get minced up chicken frames, whole chicken frames, lamb flaps, offal, eggs, sardines and anything else that is laying around.

They are on black hawk as well but they really only get that when we are away or I am being lazy and haven't defrosted food

Why: They look great on it, and it's cheap. One of them is pretty hard too keep weight on and would need to eat a whole bowl of dry food to maintain it but would never eat that much, with raw food he is actually happy to eat as much as I give him :) He still gets about 500g of food a day (he is only 18kg but very active with a fast metabolism), which is more then my other two combined :laugh:

[Alibi]

VAN with roo or lamb human grade only with earthborn and canidae bikkies. Also she get chicken wings, sardines and healthy left overs.

[Maddy]

Almost entirely raw meat. We tried Barf and it didn't work for the greyhounds. We've also tried them on VAN and the look I got when I offered it.. "Why do you hate us?" was enough to convince me not to bother ruining their dinners with that again. I suppose we probably feed closest to prey model- meat, bones, green tripe, some offal and fresh wallaby skins.

Why.. they do very well on it, they don't drop condition over winter, their coats looks awesome, teeth look good, they enjoy eating it and it's not full of rubbish. I don't think I could ever go back to feeding kibble now that I've seen the difference.

[poochmad]

Well, we're one of the few on here who include kibble. We feed the dogs pro plan sensitive, mixed with some veggies and sardines. Each morning the dogs get a chicken drumstick (which my family can't believe) and a raw hide chew. On the weekends they get a shank instead of the drumstick. Both the dogs look beautiful, with lovely, shiny coats.

It's easy to be influenced on this forum with all the talk about BARF etc, but we have always had dogs even when I was little and all the dogs lived to a ripe old age, without any problems. We see our vet yearly for a check up and a vaccine (which is often discussed for & against on here as well) but this will now extend out to 3 years due to the new vaccine. I've said this before, whatever food / health program works for you, use it. Everyone has a different opinion. Kind of like parenting, really.

Edited December 9, 2012 by poochmad

[sas]

We recently switched over to a commercial BARF diet because I have an elderly dog that has been sick lately and I wanted to put a natural healthy diet into her.

We recently did a kibble comparison and it was a major eye opener. It's here www.greatdanerescue.com.au/downloads.htm and this was what made me change to a BARF diet.

Edited December 9, 2012 by sas

[SkySoaringMagpie]

My uncle, who is in his mid 60's, rang me this evening because his vet had told him that he was feeding too many bones to his cattle dog X and should switch to Royal Canin. Royal Canin being what they sell in the waiting room.

Now, I feed Royal Canin but as a supplement to a mixed diet that works for us - the mix is greyhound biscuits, RMB, and RC kibble.

I suggested that if what he is doing is working, it's fine, and to beware of advice from people who have something to sell.

[Alasse]

I feed my girl Bonnie Lite mixed with a few handfuls or Supercoat. She gets either wet food, sardines or eggs mixed into the dry food. She gets 1 meal/day, night time. She gets treats through the day. I may add in chicken frames on ocassion, not often though, as she inhales it and chokes (cause shes a pig LOL)

Why?: Because she does great on it

[divinemissmillie]

Three of my dogs get fed half dry (Black Hawk) and half raw (Canine Country BARF patties). One day a week they get a boiled egg each added, and one another day they get half a tin of sardines added for each. Plus whatever safe food scraps are left over (although that's not all that often). Why ? Because they all do extremely well on it.

The fourth dog (14 year old) gets half Black Hawk and half tinned (My Dog), plus the extras the others get. Why ? Because she won't touch raw food and she loves that tinned junk food. As she is so old and a little underweight I figure she can eat anything she likes !

:D

[fainty_girl]

- Tinned food (Natures gift)

- Sardines in oil (1 of them has sardines every night, his coat improved when he came to live here after eating them), my other two dogs get them twice a week.

- Raw chicken drumsticks (once a week)

- Raw beef mince (once a week)

- Meaty bones (a couple of times a week)

- Grated raw vegies (carrot or zucchini) a couple of times a week

- 1 raw egg each (once a week)

- A small amount of dry biscuits (coles brand) maybe once a week or less often

Then each night they all have fish oil capsules, glucosamine and seaweed extract in their dinner too.

Each night I alternate what they are eating, so they will always have a bit of canned food, but then one night they will have chicken drumsticks with it, the next night they'll have raw mince, etc. When I just had one dog, I did alter her diet a bit to include more meat like roo mince, but that didn't agree with her, so I wouldn't change their diet without getting advice in the future.

Edited December 11, 2012 by fainty_girl

[temperamentfirst]

Mixed

Edited December 11, 2012 by temperamentfirst

[temperamentfirst]

Nutro chicken and oatmeal, plus raw meat, chicken, leftovers, veggies, fruit, chicken frames and beef bones.

No lamb except in freezing weather, and no wheat.

[andrewang]

Sorry for the noobish question but when you say chicken carcasses, does it mean a whole raw chicken with all its meat still on or just bones that are stripped off almost all its meat?

[HazyWal]

Sorry for the noobish question but when you say chicken carcasses, does it mean a whole raw chicken with all its meat still on or just bones that are stripped off almost all its meat?

Not a noobish question at all Andrew, just the carcass with the meat stripped off. You can get them for a couple of bucks a kilo :) Just the frames.

Edited December 11, 2012 by stans mum

[andrewang]

Sorry for the noobish question but when you say chicken carcasses, does it mean a whole raw chicken with all its meat still on or just bones that are stripped off almost all its meat?

Not a noobish question at all Andrew, just the carcass with the meat stripped off. You can get them for a couple of bucks a kilo :) Just the frames.

That's cool. I'm assuming I can only get them from butchers and not from Coles? Do I have to make any special arrangements with the butchers ie reservation?

[BC Crazy]

I buy my chic frames from Woolies. They are in the section with the soup bones etc & are about $5 a bag. They sell pretty quickly so when I see them I buy the lot. You could get them at the butcher/chic shop as well Id reckon & probably cheaper :)

[The Spotted Devil]

Zig is fed Artemis dry, a bit of Pro-plan sensitive and chicken frames. Being a Dalmatian, he needs to be on a low purine diet and this fits the bill pretty nicely. He has a high metabolism so I'll sometimes throw in chicken wings or even a quarter raw chicken, especially after a big weekend of trialling.

I have not bought dry food for Em for 5 months as she has been eating all the bags won at trials. She has a cast iron stomach and does well on everything - Canidae, Advance, Nutro etc. Ziggy just won another 7 bags of Advance so that's what she'll be eating now. She also gets frames, wings and 1/4 chicken like Zig with the addition of lamb necks.

Both dogs get a lot of training treats including 4 Legs, cheese, cooked chicken, tinned salmon plus the odd egg from the chooks and a big carrot to munch on.

[aussielover]

I've been feeding Hills Science Diet active, because we got given heaps of free bags. It is not my favourite brand but Mindy seems to do well on it anyway. She gets 1-3 cups in training treats (depending on what training we do) or in a kong or bob a lot.

If we do agility training she gets about 2 cups of the 4legs meat balls (varying flavours), but she'll get less of the dry food later to make up for it.

She also gets a small meal of chicken and rice for her breakfast each day, so she can have her medication in it. She also gets any dinner scraps (usually veges etc) that are leftover.

She also gets a rawhide, pigs ear or roo chew daily.

And she gets a greenies regular size toothbrush just before bed.

Unfortunately she cannot have bones anymore as she doesn't chew them properly.

Once all her science diet is finished I will change her to a raw style diet and perhaps introduce some lamb flaps as bones.

[Sparassidae]

I feed our two a pretty mixed diet, usually whatever I feel like buying.

Always raw, mix of lamb, chicken, beef, fish.

[luvsdogs]

Mine used to eat kibble but since having my Japanese Spitz & his mucky teeth, I have switched them over to raw meaty bones. They get chicken legs, turkey wings, large chunks of lamb or beef & a little pork. Vegies are not needed as dogs are carnivores & don't need them. They occasionally get a raw egg & chicken liver & lamb kidney.

[ginge]

To the person who couldn't find much info on costco's kirkland. See here: http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/showcat.php?cat=all&stype=1&si=kirkland

More generally, I do like the dog food analysis website. I've found it quite informative.