What do you feed your lg. dog?

[grcelizabeth]

I've heard that if you buy cheap food, the animal eats more of it because it has so many fillers in it but what I'm wondering is what is the best dog or cat food for the least amount of money. We have a lab and a cat. So what do you feed your pet?

[just_lily]

Not a good answer, but we are currently feeding our dogs a generic supermarket brand food. Definitely not ideal, but money is tight right now, and this is our only option to keep them fed, and still feed us as well.

I do find they eat more of it, about 10 - 12 cups a day collectively, rather than the 8 cups we had them on when they were on a better food. But the bags are also bigger, so they last almost as long.

When we were feeding them good quality pet food store food we were spending about $125 (CDN$) a month on food. With this generic stuff we are down to about $40 a month instead.

They are both doing find on it, but I would still prefer to have them on a better food and hope to get back to something more middle of the road sometime soon.

(And please no judgment - we love our dogs and recently had to spend $600 on vet bills for a cut on one of their paws, which didn't help our financial situation at all. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do to keep everyone fed. I would love to give my DD only organic foods, but that isn't in the budget either.)

We have two mixed breeds, btw. One is a 60lb lab-border collie-GSD, and the other is 100lbs and GSD-malamute (best guess).

[GreenKnitPocket]

My sister has a Great Dane mix and feeds him on a rotation diet - right now she has Chicken Soup for the Dog Lovers Soul: Adult Dog. Here's a link-- http://www.chickensoupforthepetlover...dogs/dry_food/

It's a good price and the food has great ingredients.

[greenmagick]

Some options that are cheaper are

Grain-free - Taste of the Wild

Grain-inclusive - Diamond Naturals, Kirklands, Chicken Soup

Besides eating less of a better quality food, you will often have lower vet bills as there are many illnesses etc that are diet related.

I feed 2 dogs (a lab mix and a great dane) RAW for 20-30 a month. Before this awesome coop I paid around 70-90 a month to feed both RAW.

[gingerstar]

Check out Fromm's Large Breed Gold - it is their most reasonably priced line, and a very good food. They are very demanding of their food source - no worries about China/melamine etc. We get it at a feed store.

[Ola_]

I can tell you that when we switched our dogs from Science Diet (what we fed at first) to Canidae, the amount they needed was literally cut in half. So that makes a big difference in the cost!

I'd recommend comparing the calories per cup on the different brands you are considering - they usually have this either on the label or on the company's website (which is handy cause you can do your research from the comfort of your home). To find their website I usually just do a Google search.

[GreenKnitPocket]

Originally Posted by greenmagick

Some options that are cheaper are

Grain-free - Taste of the Wild

Grain-inclusive - Diamond Naturals, Kirklands, Chicken Soup

Besides eating less of a better quality food, you will often have lower vet bills as there are many illnesses etc that are diet related.

I feed 2 dogs (a lab mix and a great dane) RAW for 20-30 a month. Before this awesome coop I paid around 70-90 a month to feed both RAW.

I know we're offering a bunch of great foods --- love Greenmagick's breakdown of it. Here's a good "which formula should you buy" site, it's for Chicken Soup--- which a few of us have recommended.

http://www.chickensoupforthepetlover...which_formula/

Best of luck!

[jtbuko]

Not the most natural choice in the world, but economical: We use the Kirkland dry food at Costco. The price is right, the dog is healthy, and my uncle who is a vet recommended it.

[Oubliette8]

Foods I like that are at a reasonable price point include-

Chicken Soup (dumb name, good ingredients)
Canidae
Nutrisource
Diamond Naturals
Kirkland (Costco's house brand)
All of these run about $1/pound

Another nice food is EarthBorne Holistics, which is very comparable to Wellness, but priced lower.

All that said, I also feed Orijen. It is pricey per bag, but I feed so little of it that it ends up being pretty cheap.

You might try figuring out the price per day to feed. I figured this out once for a wide range of foods, I was sure I would never feed the priciest foods I checked- as it turned out, the most expensive food on my list cost 50cents LESS per day to feed for my one dog than the next most expensive food, and over $1 less than most of the foods, because you had to feed so much less. Needless to say, we went with the expensive bag, because it saved us $15-$30+/month over the other foods.

You can use the equation- (price per bag * weight of 1 cup (in pounds) * number of recommended cups per day)/weight of the bag (in pounds)

That will give you the price/day
For the weight of one cup, I weighed a cup of the kibble I was feeding, I figured weight can't vary too drastically across kibbles
For the # of reccomended cups, I used the lowest reccomended # of cups/day for my weight dog. Normally with food, I find you have to feed even less than that in actual practice (Unless your dog is exceptionally active, or prone to being thing)

You might try it to compare the brands you like and see what results you get.

[meowmix]

We feed our newfie raw. He's allergic to most foods out there (flaky skin, hot spots, gas like crazy) even the more expensive ones. I have found that raw doesn't have to be expensive. I buy him chicken backs and other cheap cuts or Costco sells whole chickens for inexpensive. He also gets organ meats with every meal and they aren't pricey, either. It's definitely not as cheap as grocery store brand food, it's about on line with the grain free. He doesn't eat as much food as he would on lower quality foods. On Science Diet he was eating about 7 cups a day and he was less than 100 lbs. Now, at well over 100 lbs, he eats about 3 chicken backs, some organ meats and about 1-1.5 cups of veggie in a meal. It probably costs me about 1.10/lb to feed him.

Now my cats don't eat raw. They used to eat Cat Chow but I switched them to Blue Buffalo a while back. Their coats went from flaky and dull to shiny. They also seemed happier and perkier. I like Blue Buffalo and actually feed less than the bag says to feed and my cats maintain their weight very well. (My dog, however, had constant gas, the runs and itchy skin on Blue Buffalo, too)

[hollytheteacher]

Originally Posted by jtbuko

Not the most natural choice in the world, but economical: We use the Kirkland dry food at Costco. The price is right, the dog is healthy, and my uncle who is a vet recommended it.

My mom works with a whole variety of animals and she always recommends the costco brand as well! She said that the animals eat less of it, are more satisfied, have less poop and it has pretty good ingredients (not top of the line, but pretty healthy)

[mosesface]

my 75lb standard poodle eats 1.5-2c of Innova Evo a day. and it's not uncommon for him to eat half his bowl and leave the rest for breakfast.

my mom feeds the cheapest dog food she can buy for her dog, but has to feed her 5 cups at a time and she's still always hungry.

i also feed my cat evo. he's a "i can see a portion of the bottom of my bowl, everyone PANIC we're all going to starve" sort of creature, but even he has to take his time with the evo and is actually satisfied after eating. it's really the only food i can afford to feed him because he has to eat SO MUCH of any other food it becomes cost prohibitive. and annoying.

i have tried orijen, which really is a great food, but my critters eat a lot more of it and it is much pricier. so we stick with the evo!

[MangoMommy]

I feed Natural Life Senior

[xJewelx]

My friend has a large dog and prepares all of his food at home. Definitely not cheap, though! For a cheaper option, I agree with other posters about the Kirkland (Costco) food. If you have a membership, you should check it out.

[buttercup784ever]

Originally Posted by mosesface

my 75lb standard poodle eats 1.5-2c of Innova Evo a day. and it's not uncommon for him to eat half his bowl and leave the rest for breakfast.

Another standard poodle owner! Mine is just at 70lbs.

We feed the Innova large bites. We were doing the Evo which is grain-free, but it gave Jupiter horrible gas. Ugh. He loved it, but he loved sleeping in our bed too. It was either us or the food.

We switched over to the regular Innova, and haven't had a gas problem since. He gets a little over a cup twice a day, and yes sometimes he doesn't finish it all. I wonder if we are feeding a bit too much since he's getting a little thick around the rump.

He was on Science Diet when we first got him, and he would eat about 5 cups of that a day, no problem.

[Miasmamma]

I feed Natural Balance. I've tried just about everything else out there and this is what my gordon can tolerate. I do supplement with raw, but I don't have the freezer space to do it full time. I wish I did.

[limabean]

Our lab got Diamond Lamb & Rice, along with stuff like pumpkin, yogurt, peanut butter, eggs, etc. occasionally.

[BeingMe]

We feed a mix of Eagle Pack Holistic Large Breed and Kahoots (which is made by Eagle Pack). So far we've had good results.