Gundog Training Forum

Interesting post, Natasha, thanks.

Naj

Dead right Contender.

It's the quality of the protein I've been looking into, I had a traing session with someone who endorses this food shall we say and he boasted about the 16% fresh salmon as its main ingredient,that's fine but anything fresh is 70 odd % water so it might be the main ingredient weight wise and the rest of the protein ingredient is made up of dried and it's the quality of the dried protein that I find interesting.

I know folks get bored about the dog food posts but in an ever changing market it's worth revisiting, the said dog food is rated nearly as low a Wagg which is a very poor food and analysis backs this up,at least Wagg reflects this on its price.

What food do you feed Natasha?

Tripe alone is not an adequete or balanced diet- the fact that people do it and get away with it doesn't make it so. A balanced raw diet is massively higher protien than most commercial kibble- what natasha says above is bang on.

Alice wrote:Tripe alone is not an adequete or balanced diet-

Agreed, for a while I fed tripe exclusively for a a couple of years, I was getting it for next to nothing, got skin trouble.....the dogs, not me!! dry flaky and prone to wet spots, I think the stamina suffered and they seemed listless, I started to mix it with dog meal again and things got better rapidly! I still think raw tripe is terrific for dogs but mixed with meal(though "kibble" seems to be the fashionable term these days,). I mix the type of meal I feed, I'll by 8/10 bags of CSJ's then next time I'll buy another, say tripe then lamb then salmon, I'm not sure if it does any good but I'm always thinking that feeding the same type ALL the time could lead to a deficiency in something, say a vitamin. It's alright having "complete" printed on the bag but I think ringing the changes and adding tripe, mince, chicken and fish over a period will reduce a build up or a deficiency in something.

Someone asked me what I feed, well this is the stuff that I feed: It's made here in the UK and yes. it's still cooked although at a much lower temperature (90c degrees) compared to the usual 150c-200c degrees. It's called Essential dog food and I use the "Stamina" (4000Kcal/kg) for most of my dogs although I have 2 dogs which I feed the "Nautical" one (3590 Kcal).

I buy in bulk which I can only recommend as this will give you a pretty, good discount with most feed companies and you can normally mix a pallet (or half a pallet) so if you can get together with some friends, that would be the way to get the best price.

With regards to types of dry foods and making them, there are now several ways with Extruded foods being the most common one where the manufacture cook it at high temperature but then there are some like the makers of Orijen & Acana, Essential and similar which cooks at 90c degrees. Then there is Baked feeds and there is now a way to do this without wheat so interesting alternative. Cold Pressed feeds are also gaining popularity where the dog feed mixture is only heated very shortly at low temperature to make a biscuit. The last type is Air dried/Freeze dried which is probably the best (for all non-grain feeds) but the process is hellishly expensive so still a bit of rarity - hopefully, the technique will be further developed in the future so it becomes cheaper.

Natasha

Going back to the days when keeping working dogs on tripe was common practice we always fed a biscuit mixer (not kibble), something like terrier meal that you got in big bags. It was never recommended that you fed tripe on its own. Moxon was a fan of feeding tripe & I probably got it from reading him.

Naj

That makes you OLD Naj, I can remember when Tripe and Mixer was reckoned to be the best food.

I've got minced tripe and oily fish and minced rabbit currently plus duck necks and venison ribs plus salmon oil, seaweed powder and veg scraps - pup had his first day on a big commercial shoot last weekend and was much admired for being all lean muscle and shiny coat

The non raw section are on Red Mills engage and seem to be doing well

I find it odd that people think 22% protein is a lot..... Mine's food is 31% protein, 20% fat. Standard working dog formulas here are 30% protein, 20% fat. I would never expect mine to hunt on a food that only had 22% protein - IMO that's inferior feed. A human athlete certainly wouldn't build their diet on that, why should it be okay for a dog that is expected to hunt hard.