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so many kibble......

3K views 14 replies 12 participants last post by  mydogs 
#1 ·
I know this is a topic visited a lot but I can’t find a recent thread on this top. What’s a high quality kibble? I have been feeding our 10 month old GSD, The Honest Kitchen and raw meat for about 5 months now. Loved it! But unfortunately it’s very expensive and right now we can’t afford it. With THK being $70 every 3 weeks and, spending about another $60-70 for raw meat, $140 every 3 weeks it’s a lot for us right now. Not to mention we have a Great Dane whose kibble is $40. So we are looking to switch both the dogs to a high quality kibble but I’ve been reading all night and just when I think I’ve found a good kibble, I read something bad about it. So if anyone has some advice on a good brand of kibble, please share.
 
#2 · (Edited)
It would be great if you could continue to add some raw meat at least a few times per week!:D

I believe your dog was having high ph values so, if you do switch foods you'll want to keep tabs on this. Seems like the HK has been keeping these values down?

FROMMS: "Fromm Pet Foods are produced by forth generation Fromm Family. Dry Foods are manufactured in company owned U.S. plant; canned foods produced in South Dakota, U.S.; not a company owned plant. The Fromm Representative stated ‘meat meal’ ingredients (chicken meal, duck meal,…) do not contain by-products, only muscle meat; fish meal preserved with citric acid (natural preservative). Manufacturing plants have APHIS EU certification. Dry foods are cooked at 255 F for 50 seconds. Company stated ingredients are mainly sourced from US and Canada, some supplements from Europe." (Thixton) Grain Free Four-Star: Four-Star Gourmet Recipes for dogs - Fromm Family Foods Internet locator: Internet Retailers - Fromm Family Foods Note that that their Gold & Classic kibble contain DL-Methionine which I personally do not care to see in my dog's food.
Also a current thread on Fromms here: http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/diet-nutrition/448202-fromm-dog-food.html

ACANA & ORIJEN: "Acana Pet Food parent company is Champion Pet Foods; Orijen Pet Foods are one of the Champion Pet Foods line. Products are manufactured in Canada at company owned facility. Meat meal ingredients are made from muscle meat and some bone. Company stated ingredients are Canadian (manufactured in Canada). No information provided to country of origin of supplements." (Thixton) Note that the Orijen gives SOME dogs loose stool. ACANA REGIONALS (grain free): Acana Regionals | Acana Store locator: Store Locator | Acana

Moms:)
 
#8 ·
It would be great if you could continue to add some raw meat at least a few times per week!:D

I believe your dog was having high ph values so, if you do switch foods you'll want to keep tabs on this. Seems like the HK has been keeping these values down?

FROMMS: "Fromm Pet Foods are produced by forth generation Fromm Family. Dry Foods are manufactured in company owned U.S. plant; canned foods produced in South Dakota, U.S.; not a company owned plant. The Fromm Representative stated ‘meat meal’ ingredients (chicken meal, duck meal,…) do not contain by-products, only muscle meat; fish meal preserved with citric acid (natural preservative). Manufacturing plants have APHIS EU certification. Dry foods are cooked at 255 F for 50 seconds. Company stated ingredients are mainly sourced from US and Canada, some supplements from Europe." (Thixton) Grain Free Four-Star: Four-Star Gourmet Recipes for dogs - Fromm Family Foods Internet locator: Internet Retailers - Fromm Family Foods Note that that their Gold & Classic kibble contain DL-Methionine which I personally do not care to see in my dog's food.
Also a current thread on Fromms here: http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/diet-nutrition/448202-fromm-dog-food.html

ACANA & ORIJEN: "Acana Pet Food parent company is Champion Pet Foods; Orijen Pet Foods are one of the Champion Pet Foods line. Products are manufactured in Canada at company owned facility. Meat meal ingredients are made from muscle meat and some bone. Company stated ingredients are Canadian (manufactured in Canada). No information provided to country of origin of supplements." (Thixton) Note that the Orijen gives SOME dogs loose stool. ACANA REGIONALS (grain free): Acana Regionals | Acana Store locator: Store Locator | Acana

Moms:)
Thank you so much! you always have the answers, and yes she did have a high PH level. The plan is to give her raw once or twice a week but our old feeding plan was costing us too much. Also i wanted to switch out Great Dane to a better kibble; we can’t feed him raw because he doesn’t like to chew his food if it’s something with as high value as raw meat. Thank you and I’m gonna look into those companies and see if there’s a place near where i live that carries it. :)
 
#4 ·
I get mine from Chewy. Great prices there and you get your food in 2 days.

Fromm is a very high quality food. They never had a recall and it's not that expensive if you get it from Chewy.com. It's about what I paid for Blue Buffalo in petsmart. TBH I actually think it was less than BB.
 
#11 ·
I have become a rather big fan of a few different foods that aren't too insanely priced. Most of the diets that Earthborn Holistic have are really nice. Not too expensive, made in the US if I remember right, no recalls, good reviews. I have recently started feeding my puppy NutriSource, which is another US based company that has some really truly nice products. Both have options with grains and without.

I am looking at putting at least my food allergy dog onto a product from Go! that I have heard a lot of good things about. They aren't as expensive a product as Acana or Orijen. The downfall with diets like Orijen is that they can be a bit hot for some dogs, and my parent's golden actually did worse on it because of the herbs I believe. He had nasty environmental allergies.

Currently I feed my pup a mix of NutriSource Large Breed Lamb and Rice formula, mixed with EVO Red Meats. I really like EVO too, but they have had trouble with the recalls (e-coli found on machines but not necessarily in kibble) and it is pretty spendy. My older dogs I am hoping to move to GO! Turkey Grain Free, Potato free and possibly Earthborn Large Breed for my golden. Though I have a few bags of things I got at discount from the store I buy food from to finish first lol.

Food is always a tough one. Everyone has different levels of price they can afford and different opinions on what is good based on what their dog has done well with. But I love that Dog Food Advisor website. It is very good at explaining why foods get what score they do.
 
#13 ·
I feed Diamond brand Large Breed Puppy to my girls (18 weeks and 12 weeks). I have been told by several breeders in the area that this is the best along with Blue Buffalo.
 
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