Food Storage

[Alexandria610]

I use black hopper bins from Wal-Mart. They store the 35lb bag of food perfectly, have easily removed lids for refill purposes, stack, and open only partially at the front so you can easily scoop the food.

Here's a picture of one:



And here they are stacking:

[Cheerful1]

We have the Vittle Vaults as well, one for Long Island and one for Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania house is in the woods, and we do get mice, but they have not gotten into the dogfood. They did get into the Milkbones that I had in a Ziploc bag! Rubbermaid is better.

[bocron]

Originally Posted by Chicagocanine

I'm not sure if I'd reuse it for too long as a pet food container though.

Why not? Do you think it might be a problem?
I have about 10 of those containers in my garage right now. I also wash them out, remove the labels and put one of our business stickers on it and give to clients who frequently board with us. I have a few people who bring their dog food in the strangest containers, or bags. With these I just stick a piece of masking tape with the dog's name on it and stack in our feeding room in the kennel.

[bocron]

Originally Posted by Alexandria610

I use black hopper bins from Wal-Mart. They store the 35lb bag of food perfectly, have easily removed lids for refill purposes, stack, and open only partially at the front so you can easily scoop the food.
And here they are stacking:

I have never seen those at my Walmart. What department are they in? Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. I'd like a few of those!

The vittles vaults are so expensive. I love them, but everytime I'm about to buy one I chicken out at the last second .

[gsdraven]

I use the container above in a closet. My food is 40lbs and it fits in there nicely still in the bag, don't want plastic residue on my dog's food. You could fit several smaller bags easily. I have more than one container for when I fed more than 1 food but all 3-4 dogs are on the same thing here.

[1337f0x]

I went to my local hardware store and got a large 5 gallon plastic bucket with a lid. It cost just under $8.00 and I put the kibble (in the bag) inside that bucket, the lid is air tight for a fresh seal!

I use this for other things in my house too, like rice, pasta and flour, so thought "Hey, this would be GREAT for the dogs food!"

I must say, it really does work wonders =)



I got mine from Home Depot, it's a bright orange bucket. They both know where their food is. Hahaha.

[msvette2u]

That has a gamma seal like a Vittle Vault.
For those wanting an actual Vittle Vault, you can get the bucket and gamma seal at Home Depot.

With the rescue we needed mass storage so Vittle Vaults were an investment. I agree they are expensive though

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by bocron

I have never seen those at my Walmart. What department are they in? Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place. I'd like a few of those!

The vittles vaults are so expensive. I love them, but everytime I'm about to buy one I chicken out at the last second .

The vaults would drive me nuts, they are such a PITA to open and close. I just have no interest in spinning the little thing and having to set it in the hole just right to get it to spin back on. Things like that drive me nuts.

The picture above looks nice, but I am wondering if the lids just flip up or is there some kind of deterence? We store food inside the house, in the laundry room and the dogs have access to it. We have never ever had a rodent in the house, unless you count the hamsters I used to have as a kid at my parents house. Flame away, but for almost 30 years of dog ownership dog food in my family has ALWAYS been stored in a newly purchased small garbage can, the 13 gallon looking variety. Both of ours are top opening, the dogs can't get in them, and OMG but no we don't store the food in the bags either. Somehow, by some grace of god the dogs have always managed to survive such neglect.

I do actually line one of the cans with a regular household trash bag, because it has a little gap at the bottom for, I don't know, drainage? I'm sure that's worse than the can itself by some peoples standards.

My son does like to help scoop the dogs food in the morning and he has a hard time with the top opening cans once the food goes down a little, he's only 2. So a side opening would be nice for his sake, but perhaps not the dogs who might help themselves. We go through food pretty fast here though with four big mouths to feed. One eats one food out of one can and goes through it in a month, and the other three dogs go through 35 lbs every 10 days or so fed out of the other can.

[dogfaeries]

i use the big rolling dog food storage bins.

I leave the dog food in the bag, with a measuring cup, and have feeding instructions taped to the top of the bin. I also have a big one for my kitty litter, with the scoop in it. I keep both in the closet of my dog/cat room. Works for me!

[msvette2u]

The stacking containers with the black lid, while convenient, are not airtight.
The above bin is airtight but broke too easily, the plastic was quite brittle.

When you have a rescue and hundreds of pounds of food, it's essential to keep it safe from rodents and sealed/airtight (hence, DRY). We've been forced to throw away more food than I'd like to remember due to it having rodent contamination!

Vittle Vaults or anything else with a Gamma seal is the only way to achieve that.