Hi can anyone recommend a descent wet food for wcs. Alfie hates his kibble and is losing weight not eating it.  I may think of the raw diet I but need to research it more. Would appreciate any advice anyone has.

Hi Audrey

All 9 of mine have Natural Instinct it's raw with fruit and veg, it's not expensive if you buy a load. I feed it with Laughing Dog mixer, no horrible additives in any of it. I use the Working dog one. Here's a link. http://www.naturalinstinct.com/

I use Nature Diet, when I use wet food, as it is vacuum packed and doesn't need to be refrigerated until it has been opened.

I can't help with a wet food suggestion apart from us using Natural Instinct for the first week of weaning our pups, before they go onto what I call proper raw.

I can if you wish suggest some raw background reading.

Hi I would appreciate some raw background reading if you have the time to suggest some.  Thanks for your comments . Looked at the Natural Instinct website , food looks pretty good. Will need to get freezer sorted out !

First and foremost there is the Britbarf forum

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http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/BritBarf/

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and a couple of websites

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http://www.rawlearning.com/

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http://www.rawfed.com/myths/index.html
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and I have just discovered a facebook group

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http://www.facebook.com/groups/261761471359/.

There is no "proper" way to feed raw because it so much depends on an individual's research, from that research comes the ideas and ideals conected with raw and of course it much depends on whatever  people can lay their hands on at any given time, but to my thinking a change over to raw does requires one underlying understanding ............  the basic concept of manufactured dog food creatating problems for your dog. Without that raw feeding will just pass over you.

Audrey

As an interim while you are deciding whether to go down the BARF route, it may help if you mix Alfie's kibble 50/50 with a good tinned food, we did this when Ollie went off kibble and have stuck with it.  Natures Menu and Arden Grange are the ones we use.

The natural Instinct stuff looks pretty good. Maybe a bit pricy, but I've not done a proper comparison. I'm still to be convinced that some of the added stuff, like vegetables, are strictly required though. I suspect some of it may be for the human feelgood factor, rather than the dog's benefit.

I see they have turkey backs as well. I feed my only on whole turkey, but only pay about 50p/kg, rahter than their £2.50/kg, although I do have to collect the birds and cut up myself.

Svenk

          Buying commercial raw is always pricey, sometimes it is very overpriced. My secret, (don't tell anybody, will you ) in keeping the cost of raw down is to use the stuff that would by and large be sent off to the meat renderers, the stuff that although is human grade is not generally used for human consumption, and having a large chest freezer so I can buy in bulk and negotiate on prices, that and asking about prices before I decide on having whatever  and telling the suppliers "I only want it for the dogs, if it's too much I can't afford it".

Yeah, I'm lucky we have a turkey farm near here. He takes off the breasts, legs and wings, and I get the rest. It seems there's no market here for turkey twizzlers/burgers/ham etc, so he would normally throw the rest away. In fact, he may even have to pay to have it taken away. But a meduim sized carcass is about 4/5kg, so there's still plenty of meat on them. It's a bit messy chopping up and defrosting, but i have a cellar with bathroom, so it suits me. If I had a fancy Ikea kitchen, then I don't think I'd like blood and guts being splashed about, and bags of slowly defrosting turkey heads in the fridge.

I think it costs me about £30/month to feed 4 dogs, including electric for the freezer and petrol to collect them every 6 weeks or so.

Neill at September 12, 2011 at 5:06 AM

Audrey

 

As an interim while you are deciding whether to go down the BARF route, it may help if you mix Alfie's kibble 50/50 with a good tinned food, we did this when Ollie went off kibble and have stuck with it.  Natures Menu and Arden Grange are the ones we use.

We also feed our Ollie on Arden Grange kibble (salmon and rice) and just put a few spoonfuls of AG tinned food (partners) on the top to make it more interesting.  Don't have a problem with raw, butwe don't have room for an extra freezer and time for sourcing food.  Marc

Thanks for your replies.   Food for thought  !

Good God, Svenk, that's brilliant value!  It costs me approx £100 per month to feed 5 dogs their highly expensive (but very good) kibble (Symply). I think I will take a look at the BARF forum and BM's suggested reading list.  I have a huge chest freezer doing nothing most of the time and although chopping up would have to be done in the kitchen, it's no show kitchen!  We also have a turkey farm a mile away from us ... some reading & reserch required methinks.

For ourselves the real saving in raw feeding is the saving in vet bills.