Dog Food

[Blues and Boots]

Offal is a by-product so if you feed Barf that I think has some offal in it you are feeding your dog by-products. Your also feeding them by-products by giving them a bone so it's not necessarily a bad word. All the chicken products in Eukanuba come from a whole chicken that has had head, feet and feathers removed. The remaining body is what is ground down into a paste or meal. So it's pretty much the 'whole' chicken but has to be labelled a by-product as it includes the bones and offal etc. It's the cheaper brands that feed dodgy by-products as you don't know what they mean by by-products and their ingredients change bag to bag depending on what is cheapest at the time.

The problem is, though, that when I feed offal at home I know exactly what proportions of offal I'm feeding. I also know that it's excellent quality offal since I selected it myself. Whereas a company that just lists "byproduct" on the bag could be using any type of offal in any proportions.

So I'm happy to buy a food that lists "liver" or "bone" or "kidney" or "tripe" on the ingredient panel. I'm not happy buying a product that just lists "byproduct". Makes me wonder what they're hiding, or whether the company even knows what's in the product themselves.

If they're not prepared to tell me what's exactly in the food, I'm not prepared to buy it.

Just wondering which dog food your referring to that lists the ingredients like that?

[Staranais]

Like what, sorry?

Many many commercial dog foods list "chicken byproduct" or "meat byproducts" without going into the details of what the exact byproduct is, if that's what you mean. Just about any supermarket product will do so. As well as Eukanuba products, Hills Science Diet products, etc.

[laffi]

Like what, sorry?

Many many commercial dog foods list "chicken byproduct" or "meat byproducts" without going into the details of what the exact byproduct is, if that's what you mean. Just about any supermarket product will do so. As well as Eukanuba products, Hills Science Diet products, etc.

Just to add better brands, like Ziwipeak, will add ingredients like "liver" on the ingredients list.

[Nekhbet]

actually byproducts from animals are the low end of the scale when it comes to what is in the food - feathers, feet etc

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=badingredients

this is American though and will cover US imported foods.

seeing that dogs are more then happy to eat and roll in dead things, even poo, I think getting too precious about their diet without medical basis is just unnecessary. I feed RC because my dogs have intolerances to everything else or loose condition on a raw diet which costs me an absolute fortune. Some people would not let it touch their dogs, I wouldnt feed anything else.

as long as its not crammed with wheat, artificial colours and flavours and not byproduct (this is for allergy and $$ reasons), I'm not going to toss and turn at night over labels.

Edited May 18, 2009 by Nekhbet

[giraffez]

California natural is rated 4 stars and I picked up a bag to transition my pup into from a lower end brand. Is this brand any good?