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Cheaper Variety Dog Food


harlosmummy
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Morning Everyone

Our 6 month old boxer cross bull terrier is currently on pro-plan puppy, we cannot afford it anymore and are looking to put her on a more affordable food.

at the moment were tossing up between optium puppy, bonnie puppy, or uncle albers/ great Barko. I wasnt sure if uncle albers and great barko are suitable for a puppy though?

any advice/feedback would be much appreciated

thanks!

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for a boxer I would avoid anything with too much grain especially wheat. I have tried Coprice dog food but I found without supplementation the coat dried out. Heard good things about Bonnie puppy too but I would supplement still with fresh food every day

have you tried bulking it out with cheap pet mince/bones?

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I have known of longstanding breeders who feed Uncle Albers/Great Barko to puppies once they hit around 6 months of age or thereabouts and apparently they have had no issues with it.

The packaging does actually say it is suitable for puppies, but I haven't tried it myself. I do feed it from around 12 months onwards though.

I have also heard good things about Bonnie puppy, but as I can't access it easily here, I have never tried it.

I tend to stick with Optimum for puppies or have even been known to feed the Coles Select or Woolworths brand Puppy Dry Foods without issues as well. I recommend any of these in my puppy guide.

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poodlefan: yes, that was what had happend, but he decided to get his act togther and won me back with romantic gestures. haha im a sucker!

we do currently give her mince, bones etc but are finding we are going through it really fast, as we are trying to get more weight on her

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a cheaper food will not help with building the pup as its a higher percentage filler.

More mince and lamb flaps can help as well as giving a bigger meal in the evening as well so the dog doesnt work off all the calories during the day. If ProPlan is not working try a different food like RC large breed puppy

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Actually Nekhbet, if they decide to feed Uncle Albers or Great Barko, combined with more meat, they will probably have exceptional results. Without exception ALL of my dogs (including the greyhound) do EXCEEDINGLY well on UA and/or GB. TOO well in fact to the point where some only get a sniff of it at meal times!

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really? I havnt tried it because of grain allergies in my doggies (ugh NOT a road I want to trawl down again .. one is stinky the other baldy :laugh:)

I meant other cheaper foods that tend to be predominantly fillers instead of protein especially in a growing dog :crossfingers:

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Yep, it's an excellent quality food, especially for one that is at the budget end of the scale.

I'm very satisfied with it. If you do a search here, you'll find a few threads that discuss it and there are actually very few people who have tried it who don't like the results.

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am currently in transition from coles brand to great barko - cattledog seems very happy with GB and there is better other results

most notably: smaller stools, less death-gas but she seems to drink more, no big drama

as to the $ i paid i think $9 for a trial 4kg of GB - it retails at $28 for 22 kg *or something similar to this* here in ballarat

regards

phil

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We tried GB recently and I was disappointed. My dogs will eat anything and do well on anything, but the GB just went straight through them. It is hard to tell living here though because my IL's feed them scraps all the time..

Anyway, back to the topic... We have used Cobber dryfood and Bonnie with great success. Add some raw bones, raw eggs and fresh meat and you have happy dogs. :confused:

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I don't like pro plan, supercoat, or science diet its horrible to clean up after they have been to the toilet.

Why don't you cut back on the mince and feed bones, chicken necks and dry only. Chicken necks are pretty cheap, but you want to buy them fresh and then bag them up for the week because Feeding a pup mince can get very expensive. My mum uses Optimum puppy, it looks very similar to Royal Canin (what I use) in texture, its very moist and her dogs love it.

Some of my rescue dogs refused to eat Bonnie, it was horrible to them. Remember the cheapest option isn't always right for your dog, your dog may not like it at all.

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Without exception ALL of my dogs (including the greyhound) do EXCEEDINGLY well on UA and/or GB. TOO well in fact to the point where some only get a sniff of it at meal times!

here as well :D It's what we use now when we don't have fresh meat...

Cobber, last time we tried it, went straight through them... :mad and Bonnie didn't hold condition on them.

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I feed our 6 month old SBT Bonnie Puppy, on its own for breakfast and for dinner mixed with Pal Puppy canned food, sometimes some grated cheese, sometimes some crushed garlic, and once a week either a sardine or olive oil. He's in great condition. I get comments all the time on how his coat shines and how healthy he looks. :thumbsup:

He also gets a raw bone ever second day.

A good friend of mine has 2 lab's, she's recently switched to Bonnie Light for them and the Chocolate Lab's coat has never looked better. Her Black lab also gets royal canin mixed with bonnie as she's got a few issues, but both are doing really well on it.

I guess it just depends on the dog. :thumbsup:

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We tried the UA and GB here.....but my labs put on weight with it. Some loved it, others sniffed at it (but still ate it).

We feed Bonnie Working Dog....and the youngsters get Optimum puppy.

We also use Supercoat puppy at times.

Also recently tried a bag of nutro - and in all honesty I saw no change in the dogs at all.

My dogs do get sardines, chicken frames, fish oil capsules, and food scraps as well.

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For people living in Perth, especially SOR, Vitality High Performance is a great option. $45 for 15 kg. It's mostly produced for export but can be picked up from the manufacturer in Naval Base. Beef/lamb + various grains, including a lot of rice, with generous supplementation of an Omega 3/6 rich oil (mostly flax seed).

But whatever you use, do add a good amount of raw stuff . . . chook frames are generally cheap and very nutritious.

Edited by sandgrubber
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