What types of dog foods do you guys use?

[TheGeezer]

Hey everyone.

So I have heard a lot of good things about using dog food as the staple protein for a bluey's diet. I know that the dog food needs to be grain and starch free.

I went shopping for some dog foods today and the vast majority of dog foods that are "grain free" still contain potatoes, sweet potatoes or potato starch. I found one food from a company called Wellness that seems to be grain free. Their ingredients list:

Chicken, Water Sufficient for Processing, Natural Flavors, Cassia Gum, Carrageenan (a seaweed extract used as gelatin to hold the food together).

and lists:

Crude Protein Not Less Than 8%
Crude Fat Not Less Than 6%
Crude Fiber Not More Than 1%
Moisture Not More Than 78%

What do you guys think of something like this? And if you can suggest better brands I am open to any and all suggestions.

[rico]

4 Health, (Tractor Supply) canned dog food chicken and vegetable stew

First five ingredients:
chicken
chicken broth
eggs
peas
carrots

[Richard.C]

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i use pedigree for mine mostly,sometimes chum if they are out of the flavours i like

works well so havnt bothered trying others

[NickBrahz]

I also use Pedigree, 1.2L can goes on sale for $1.80-2 so i snag up a half dozen of those last time, will last me forever with just the 3 skinks, still love that second picture of yours Richard.

[splashy07]

Love those pics, Richard...Gave me a Monday morning giggle!

[Richard.C]

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im having withdrawls,been so long since outdoor ones have been eating,back in march,hopefully in the next month or so it will warm up enough for appetites to return

[splashy07]

Not much beats a good Blotchie feeding frenzy...so awesome, thanks for sharing. GOD I wish I lived there!

[MissDigger]

I do agree with Splashy, here in the Netherlands we don't have allot of wild reptiles, some snakes and a few little lizards but nothing bigger then a large leopard gecko. We rarely see them in the wild. That's actually one of the reasons why i really love my BTS.

[Susann]

I know many here, and on various Facebook pages, have taken to saying food must be grain-free; not the case. I myself prefer to feed grain-free, but that is not so much because there is anything about grains that is bad or unhealthy for skinks as it is for the fact that pet food companies use them as cheap filler --hence, the cheaper grains are used to take the place of more expensive and more NUTRITIOUS ingredients.

For a simplified example, say you look at the list of ingredients and it says: Chicken, Beef, Carrots, Squash, Peas, Sweet potato, Blueberries, Barley, Kale, Oats, Vitamins, Minerals. That would be one heck of a quality can right there, and not one of those ingredients are bad for skinks. Why are you unlikely to find a can with those ingredients in that order? Because most of us are not willing to pay that much for our dogs' food. (For those of you who are not aware, ingredients are listed by volume in order of greatest to least.)
So what do pet food companies do? First off they use meat by-products and by-product meal. Disgusting you say? Maybe so; I wouldn't want to eat it, but our dogs don't care and neither do our skinks. I know what many of you will say. "If you're not willing to eat it, then why would you feed it to your pets?!" I'll tell you why. I don't like eating bones, giblets, or skin of animals even if it is every bit as nutritious as the muscle-meat, but I see nothing wrong about feeding it to my dog. Not only is it often every bit as nutritious, many times it's MORE nutritious. And if the pet food company has already ground up the bones and chopped up the giblets and the chunks of skin for me, GREAT! Talk about whole prey protein fed in the safest way possible (since neither my dog nor my skink can swallow a whole cow).
Personally I see absolutely nothing wrong with feeding my skinks meat by-products (or meal thereof).

The next thing pet food companies do to cut costs is ...TA-DAA! Add more of the cheaper ingredients. Like grains. And potatoes. (Nothing wrong with potatoes, and especially not sweet potatoes.) Which is why you're unlikely to find an ingredient list in the order of my example. Because the grains and potatoes are generally always listed much nearer the beginning of the list. Because they are generally in the food to begin with so that they can still fill up the can but put in less of the more expensive ingredients. Hence why they are referred to as FILLERS.

So. Why do I prefer to feed grain-free? Because, if there aren't any cheap grains in the can, the can has to be filled with other, hopefully nutritious, ingredients. Not because grains are bad at all, it's just that there are usually relatively MUCH of them when they are in the can.
Which leads us to the rice and potato. Nothing wrong with either, but many (if not most) pet food companies are banking on us not noticing that, when they say "Grain-FREE", many have instead got a different type of filler taking the grains' place: rice and/or potato. Yes, brown rice is slightly more nutritious than white rice, but it doesn't come anywhere near the nutrition of meat or even a carrot. And yes, sweet potatoes are quite a bit more nutritious than regular potatoes, but if half the can is sweet potato ...well, you get the picture.

So, to sum up: no need to feed grain-free due to grains being "toxic" to skinks in any way; they're simply not very nutritious, and that holds the same for rice and potatoes.

So Geezer, the Wellness can you were asking about would be great in that it appears to be mostly meat and certainly no grains or potatoes, and many of us use that very brand and their "ninety-five percent" meat-in-a-can, but neither does it have any vegetables or greens, nor any added vitamins or minerals. Pros and cons. Very short, uncomplicated ingredient list, but you have to add stuff yourself for a well balanced omnivorous meal, including vitamins and minerals. (Not to mention keeping in mind which type of animal the meat is from and then thinking about the ratio of calcium to phosphorous, as chicken fed as a staple is known to have caused cases of MBD...)

I know we are all hoping someone out there is going to find a brand, a meat, a food, a SOMETHING that makes feeding our pets a "one size fits all", a "feed ___ tablespoons ___ times per week" so we can just go buy a bunch and be done!

[TheGeezer]

Thanks for that reply!

Yeah, There isn't much else to the Wellness dog food besides the meat, but that's what I wanted. I mix in carrots, squash, greens and powder supplements into her meal to round out her diet. She also usually gets a good size roach with her meal too.

Do you use any multi-vitamins? Any recommendations there?

[TheGeezer]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Anyone else have any dog food brands they like to use?