high meat expensive brands - worth it?

[lilly1]

I have two lurchers weighing between 25 and 30kg.
I've always fed them middle of the range dry dog food and tend to get a large sack of whatever's on offer. Normally at a cost of around £20 per bag. They also have a small amount of tinned meat to give variety.
At the moment they are eating Skinners field and trial rice and turkey with joint aid variety. Today I was talked into trying them on a small bag of Canagan with assurance this will work out less. By all accounts it has higher levels of MSM and Glucosamine than any supplement you can get in the shop. I've since noticed its free range chicken to boot!

Do high meat content work out better value for money? My dogs are 13 and 10 and in good health. They have survived this far on more budget brands, is this due to luck or are these expensive no grain foods just hype?

 

[EQUIDAE]

I feed Pettit's meaty mix - it has lots of dried pigs ear in it and a low ash content. I pay £13 a bag for it. There's also one called Killdrummie which is similar but has dried chicken pieces and also charcoal nuggets - that's about £18 a bag. My dogs do fantastically on it - even my GSD who has really sensitive skin and was on hypoallergenic vet food at £85 a bag for several years (which didn't work).

ETA - it's made with human grade meat and coated with poultry fat so even the fussiest dogs seem to love it.

 

[pippixox]

I have a GSD, who when I got him aged 2 was being fed WAG- and was allergic to it and so itchy and underweight. I tried a few of the cheaper ranges of low grain food, but found I was getting threw large quantities (think skinners was one of them), and although he could stomach them a lot better, they were not actually that cheap with the quantity needed, like you have said. especially as I was trying to get weight on him and he is very active.

I switched to raw for a while, as this was the best way to be fully grain and additive free. but although he did well on it, it was a hassle to store and defrost and I have a baby on the way and in a small kitchen it is hard to keep a raw meat area and space for baby bottles and then also our food! so i did some research and have ended up buying Millies wolfheart.

have used it for 3 months now and he is doing well on it. it is 70-80% meat depending on the version chosen, so the volume needed to quite small. it has not got many ingredients and is made in the UK (unlike a lot o the expensive high meat kibbles in the pet shops). delivery is very fast as well, useful when you suddenly realize you have almost run out! I also buy their cans as similar high quality unlike a lot of the canned dog food brands.

i could not tell you the exact weight comparision, but based on the mugs I tend to use to scoop the kibble out of the bag, I use almost half! I also like that it is good quality meat and UK based.
cost wise it is about £40 a month (for a 40kg GSD)

 

[JillA]

TBH dogs are omnivores so the percentage of meat isn't as important as it is for cats. So long as the ingredients are good quality as opposed to "derivatives" I think you are okay. I feed Skinners maintenance to my two Cavaliers and they are doing fine, including the 11 year old who seems to think he is 3! That's all they get - I feel if they need any supplements I would rather add them myself so I know what quantity they are getting (same with horse feeds), I don't like those that include herbs or supplements because you just don't know at what level. I use PlaqueOff sometimes for their teeth, otherwise they just get decent quality kibble.

 

[Brownmare]

Well I can't give any kind of useful comparison but Canagan is the only kibble that would keep weight on my ancient lurcher for a good few years (now moved onto other things mainly due to his fussiness)