Check your dog food

[desertdog]

I judge my feed on how the dog's perform on it, not some group's analysis of the ingredient's. I've tried lot's of different dogfood's and some of the cheaper one's are superior to the so-called Premium foods. My dog's do great on Purina Dog Chow, so I'm sticken with that.

[Brent Sinclair]

Can't argue with you on that comment Desertdog, if it's doin you good and your hounds a doin fine I can understand your thinkin.
I still feel if I give it a little oil and keep it outa the rain it's likely to last awhile longer. Think of it this way, the hounds probably look forward to a little varitey once in a while ..
I got this female with the coat over her from Dan Lay as an 8 week old pup back in 1990, I hunted her down in your country acouple times, she caught a few lions on the Forbes Trinchera out of Ft.Garland and over the hill at Canon City as well....one up Copper Creek outa Riggins Id. and she lived on very little food, an amazing hound.
She died in 2004 in my kennel a couple months before lion season.
I would change her food sometimes twice a week as I felt she needed that with the little she ate all the time.
Can't say that made her live to almost 14 but I think it sure helped...

[pegleg]

some animals are just easy keepers and you'll save a mint by selecting those individuals when its possible. a few of my horses get fat on less then it takes the others from starving and one of the easy keepers is 1300 lbs and this is in the heat. I have some hounds that are pretty easy to feed too. I wish it was easier to select for that trait in hounds but with all the other necessary traits it often gets pushed down the list of requirements.
your right Brent I believe all animals do better on a varied diet. look at a dog who has been kennel for several days he will take a nip of about anything that crosses his path for a while then after running out or hunting calms down and only eats the rare oddity. I'm not aware of many animals that evolved eating a single restricted item. those few that are out there seem to struggle with any change in environment.
even mixing feeds seems to encourage their appetite and health.
livestock grown on a single scientific diet do well in short term gains but in the long run start to fail in many areas.

[StrawberryMt]

I judge my feed on how the dog's perform on it, not some group's analysis of the ingredient's. I've tried lot's of different dogfood's and some of the cheaper one's are superior to the so-called Premium foods. My dog's do great on Purina Dog Chow, so I'm sticken with that.

exactly my point

[bayupcrazy]

heres what i feed my dog last winter, sport dog hi protine and medium protine, purina, ol roy, kibblesinbits and a couple expensive bags of dog food i cant remember the name of them one was wild somthing and was 50.00 bucks for a small bag and the other was 68.oo for a small bag i would mix it in with the other cheaper bags of food i bought with a couple squrts of salmon oil on there food (1 bottle of salmon oil to a bag of dog food) and on top of that 2 muledeer a white tail 2 goats black bear and a cougar! and in the bear season i bring food and a big box of milk bones with me and feed them inbetween bears if we get lucky enough to run a couple!
p.s they love big macs!
jordan kasner

[Paul Conway]

Seems we haven't talked about out hounds lifestyles. They sit for days (sometimes more if life gets in the way) in thier kennel then are asked to peform all out for what 4, 5, 6, 10, 12 hours at times, then do it again tomorrow, or the next day, or rest up for 3,4, 5 days, a week, then do it again for several days in a row. Some of us get them a bunch of days in a row, however much they can "handle". To get them to do this we feed them a high protien/high energy feed which is hard on thier body. 95% of the dog food we feed at whatever price is not "fit for human consumption" and we call it "quality feed" for out dogs- left overs from beer processesing, sugar processing, chicken, pig, cattle slaughtering, etc, etc- all with the minimum amount of quality control that is "necessary".
All we can do is feed what seems to work best for our hounds. I like to switch from a high energy feed in the "off season" when I'm not looking to run them as much as possible, but otherwise if a feed works for my dogs I'm keepin with it. I found Brent's comment about switching feeds interesting and food for thought. Might be some merit to switchin feeds as the Brent stated, certainly food for thought for all. My housedog was a beagle/mix that lived to 19 on gainsburgers because she didn't like dry and I didn't like cleaning out the cans from canned food every night. If I did it different she'd have eaten dry with more bones on the side to naw on. Her teeth were shot a few years before she gave it up due to the soft food, but otherwise the she made it to 19 on the same meal every evening. Of course riding in the truck, sleeping on the bed, and wandering off to where ever she heard voices in the distance for some petting and love before returning home was not a hard lifestyle. Good luck, Keystoneapaul

[JayF]

if you feed meat how do you prepair it? raw in small cuts, cooked, do you store it frozen? i feed red flannel some times mix ol roy in with it seems to do fine. last feb i had some ground up deer that was geeting old so i fried it up froze it in to pound packs and would always keep a little thawed. i fed a little every day with the dry food wow the dogs looked great even had shiney hair. what im woundering is raw cuts safe cause im not gone cook for them anymore that was just a one time deal.

[livetohunt]

I get get meat scraps and fat trimmings from our local butcher. I mixing it all up in a big pot and cooking it. They get 1/2 a cup of dry food with this mix every day. Its got Chicken, Pork, Beef and some Lamb and even Rabbit. Then I add in the fat and cook it up too. I also add zucchini, squash and garlic add some fish oil and one raw egg for each dog every other day. When Im trapping or hunting lots they also get lots of Coon, Beaver, Deer and Bear meat to eat. I cut it all up into about 1/2" chunks before cooking it. It seams to be working for my dogs and they dont run over and eat all the food in about 10 sec like they were back when I was only feeding dry food. They take there time now and eat on it as they want also they only crap 1 or 2 times a day and its small and black. It does take a little bit more work and time, about 30 min to feed them every day but for what I ask them to do for me its worth it.

[1hogwild]

Diamond High energy $24 50lb bag. My dogs do well on them. IF YOU READ TO WHOLE PAGE. You'll realize some dogs react differently then others as stated. Food manufacturs always change their recipe.