Food recommendations please. Need to cut costs

[alwaystrainers]

Hi MN dog lovers. I'm currently buying butternut and tails for my dog but can't afford it now. I'm looking for recommendations of any hidden gems that might not make it into the list on the website I d used before if quality and price.
Id like a good food for him but cannot justify the £80 a month I'm now paying. It's a bit ouch. Any local recommendations in NW- will go collect if needed or other brands ? I've got a voucher for hair price raw but that's only one month of savings ! Thanks muchly

We love Canagen!

Tried a few others but this one she has responded best too! ☺️

Still a little pricey I believe, but definitely not £80 a month!

How much does your dog currently eat? Just trying to get an idea of what £80 is buying you at the moment.

Canagan is really good or Eden

just be mindful some cheaper feeds you feed more of compared to other foods so look at the serving price when working out cost

He gets a big bAg of Tails that lasts just over a month £25 ish and I think from memory 24 pouches of butternut at £50 then treats j buy separately

We buy Forthglade trays, always google for discount codes, 48 trays costs around £45, in addition get Harringtons dry buy either in bulk either direct or from supermarket when on offer.

We get natures choice nuggets. Bit less than 2 bags/week. So that’s about £10/week. Will be more for a bigger dog tho.

You can feed your dog on a lower budget and still give them good food. Butternut and tails are very very over priced for what they are. Very very clever marketing!

How much does your dog weigh and what age?
Do you still want a mixture of wet and dry food?

I use human meat for mine. So he eats raw chicken, and beef mince, at whatever price tesco sells it. About £2.50kg for chicken legs, and £4kg for frozen minced beef.

I do liver and organ meat separately. He doesn't like other meats much so we've ended up very simple.

Millies Wolfheart is a good quality kibble, grain free and lots of types to suit which they'll happily advise on. A 12kg bag lasts our Springer 2months and is £45.

Mine is on Webbox Naturals in the pale green bags. It's £4 for 2kg in Range and Wilko, or £3.50 in B&M but they only have the one flavour. It's annoying to only be able to get it in small bags, but it doesn't feel as expensive picking it up in smaller amounts.

My GSD girl is extremely fussy and this is the only dry food she will eat on it's own without needing something extra for nose appeal.

I also get her the Webbox Naturals sausages (not the chub roll) for a treat.

I feed my dog raw 80-10-10 / complete mince from a company called Go-Raw.

It costs us £25 per month - though total is £50 per month once we add raw bones (every other day), frozen sprats, natural chews, and other stuff to supplement his overall diet.

The £25 is for 20 x 500g packets, which last him about 30 days. He's 15kg, 2 yrs old.

What size is your dog? How old? Active or not very active?

Millies Wolfheart here too (another spaniel). We feed a 50/50 mix of kibble and tins because he won't eat the kibble on its own, which makes it more expensive than if feeding just kibble but still less than you're paying. They have a feeding guide by weight on their website so you could work out likely cost for your dog from that.

Go Raw sounds good, dustheart. I might have a look. I like using human food, from a storage pov.

I do similar to this. We use a reasonable quality kibble then supplement with portions of meat from whatever I'm cooking for us or some scrambled egg or raw egg or tinned fish. And I give vegetables and fruit, again bits of what we are having - broccoli, carrots, apple etc.

Really unbalanced to just eat that though.

Wow thanks everyone. I'm so grateful. I'll try and get done samples
Fish 4 dogs seemed good but he wasn't keen. I think he's about 10kg but nearly fell off the scales in wet trainers trying to check so will try again ! He's a terrier - medium I'd say. Probs same size as small spaniel

Mine is on Nature Diet wet , they also do a dry , it’s extremely cheap for the quality .

Another spaniel on Millie’s Wolfheart! It really suits our boy and he just had that plus some natural chews/treats and his kong. They have some great advice on their website and a tool to work out which food mix is best for your dog, how much to give etc.

@halfsiesonapotnoodle he started out on a great variety of meats, prey model raw, but gradually refused them all. He has vitamins. He's an older boy now, I don't want to torment him with compulsory duck when he's rather just have chicken. He eats pork as well, actually, whenever we have pork. He just prefers beef and chicken.

If you have freezer space, you can increase the number of pouches in your butternut order and decrease the frequency of deliveries and that reduces the cost a bit.

I agree that Tails is overpriced, clever marketing. It’s not really “bespoke” - they have a few kibble recipes with minor differences between them and they put your dog on one - it’s no different to other brands having a senior/diet range. However, I do think butternut is good quality food, but there’s no doubt you pay for it.

my spaniel has Wolfworthy kibble which I subscribe to, which gives you a discount. A bag lasts about 6 weeks and costs about £40. On top I give him butternut but only a 200g pouch per day, so most of his food is the kibble. Tbh he’d be quite happy just eating the kibble, I just like to give him that bit more variety in his meals.

@alwaystrainers my spaniel is 13kg so gets slightly more than your dog would and Millies works out at £45-50 pcm for us, feeding half wet and half dry. Would be under £30 if just kibble.

My dogs have thrived and worked on mid-priced kibble. Autarky, Chudleys, Skinners. Currently on an own brand food that is made by Pero. Even now it is only costing me £30 a month total for a retriever and a working spaniel.

Our lab has been on and loved Guru cold pressed kibble for a good year -www.gurupetfood.com/product/cold-pressed-dog-food-surf-turf-14kg/ but the price is creeping up and with the cost of everything rising the next best thing we found is twenty quid cheaper www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/dogs/dry_dog_food/markus_muehle/14524 Markus Mühle NaturNah (you can sign up for some first buy discounts and with an account to opt for a few % off a month - the 15kg bag falls just under the free delivery amount so we chuck in some furry rabbit ears to take it over) he loves it. He's calm, lovely glossy coat, regular, firm poos 👍 and he seems very happily full on it (as a greedy food driven lab can) we mix it with a little hot water to give him a kind of gravy and use handful for regular good behaviour treat or to scatter feed him in the garden/in puzzle dish/snuffle mat to occupy his brain. With treats added into the mix,a bag lasts a month at around £35 with the zooplus discounts

Email sent to Millies and several samples ordered
Thanks all

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