What???? Dog food can't be this expensive!!!!

[orezok]

Maude...you're going to have to do without your meds this month. Fluffy needs a bag of dog food

 

[Larry Caldwell]

My wife makes dog food because it is cheaper than the canned stuff. We mix it with kibbles about 50:50. She buys scrap meat from the (real) butcher. It's rabbit, chicken, turkey, pork, beef, mutton, all ground together, then adds institutional packs of frozen vegetables like beans, broccoli, carrots, whatever is going over the hill in the vegetable crisper, rice or steel cut oats, fish oil, cooking grease, venison bone broth, whatever we have on hand that will feed the dogs, and then freezes it in the large repurposed cottage cheese containers. Our oldest dog is 16 years old and still active and in good health, so it apparently is not hurting her.

When I was a kid we had a cocker that lived on table scraps. He was 15 years old before he ever tasted commercial dog food, and lived to be 21.

 

[NoTrespassing]

My wife makes dog food because it is cheaper than the canned stuff. We mix it with kibbles about 50:50. She buys scrap meat from the (real) butcher. It's rabbit, chicken, turkey, pork, beef, mutton, all ground together, then adds institutional packs of frozen vegetables like beans, broccoli, carrots, whatever is going over the hill in the vegetable crisper, rice or steel cut oats, fish oil, cooking grease, venison bone broth, whatever we have on hand that will feed the dogs, and then freezes it in the large repurposed cottage cheese containers. Our oldest dog is 16 years old and still active and in good health, so it apparently is not hurting her.

When I was a kid we had a cocker that lived on table scraps. He was 15 years old before he ever tasted commercial dog food, and lived to be 21.

Our dogs get all the table scraps too. I know the experts say not to give cooked bones but our dogs must have guts of steel because it's never bothered them except once that I can think of. The old yellow dog, she must be 12 and about 70 lbs. or so, got pretty stopped up one time on pork butt bones but she pulled through it. I had a dog live 18 years once but she was only about 10 lbs. fighting weight.

 

[kenmbz]

Our dogs food went from 35 to $55 in only a few months.
May need to figure a way for her to work off the difference

 

[Rock Crawler]

Tractor Supply also sells Purina. It's OK. Looking on their website, prices seem to be half of what you posted.

We buy Munster kibble for our dogs, but also make our own dog food. As mentioned by others, our meat market sells scraps for a great price. We also buy chicken breasts, pork loin, hamburger and whatever we can find that's affordable. We also shoot hogs, butcher our chickens and goats for dog food.

We find that with our choice of food, the Iams green bag of chicken based food, Tractor Supply has the 44LB bags at $59.95 and this is the lowest price per LB that I can find anywhere. With my 2 lab mix dogs, we feed 1 level cup each, morning and evening and the bag gets me around 6 weeks. Tractor Supply is my go-to for dog food.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Our 2 dogs are outdoors 100% of the time and get all they can eat. They regulate their own body weight very well. They consume about twice as much dog food in the winter compared to summer. Their intake has increased with temps dipping into the 30's at night and it seems like they're eating about a "coffee can" per day. I don't know how many cups that is or how much it weighs but when the 40 lb. bag is near empty I pick up 2 more bags

 

[Bearsixty7]

Years ago I did a lot of reading and research and settled on Pro Plan as it appeared to be the better quality dog food (Chicken is the first ingredient meaning the largest percentage of the contents) at a reasonable price and had good reviews. Just a few years ago a 47lb bag was ~$43.00, Today it is $84!

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Our 2 dogs are outdoors 100% of the time and get all they can eat. They regulate their own body weight very well. They consume about twice as much dog food in the winter compared to summer. Their intake has increased with temps dipping into the 30's at night and it seems like they're eating about a "coffee can" per day. I don't know how many cups that is or how much it weighs but when the 40 lb. bag is near empty I pick up 2 more bags

Are you sure you are just feeding dogs? That's a huge amount of food. I'm feeding a 100 lb. Rhodesian Ridgeback, and he only gets a couple cups of dog food a day. If you are keeping accessible food out, you may be supplementing the local wildlife.

 

[jyoutz]

New Mexico is often a foreign country, too.

Bruce

That’s why our vehicle license plates say USA after the state name. Lots of people failed geography class.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Are you sure you are just feeding dogs? That's a huge amount of food. I'm feeding a 100 lb. Rhodesian Ridgeback, and he only gets a couple cups of dog food a day. If you are keeping accessible food out, you may be supplementing the local wildlife.

Well, in the spring the Starlings eat more than the dogs. They killed the groundhog so he isn't getting any of it. We may lose a small amount to sparrows right now. I attribute most of the increase to the dogs needing more calories to keep warm and the poor quality of the cheap food. Luckily they in the woods since I'm sure there's a lot of it.