# Looking at new food



## aesthetic (Apr 23, 2015)

Kaizer's breeder fed Annamaet Extra (not either of the formulas you're talking about) and I kept Kaizer on it until his health issues sprang up at 2.5 years old. He did great on it and all of his breeders dogs are still doing fantastic on it. I am quite partial to the brand. I fed a kibble-only diet at the time.

Kaizer gets mainly raw now, but I'm trying to add kibble back in to cut costs/make it easier when we travel. I tried Farmina first, but I don't really think his system could handle it? His poops were bigger than usual and his stomach was always growling. Flip side, my friend's allergy dog absolutely thrives on this food.

Cost wise, I think they're about the same. Annamaet may be more expensive. I've been thinking about trying it again, but right now I'm giving GO! Skin + Coat Care lamb a try.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

Why does your vet want you to change? Is it just because or is your vet just making you change to what he likes? Is your dog not doing well on the current food? If your on a good food and your dogs are doing well on it, there is no reason to change foods.

I just love vets that want to tinker and make changes for no reason.


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## Ffcmm (May 4, 2016)

have you considered switching fully to raw for both?


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## Jmcarp83 (May 4, 2018)

Maggie'sVoice said:


> Why does your vet want you to change? Is it just because or is your vet just making you change to what he likes? Is your dog not doing well on the current food? If your on a good food and your dogs are doing well on it, there is no reason to change foods.
> 
> I just love vets that want to tinker and make changes for no reason.


She would prefer I feed all raw to them but I don’t always take care of them in the mornings, so it is not ideal for my situation. Would I prefer to feed raw all the time? Sure. She isn’t forcing me to switch but as an integrative vet and someone I sought out I would like to make changes.

I personally don’t like the stuff in the kibble (PPP Focus) I’m currently feeding but it’s what the breeder uses/recommends and I understand a lot of dogs use it.

Annamaet is considerably local but I’m most concerned about the puppy version: is it enough for a growing puppy so that she won’t grow too fast? Enough calcium? Same thing with Farmina.

I alternate between a home cooked raw with appropriate organ/muscle/bone ratio for my 20 month old dog and Answers raw patties (soooo expensive but it’s easy). I’ve considered Answers in the carton but it’s like a pate and bloody and I struggle with smell.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

Feeding raw is best. I do feed some kibble a bit but sparingly. I'd say I feed raw about 85% of the time. I don't make my own. Way way way too many DIY recipes aren't properly balanced. I do a commercially prepared food, Nature's Variety instinct raw and keep a 15 pound bag of the Nature's Variety be natural line (grain inclusive). The raw food costs me about $80 a month as I buy it on sale and get rain checks if they don't have enough lol. Otherwise it would cost me about $110-$120 a month.

It's so easy to feed and balanced and includes a Montmerlinite (sp?) clay which is a detoxifier. Every meal they go through a semi detox.

Raw food you don't need to worry about growing too fast. With raw the body takes what it needs and expels the rest. Hard to have excesses. You just have to make sure there's enough of everything so they can pull what they need. With cooked foods and added, synthetic vitamins and minerals, that's not the case. The body is sorta force fed at the nutrients.


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## Jmcarp83 (May 4, 2018)

Maggie'sVoice said:


> Feeding raw is best. I do feed some kibble a bit but sparingly. I'd say I feed raw about 85% of the time. I don't make my own. Way way way too many DIY recipes aren't properly balanced. I do a commercially prepared food, Nature's Variety instinct raw and keep a 15 pound bag of the Nature's Variety be natural line (grain inclusive). The raw food costs me about $80 a month as I buy it on sale and get rain checks if they don't have enough lol. Otherwise it would cost me about $110-$120 a month.
> 
> It's so easy to feed and balanced and includes a Montmerlinite (sp?) clay which is a detoxifier. Every meal they go through a semi detox.
> 
> Raw food you don't need to worry about growing too fast. With raw the body takes what it needs and expels the rest. Hard to have excesses. You just have to make sure there's enough of everything so they can pull what they need. With cooked foods and added, synthetic vitamins and minerals, that's not the case. The body is sorta force fed at the nutrients.


Thanks. I’ll look into that too. 

My homemade raw came from a holistic vet so I’m confident that it’s the proper nutrients but for the puppy I plan to use Answers as it’s readily available and a local company. The cartons are definitely cheaper than the patties but convenience is what you pay for. I’m just waiting for confirmation there is enough ground bone for the patties for the puppy (20-30%). The integrative vet was actually okay with feeding 50% kibble/50% raw. And her suggestion was Grandma Mae, Annamaet, Farmina and simple food. However, Simple food looks super pricy.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

LoL no to Grandma Mae's. It's a co-op. Owned by pet food store owners. I know this as I know the owner of a 31 store pet dry goods store (no animals) and he said it's just a bottom line food that they control where it can be sold so there's no competition with other steps and big box like Petco or PetSmart.

It's not horrible but they don't make it with anything other then for profit in mind. I wouldn't touch it.


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## aesthetic (Apr 23, 2015)

Maggie'sVoice said:


> LoL no to Grandma Mae's. It's a co-op. Owned by pet food store owners. I know this as I know the owner of a 31 store pet dry goods store (no animals) and he said it's just a bottom line food that they control where it can be sold so there's no competition with other steps and big box like Petco or PetSmart.
> 
> It's not horrible but they don't make it with anything other then for profit in mind. I wouldn't touch it.


Concord Pet? I work at one of their stores, manager lets me work a lot of hours. FWIW, I fed Grandma Mae's for awhile, their regular adult formula is VERY similar to the Annamaet Extra 26 so I'd buy it when I couldn't get my hands on the Annamaet (or when the prices for Annamaet started skyrocketing). I don't think it's a terrible food, would still feed it. Concord has worse (imo) in-store brands than Grandma Maes.

I feed Kaizer Primal pre-made raw 100% of the time now. I buy the 12# bag of the patties (lamb and pork usually), each bag lasts me 6 days. It's expensive but saves me time. If I DIY raw myself (with my in-depth spreadsheet to make sure I hit nutritional needs lol), it ends up cheaper but takes up more of my time. I figure it all evens out somehow.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

aesthetic said:


> Concord Pet? I work at one of their stores, manager lets me work a lot of hours. FWIW, I fed Grandma Mae's for awhile, their regular adult formula is VERY similar to the Annamaet Extra 26 so I'd buy it when I couldn't get my hands on the Annamaet (or when the prices for Annamaet started skyrocketing). I don't think it's a terrible food, would still feed it. Concord has worse (imo) in-store brands than Grandma Maes.
> 
> I feed Kaizer Primal pre-made raw 100% of the time now. I buy the 12# bag of the patties (lamb and pork usually), each bag lasts me 6 days. It's expensive but saves me time. If I DIY raw myself (with my in-depth spreadsheet to make sure I hit nutritional needs lol), it ends up cheaper but takes up more of my time. I figure it all evens out somehow.


Yep Concord Pet. Larry bought into the company back in like 2012 or so I can't remember. There are worse for sure. But I wouldn't call it a quality food, just pretty average and no feed trials unless that changed in the last 2 or 3 years. I stop in the Suburban and Glasgow store from time to time for the dry food as they have the best price on the NV Be Natural line by $10 compared to online lately and that is very unusual for Concord lol. I am guessing but if you're working a lot of hours I'd say it's at Red Mill if John is still the manager lol.

Yeah I can do my own raw as well but too much work and expensive getting the quality meats. Lower quality meats means much higher ash content. So if they aren't supplying you with an ash content where you buy your meat, it's likely low quality. Also just an FYI Lamb is higher then most meats in Phosphorus and one of the lowest in Taurine in case you didn't know. I will use lamb as a rotational meat but only rarely.

I was never an Annamaet fan but I think they are one that used to refuse A LOT or meat shipments due to high ash content meat so you knwo youre getting high quality meatrs in that line. Thats what makes it a bit pricey I believe. But trust me when I tell you Grandma Mae's isn't anywhere near the quality of Annamaet. It may read OK/similar but it's not even close.


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## aesthetic (Apr 23, 2015)

Maggie'sVoice said:


> Yep Concord Pet. Larry bought into the company back in like 2012 or so I can't remember. There are worse for sure. But I wouldn't call it a quality food, just pretty average and no feed trials unless that changed in the last 2 or 3 years. I stop in the Suburban and Glasgow store from time to time for the dry food as they have the best price on the NV Be Natural line by $10 compared to online lately and that is very unusual for Concord lol. I am guessing but if you're working a lot of hours I'd say it's at Red Mill if John is still the manager lol.
> 
> Yeah I can do my own raw as well but too much work and expensive getting the quality meats. Lower quality meats means much higher ash content. So if they aren't supplying you with an ash content where you buy your meat, it's likely low quality. Also just an FYI Lamb is higher then most meats in Phosphorus and one of the lowest in Taurine in case you didn't know. I will use lamb as a rotational meat but only rarely.
> 
> I was never an Annamaet fan but I think they are one that used to refuse A LOT or meat shipments due to high ash content meat so you knwo youre getting high quality meatrs in that line. Thats what makes it a bit pricey I believe. But trust me when I tell you Grandma Mae's isn't anywhere near the quality of Annamaet. It may read OK/similar but it's not even close.


I've worked at the Glasgow store since April 2018, chances are you've run into me! In October, I quit and went seasonal since it was getting hard to balance everything I was doing while in college. Prior to that, I was working 28-32 hours/week during class and 40+ hours a week on breaks. I'm back now indefinitely because all of my classes were put online.

As far as dry food, we're usually the same price if not a little bit cheaper than Chewy (except when they put things on massive sale). I know Chewy put Instinct on sale last week, no way our prices beat that. We also have more of the Instinct frozen than Chewy has listed online, and almost always run sales on it too. Other stuff is cheaper on Chewy though.

Yes, I am aware that lamb is high in phosphorus and low in Taurine. FWIW, I looked on the Primal website and the frozen lamb patties has a higher taurine %age than the chicken, duck, pork. Same taurine %age as the turkey + sardine. He's the healthiest currently than he's been in years, so the lamb and pork are working for him now. No use fixing what isn't broken.

As far as Grandma Maes vs Annamaet, they are comparable enough to use Grandma Maes in a pinch. I fed Annamaet/Grandma Maes way before I started working at Concord and stopped feeding both of them way before I started, so I am not saying that as someone who works for the company. But full disclosure, I know Concord has like a 2% stock or something like that in Grandma Maes so the company (not me lol) makes a profit off of selling the food. The flip side of that is its a big seller, we have a lot of customers feeding it to their dogs and their dogs are doing great on it. There's a brand that's owned by Concord in its entirety that isn't a big seller at my store, only because my coworkers and I just don't recommend it. The company offers spiffs for selling that brand too, so we're personally losing extra dollars. Despite what customers may think, we try to only recommend brands we have tried ourselves and had good luck with instead of recommending brands that will get us money.


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

Double post


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## Maggie'sVoice (Apr 4, 2018)

aesthetic said:


> I've worked at the Glasgow store since April 2018, chances are you've run into me! In October, I quit and went seasonal since it was getting hard to balance everything I was doing while in college. Prior to that, I was working 28-32 hours/week during class and 40+ hours a week on breaks. I'm back now indefinitely because all of my classes were put online.
> 
> As far as dry food, we're usually the same price if not a little bit cheaper than Chewy (except when they put things on massive sale). I know Chewy put Instinct on sale last week, no way our prices beat that. We also have more of the Instinct frozen than Chewy has listed online, and almost always run sales on it too. Other stuff is cheaper on Chewy though.
> 
> ...


I know the food you're talking about. Your thinking of Elm and it's not owned by Concord, it's a private lable food made for them by triumph. The same company that makes the Hi-Tor diets if you still carry them.

Too funny, I probably have been in there when you've been there. There's another on here that I recently found that I drive by there house when I go to Bombay Hook national wildlife rescue just eat if Smyrna.


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## Caecey (Aug 21, 2011)

Have you heard about the problem of DCM in goldens and other dogs? It is diet-implicated and has been a topic of concern for a couple of years now. By the grace of God, I found out about it on this forum. My Caecey was found to have low taurine and her heart was showing signs of low contractility as shown in an echo. I hate to think that I might have lost my girl if this hadn’t been discovered in time. There is info on this forum. I encourage you to read about this issue for the health of your goldens!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Jon in Bk (Feb 19, 2020)

I've recently switched to Farmina Ancestral Grain Lamb for medium and large dogs. Rigby seems to be doing great on it. Best stools he's had in 7 months. The protein and fat content is quite high, but we're able to go on hike every day so I'm okay with his "paleo" diet haha. He's 8 months now. I'll revisit his food if he's less active or when he's full grown - I wouldn't expect him to remain on it for his whole life, unless we're both more active over the next decade than I expect. 

I've seen some people on here concerned about the fructooligosaccharide in farmina calling it an "artificial sweetener." Feel free to worry about whatever you want, but it's not artificial. It's a short chain sugar found in fruits and is considered a healthy sweetener.


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