# Mixing up dog food brands....



## bluemoonluck (Oct 28, 2008)

I have a question for the other dog people out here.....

What do you think about regularly buying different brands of dog food and blending them together to be fed at the same time?

I used to buy 2-4 different bags of dog food at a time, and mix them all up into the airtight containers that I store my dog food in. My reasoning was twofold:

1) Even thou all the foods by themselves are balanced, they have different ingredients so if you feed the same food continually, my dogs may be missing out on the health benefits of feeding a variety of different ingredients.

2) If there was a pet food recall on one of the brands, my dogs wouldn't be eating it as 100% of their diet....thus lessening the chances of whatever is wrong with the food killing/harming them.

I stopped blending foods a few years ago, mainly because I started using PetCo's buy 10 get one free program. I also found it difficult to explain the mixing thing to puppy buyers (they all want to know what I feed my adult dogs, and it was too complicated to explain). And now that PetCo is discontinuing that program, I started thinking about doing the mixing of foods again....

Thoughts? Does anyone else out here do this??


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

Check Tractor Supply, I know ours was offering a bulk discount on "any" animal feed and I asked an employee if dog food was included, they said it was. I believe it was a similar deal to what you were getting. I just don't have enough dogs(yet, LOL) to warrant such a large purchse.


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## bluemoonluck (Oct 28, 2008)

Wolffeathers,

I used to get food at PetCo 200-lbs at a time to get their 200# discount...PLUS those purchases counted towards the buy-10-get-1-free program 

First they did away with the 200# discount....now no more buy-10 program :awh:

Honestly at the moment I'm more concerned about the pet food recalls, and the worry that my dogs are getting gaps in their diets because they're eating one food all the time.

I feed 8 dogs - 6 Mini Bulls, 1 Papillon, 1 Rottweiler. We go thru a LOT of food, and I'm a dog food snob....I refuse to feed them crappy dog food :yuck:


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## olivehill (Aug 17, 2009)

The TSC thing is 10 or 15% anytime you buy a whole pallet. I just can't remember which percentage it is. Probably 10. 

I'm not a dog food snob though and I don't buy my food there so I'm not sure what types they have available.


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## Kwings (Dec 21, 2010)

I used to own ferrets and one of the things most people suggest you do if buy more then one food and mix it so that. 

1. they get all the nutrients. like your first post stated. 

2. so that if by some chance one of those brands of foods was no longer sold, ferrets being picky eaters and switching foods can make them sick, so that there was food avaliable that they were used to eating. 

Never thought to do the same for my dogs though. Its a good idea but seems like it would get pricey.

That was the main reason i had to rehome my ferrets, they were costing me about $60 a month to feed them where as my dog was only $10-ish a month. Loved them but money was tight and i couldn't keep them in the same condition they were used to so i found them better homes. Still miss my fuzz butts.


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## bluemoonluck (Oct 28, 2008)

My dogs are not picky eaters AT ALL. If its in their bowls, they'll eat it. And they don't have any issues transitioning between dog foods either - when I send them out with my handler he feeds them the food that he feeds his other dogs, which is totally different than the food I feed here. Nobody ever has any issues with the switch :shrug:

Kwings, I'm not sure how it would be more expensive to feed multiple foods at the same time. I always buy the big bags (30-40#) regardless, so I'm spending the same $ whether I buy 4 bags of one brand or 1 bag each of 4 brands, YKWIM? The only way it would cost me more is when I can get deals on buying large qtys of 1 brand (like PetCo's buy-10-get-1-free deal).


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## Haven (Aug 16, 2010)

I have always rotated or mixed foods with no probs. I feed raw and ToW - the ToW is always rotated between the different flavors. Once in a while I will buy a cheaper variety like Diamond and mix it in since the ToW gets very pricey when I go through multiple bags per week.

I find that the raw parts I get for 47 cents per lb are always the healthiest and cheapest food that is added to the "mix."

Puppy buyers go home w about 1lb of the ToW, but i'm sure many of them switch over to something else eventually.


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## Ravenlost (Jul 20, 2004)

We've always done this. Our dogs are fine as long as you don't put any Kibbles and Bits dog food in their bowl. They don't like Kibbles and Bits or the food hubby used to buy at the Farmers Co-op.


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## BarbadosSheep (Jun 27, 2011)

you know, I never thought about it but mixing the food up to decrease the exposure to toxins (in the event it happens) is actually a really good idea. Just make sure the food was not made at the same plant. I know Diamond makes 4-Health and Taste of the Wild and Kirklands....probably a lot more too.


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## Guest (Dec 9, 2011)

I mix foods because of my couponing. I like to get whatever has meat as the first ingredient, and I keep it as much under 50 cents a pound as possible, preferably 25 cents or less, just depends on the best deal I can get at the time. I end up getting multiple brands because I get whatever I can get cheapest, in whichever size bags give the best price, and however many numbers of bags I can get for that rock bottom price. 

I have a tub I mix them in. I might mix all different brands of 20#, 8# and 4-5# bags or whatever. So they always have a big variety, and the mix changes all the time.


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## Ravenlost (Jul 20, 2004)

ladycat said:


> I mix foods because of my couponing...


Same here. We supplement with old venison from the freezer.


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## akane (Jul 19, 2011)

My akita is very picky, gets bored with things easily, and unlike most dogs will actually starve herself to the point of health problems. She'll even start turning down meat if you give her the same type and texture every day. She's refusing satin balls right now and I'm debating another way to get coat supplement down her cause dry weather and pollen allergies have made her itchy. Ever since she was a puppy I've been rotating foods. I had to stick with the really dense kibbles at first because she got in this habit of holding out until she was starving, inhaling a ton of kibble, inhaling water, and then vomiting making her not want to eat kibble for several days again. She looked like a half starved greyhound at 6months when I gave in and put her on all canned for a few months. She rarely does that anymore and we've been using Diamond Natural, Taste of the Wild, Canidae and Kent native. We were rotating the Diamond Natural and then Taste of the wild flavors but she developped an allergy to lamb which is common in her line and that wiped out about half of the foods we were using. TOTW uses lamb broth even in their other formulas except one flavor of dry and canned. The other one got fat too easy on the remaining TOTW flavor. We added in the Canidae after that but the price for the types they'd eat was too much for using it exclusively. The akita holds weight the best on kent Native 3 but after 3 bags of it she just started going on kibble strikes and lost 10 of 80lbs so far. Didn't help we ran low on rabbit and beef bones. Canidae has some newer stuff out I'm thinking of trying for a bag and then hopefully back to the kent native. 

We also rotate raw food types partially for seasonal availability. Rabbit and poultry, rabbit and beef, some venison when in season, a side of elk for 6months plus scraps of other things, a side of buffalo the next 6months, entire small pigs that wouldn't make it to normal slaughter weight for one reason or another, a whole lot of fish when family members get in some good spear fishing, feeder rodents I raise myself....

*Note* special care should be taken with pork and fish due to a parasite risk. Freeze these items thoroughly for several weeks before using them raw and you may wish to do more research on which fish are the most risky.

I've always seen variety as the biggest contributor to health and doing that since they were puppies means I can feed them pretty much anything with a cold switch so long as I check for allergy and food intolerances. The only time they get digestive issues is if they get a hold of way too much beef without any bone and fiber, extra organs, or occasionally if they steal a bunch of the cheap cat food my mom uses for the strays at the stable. At least the cat food tends to come back up before we leave. I learned I have to remove some of the organs from larger rabbits I butcher and give them in 2 feedings instead of leaving them all in the front half of the carcass to be eaten at one time. Otherwise they start coming out the other end as liquid within 24hrs.


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## SilverFlame819 (Aug 24, 2010)

I have always rotated dog foods, but rarely mixed. I know lots of Blue Buffalo feeders who DO mix it, because the Blue is so rich that it makes their dogs sick, so they mix in a lower-quality food to offset it. 

I can't see why it would be bad. :shrug:

I really like your reason #2. That has never occurred to me. 

And I thought that Petco was allowing people to continued on the Buy 10 program if they didn't update their membership to the new "cooler" program?


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## HOTW (Jul 3, 2007)

Contact the dog food makers and see if they have a breeders program. A lot of times that was what the Petco program was. It never hurts to ask


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