Feeding my springer spaniel

bozzy120

You should feed based on the dog's weight, you can check on the bag how much to feed per day. This should be fed once or split into two feeds per day.

As already mentioned, working dogs food is VAT free so works out much cheaper. I'd recommend Dr John, the gold one is less than £10 for a 15kg bag. Other cheaper brands are Chudley, Burgess, Farmway and Wagg. You can buy online and despite a delivery charge, this would still work out much cheaper.

foreign_correspondent

That is good to know - you will have no difficulty in saving money as Bakers is very expensive for a mediocre food!

Although the ingredients are not dreadful, the meat content is very low compared to the price - they are charging top whack for an adequate, but certainly not top quality food.

I would also tend to avoid any dog fod that contains colours - the dog really is not interested in what it's dinner looks like, and they are uneccessary.

At £3.50 for 1.5 kg, Bakers is costing you £35 for 15kg.

You can buy many cheaper dog foods of equivalent, or better quality, eg...

.... a 17kg sack of Wagg working dog for £10.49 (ASDA sell it, and I think tesco does too),
http://www.waggfoods.co.uk/products.aspx?ProductID=4

15 kg of CSJ Champ for £9.75 (you may not have a supplier near you but it can be ordered online, and if you email them they will send a free sample to try)
http://www.csjk9.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=21&idcategory=6

15kg Dr Johns silver for £8.49, or £12.50 delivered
http://www.gilpa.co.uk/product.php?shopprodid=8

If you have a farm supplies shop near you it may be worth looking to see what ranges they carry...

It does seem that your dog is eating a lot - at least twice what he should be... I would weight the food out and feed twice a day - is he overweight? Has he been wormed recently? Please remember that overweight dogs are more prone to heart and jpint problems and diabetes, all of which are unpleasant for the dog and costly to manage.

a 17kg sack of Wagg working dog should last him 2-3 months, I think - so his annual food bill (for 6 sacks) would be under £65 - at the moment he is costing you more like £365 a year!!

ETA - if cash is short, it may be prudent to use some of the £300 a year you could save on his food to insure him, if he is not insured already - big vets bills can be a real problem if you have no insurance or spare funds!

cyberbob

Hightower13 wrote: »

Hllo,

Thanks for all you commnts!

I am currently feeding him Bakers Complete 'Tasty Chicken and Country Vegetables' or the Chicken Meaty Chunks. I buy the 1.5kg boxes and they usually cost about £3.50 a box. I mostly shop in Tescos. I usually go through at last 2 boxes a week, and thats without fresh meat I give him.

Try shopping online places like Zooplus and Petplanet. Also pets at home frequently do deals. If you havent a store near you you can shop online with them also

nikki702

If you decide to feed him on Wagg sainsburys have it on offer at the moment

http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1259412987288

£6.98 for 15KG

I feed my springer Autarky dried food its about £17 for 15KG from jolleyes I give him one cup in the morning at 8am and one cup in the evening about 6pm he has a bit of butchers with his but only because hes too fussy for his own good and wont eat it otherwise :rolleyes:

I forgot to add its lasts him ages ... dont know excatly how long tho im rubbish at keeping track of time lol

Fire_Fox

Hightower13 wrote: »

Hllo,

Thanks for all you commnts!

I am currently feeding him Bakers Complete 'Tasty Chicken and Country Vegetables' or the Chicken Meaty Chunks. I buy the 1.5kg boxes and they usually cost about £3.50 a box. I mostly shop in Tescos. I usually go through at last 2 boxes a week, and thats without fresh meat I give him.

With regards to how much I feed him, I don't have feeding times or anything. I just fill his bowl in the morning and when its empty, I just refill it throughout the day - so I don't know if I'm over-feeding him ?? I looked on the box and it says the daily feeding guide is 190-380 grams a day.

Maybe I should start measuring out his food and see if it lasts longer ?? Or change to like Tesco brand dry dog food ??

Thanks for all your help!!

Feeding fresh meat will presumably be costing you quite a bit? As others have suggested, research BARF and getting the right balance of meat, bones, offal and vegetables. Ideally you will need a friendly butcher - some raw food enthusiasts get meaty carcasses free!! If not and you eat chicken as a family, you could buy a couple of whole birds, remove the breasts and legs and give the remainder to your dog. For vegetables frozen is almost always cheaper than fresh.

Do you have a Morrisons nearby? They sell frozen chicken livers, fresh heart and fresh sprats cheap. Otherwise Tesco Value fresh chicken wings (£1.70 per kilo) or Sainsburys Basics frozen chicken portions (£1.40 per kilo) - providing you don't cook them the dog can have them bones and all. After Christmas supermarkets are often selling off fresh or frozen turkeys at knockdown prices. Be careful with tinned fish as it often contains a lot of added salt or oil so don't feed too often.

This site does a £10 raw sample pack, the cost of which is refundable against your next order: http://www.food4-dogs.co.uk/
The sample pack is over 3kg so very generous! Will last ages fed alongside one of the cheaper dry foods others have recommended.

cyberbob

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Feeding fresh meat will presumably be costing you quite a bit? As others have suggested, research BARF and getting the right balance of meat, bones, offal and vegetables. Ideally you will need a friendly butcher - some raw food enthusiasts get meaty carcasses free!! If not and you eat chicken as a family, you could buy a couple of whole birds, remove the breasts and legs and give the remainder to your dog. For vegetables frozen is almost always cheaper than fresh.

Do you have a Morrisons nearby? They sell frozen chicken livers, fresh heart and fresh sprats cheap. Otherwise Tesco Value fresh chicken wings (£1.70 per kilo) or Sainsburys Basics frozen chicken portions (£1.40 per kilo) - providing you don't cook them the dog can have them bones and all. After Christmas supermarkets are often selling off fresh or frozen turkeys at knockdown prices. Be careful with tinned fish as it often contains a lot of added salt or oil so don't feed too often.

This site does a £10 raw sample pack, the cost of which is refundable against your next order: http://www.food4-dogs.co.uk/
The sample pack is over 3kg so very generous! Will last ages fed alongside one of the cheaper dry foods others have recommended.

Just remember if you go along the raw food way. You need time to prepare it all. Also unless you source from butchers etc directly the products may not come from most ethically kept livestock

elsien

And if your dog goes into half starved mode when you start weighing out the food instead of feeding when the bowl is empty (mine acts like her throat's been cut most of the time, so I know how persistent they can be!) you can always bulk out the food with veggies (not carbs) which will fill them up but not pile on the weight.
As an example my mutt weighs 22 kilos and a 15kg bag of james wellbeloved lasts about 6/7weeks which at about £40 a bag is less than you're currently paying out. And she doesn't get fresh meat etc on top - I work on the basis that a complete food means just that so I don't need to be adding to it. (There are cheaper good quality brands as mentioned in previous posts, but I stick with JWB as it suits mutt's colititis.)
I also feed less than the recommended amounts on the bag, but that's come about through trial and error and mutt being an idle so-and-so. Your springer is probably more energetic so may need a bit more. I tend to go on the size of mutts waistline and when it starts expanding she goes on half rations - you could try weighing yours every week so yoiu can maintain the best weight for him.

Fire_Fox

cyberbob wrote: »

Just remember if you go along the raw food way. You need time to prepare it all. Also unless you source from butchers etc directly the products may not come from most ethically kept livestock

Most raw you can feed as it comes - dogs and cats are perfectly capable of 'cutting up' their own food! If you were only feeding raw you'd need to worry about getting the nutritional balance right, but the OP is already feeding a complete dry food plus fresh meat.

Unfortunately ethics usually has to go out of the window where money is tight and, let's face it, most pet food is not made from happy cows or chickens. If you are getting freebies from the butcher that is arguably more ethical than it going to waste, there's also a lot less packaging for landfill! :T

Debt_Free_Chick

Small packs are always more expensive. Look at the price per kilo comparison on the supermarket shelf.

Suggest a sack of dry food, if you keep him on dry. It will only work out as 2 weeks of what you're currently paying and will probably last 5-6 weeks or even more.

Hightower13

Thanks for all the replies. Really appreciate it !!!

I am going to look into cheaper dry dog food - the wagg one looks a good price. And I am going to weigh my dog and keep an eye on his weight, as I think he's started to put on a bit of weight.

Maybe I should try giving him feeding times, which should help him get into a routine of knowing when he will be fed, rather than having his food there in his bowl all day?? Is it better to give him the recommended amount of food like half in the morning and half in the evening or more frequently throughout the day ??