Cheapest dog food - up to date offers

paidinchickens

I have four dogs not very MSE I know

At the moment I get the £5 off £40 A1di vouchers when they are in the papers. I usually get two papers and stock up on the dog food.

The sacks are £6.99 and the tins are 89p We go through just over a sack a week and half a tin a day between all the dogs.

I know this is cheap but wondered if I could do better.

rising_from_the_ashes

Hi PIC - not seen you for ages :hello:

What brand is the dry / how big is the bag as that seems really cheap?

Do you know what's in it?

Re tins - Lidl do Butchers tripe mix ones for £5 for 2 x 6 packs and Mr T recently had the 12 packs for £4.30 - it's great quality for a budget wet food

[Deleted User]

I'm using Tesco value dry complete 2.5 kg for my retired greyhound. She loves it and at £1.47 seems like good value.
Not sure if it's worth spending more on premium brands?

materialgirl

Before i die of shock by saying '1 bag of food a week!' what weight are the bags & are you feeding them the correct amount?
when i had 4 dogs average weight around 15-18kgs we used to go through a 7kg bag a month on good quality food either Skinners, Arden Grange or something similar.

dont forget, you get out, what you put in. :cool:

krlyr

"Cheap" dog food can be very different to economical dog food! Whilst some may be cheaper by the kilo, you may need to feed significantly more due to the lower quality ingredients.

One good example is when I worked in a petshop, a customer came in feeding their dog on Bakers, which we sold at about £20 for 15kg or so. They were reporting some behavioural issues with their dog, and I suggested a change of diet due to the e-numbers etc. in the food, but they were concerned about the cost of alternatives.

Off we trotted to the dog food aisle, where I grabbed a small bag of Bakers and a small bag of James Wellbeloved. I popped them side by side to show the gentleman the feeding guidelines - for his large breed dog, the daily recommendation was about 6 cups of Bakers a day. The equivelant weight in James Wellbeloved turned out to be only 2 cups. So whilst the JWB was nearly twice the price, at about £37 or so, you fed 1/3 in volume - so it was actually the more economical of the two foods.

Cheap dog foods are made cheaper by bulking out with fillers. These are often poorly digested with little nutritional benefit for the dog - hence having to feed more of the food to provide the RDA of everything. Better quality ingredients result in more nutritional in a smaller volume of food, therefore the bags lasting longer.

And as the above poster says - what you put in, you literally get out, and with cheap foods full of fillers you may find you're spending a small fortune of poo bags for the extra waste!!

materialgirl

very well said krlyr. :T

rubytuesday

I am feeding my adopted dog Burns Chicken and Rice which isn't cheap but the sack seems to be lasting ages.

Before that when he was fostered he was supplied with Arden Grange.

However on Watchdog a while ago they did a feature on dog food and a cheap supermarket one (may be Asda) was just as good nutritionally as the expensive ones.

I've tried googling but can't find a reference to it so don't know what it was.

Can anyone help please? X

Rev

I feed raw. If you have a friendly butcher it can cost pennies. It costs me around £30 a month to feed two 25kg staffs. And that's buying pre made stuff. I don't have a friendly butcher.

As for dry. Buying bad quality is a total false economy. You feel a lot more than you would a quality food.

Skinners dry is a great budget food. Around £20 for 15kg.

Thing to do is check the feeding guides. See how many days a bag will last your dog and divide the price by that to see the true cost of the food.

Using a 15kg dog as an example. A bag of bakers cost 57p a day and has a recommended daily amount of 300g.

Skinners duck/salmon and rice is MILES better. Is a few £ more per bag. But has a feeding guide of 190g and cost 32p a day.

The cheapest bag on the shelf isn't always the cheapest dog food.

Rev

rubytuesday wrote: »

I am feeding my adopted dog Burns Chicken and Rice which isn't cheap but the sack seems to be lasting ages.

Before that when he was fostered he was supplied with Arden Grange.

However on Watchdog a while ago they did a feature on dog food and a cheap supermarket one (may be Asda) was just as good nutritionally as the expensive ones.

I've tried googling but can't find a reference to it so don't know what it was.

Can anyone help please? X

All dog food has to be nutritionally complete if it has complete on the label. Ie is has all the vitamins etc that are needed.

But a McDonald's and a steak both have protein. Doesn't mean they're the same and equally as good.

Any food you buy that says complete will be just that. As for them all being as good ad each other that couldn't be further from the truth. Bakers is like a McDonald's. Orijen is like a feast prepared by Heston Blumenthal. Both will have carbs, protein, veg etc.

I know very few have Orijen cash. Was just using it as an example. Arden grange is a great mid range food. Burns is pure, as in no crap in it but its also 60%+ rice. And very expensive for what it is.

zaksmum

I'm happy with CSJ complete.

Works out at £1 a kilo delivered and the dogs thrive on it.

It's good quality too so no compromise there.

rising_from_the_ashes

Skinners duck & rice is one of the best budget foods around and around £20 on subscribe & save on Ama*zon

Maisie was on it but I was really struggling to get weight off her - I also tried Vitalin Salmon & Potato but it does unfortunately have some corn in it but obviously some dogs are OK with that and Fishmongers is another great value one if you do need to feed grain free

A 15kg bag lasts her 100 days and I do try to get things when they're on offer - she is a Lab so a decent sized dog!

Her current food is working out at around 22p / day for dry (got a fab offer;) so bought 2 bags) and her wet averages out at around 25p / day so under 50p / day to feed good quality foods .... :T