Canned food: Overlooked Alternative or ...
 

I'm just wondering, while us raw-hesitant folks move from kibble to kibble, are we overlooking canned? Sure, it's more expensive, but at $75/bag of Evo, how much more expensive can you get? :D

Canned has a lot going for it... It's probably cooked at a lower temp (probably ;)), doesn't need the grains to hold it together, doesn't need the preservatives to keep it fresh (whether they be "harmless" preservatives or not), and let's face it- canned foods are a dream for doggies as far as taste goes.

And with the studies saying it's quality not texture that helps the teeth...



But what are the cons?

I've never fed only canned, so I don't know...:o (other than price, of course...)

It's just something to think about because with all the issues we're having with multiple allergies, there are canned foods with very limited ingredients...
:shrug:

Any opinions?

i would personally feed canned over kibble any day... more meat, less fillers, easier to digest, etc. BUT how many cans per day are required for a big dog, and how much would that add up to per month? and can donald trump subsidize us poor folk? :o :frustrated:

That's the thing- 5.5 Merrick cans for Boo- GASP! But now, 2 cans of Evo. :shrug: (not bad, methinks)

(merrick estimate according to Merrick's feeding guidelines)

2 cans of Evo per day for a dog Boo's size is not bad at all! how much is a can, with tax? assuming you go for the cheapest one - beef, i think?..

Beef = $2.29 + tax
Rabbit = $3.79 + tax
:shrug: So $5.20 a day for boeuf.

ok you're gonna need a job bartending one weekend per month to pay for the kid's food, show off that smile and rake the tips in :D

but seriously... if i wasn't careful to buy the cheapest meats and grind my own mixes, i'd pay that much per day in raw food for dakotah, if not more :shrug:

Yeah. I gave Boo too much of the Boof yesterday though.. Got some goopy poopies today.:eek:

:D he he... boof for boo :D

goopy poopies suck but as long as they're not [U]in the house[/U]... i'll deal with them... :rolleyes:

Oh yeah, not goopy enough to be in the house. Just goopy enough to be in various locations on the lawn (as opposed to one location). :pray: more rain, more rain!!! :D (as soon as it's sunny)...

I forget that more than a tsp all of a sudden isn't "gradually".:rolleyes:

Bouffe de Boof pour Boo...:D

Is that the "by-the-case" price Prin ? With some stores/ dealers you can also get a brand card which gives you a freebie after you buy a certain amount of that brand. I think it would be less expensive to make stew if you're going to pay $5 a day for canned food. My slow-cooker was my best friend when I cooked for the monsters.:rolleyes: I'm going to have to buy another can of lamb tripe to see what's in it beside tripe (memory...gone...fumes destroyed last remaining ganglion). It was $2.79 I think. It just seemed alot [I]denser[/I] than the frozen stuff I bought yesterday for $6.

No, that's a can-by-can price. Cases would be cheaper.

Honestly, cooking would be great, but I barely do it for myself.:o

That's why a slow cooker is so terrific. You can cook a whole whack of meals in one shot, one pot and the roasts/ veggie cook for so long they fall apart - no cutting up before or after. And you can buy really inexpensive cuts of meat. Rabbit might have to be bought boneless though as the bones are so small, you might miss one in the stew. Think about it. No doubt about it ~ it's [COLOR="SeaGreen"]$$$$[/COLOR] :thumbs up .

I'll be honest-now that there are canned foods of waaaaay better quality than good ol' Dr Ballard's :yuck: , it's got to be an ingrained prejudice that makes me shun canned. That and fear of the smell. :o

The birthday food I got for the hounds was pretty good-pretty much nothing but pheasant and potatoes, but it was 2.39 a can and the feeding recommendations worked out to something like 4-5 cans per dog per day. :eek: Not an option.

I have a slow cooker. Might have to consider making doggie stews...this week I can get chicken legs for .77 a pound.

But Skryker, with the 400+ cals/can in the Evo, the number drops to semi-affordable...;)

[QUOTE=Prin;319141] doesn't need the preservatives to keep it fresh (whether they be "harmless" preservatives or not),[/QUOTE]

I would think that canned food would have all kinds of preservatives? But im no guru.

How do they keep the room temperature,moist, aluminum can stored food "good"????

it's pasteurized (heated till all the bacteria die) and then sealed up. :shrug:
(I think that's how they do it...)

[QUOTE] with the 400+ cals/can in the Evo, the number drops to semi-affordable...[/QUOTE]

wow... so boo only needs 800 calories per day? lucky you! the big bean is getting around 2000 or so to keep him in shape... see i could never afford to feed canned. :o

We're gradually working on making raw cheaper for us by doing more and more of it ourselves, but when we first started out, we were buying the pre-packaged frozen patties and we were spending $6+ feeding Barkley :eek: He needed to put on weight as he is still a growing puppy, so it got pretty expensive really quickly. Technodoll's pictorial of her grinding adventures really inspired us and although we don't grind the meat ourselves, we are moving towards just buying whole birds and cutting off size-appropriate portions for his meals. The great news is that we took Barkley to the vet yesterday to follow up and he has gained 10 lbs in the last 3 weeks :D He looks fabulous now...still slender, but you can't see the ribs anymore.
One thought I have on the canned food is the fact that most of the vitamins, minerals and enzymes will be destroyed during the heating process, so you might have to add supplements to replace what is being lost. Unless you do that already, I'm not really sure.:confused:

I've found most brands I like of dry foods are completely unaffordable in wet. Like 4 or more bucks per can. I should have looked stateside and I didn't to see what I could find. After 2 bags of timberwolf and some cheaper bully sticks I left it, lol.

But I think partially it's a lack of choice on where to buy stuff. Here I have Ryan's/ global pet food, or pet valu, so it's all the same price per chain, and close in price or the same to the opposing chain.

You need almost a single store (and the one we have is more than I pay for my kibble even). So I rarely even look at a single can of any decent brand. That and Cider's being picky (ever since the first week off the wolf king she's been unhappy). I almost would like to go buy a few cans.. but not for near 10 bucks for 2.

When Cider's ribs were showing we did the unthinkable in summer. We got the nutro high energy food and after 2 cans in 2 weeks she looked normal again. And sadly she liked it. But I don't think I could see myself playing with icky gooppy wet food daily :(

[QUOTE=technodoll;319362]wow... so boo only needs 800 calories per day? lucky you! the big bean is getting around 2000 or so to keep him in shape... see i could never afford to feed canned. :o[/QUOTE]

No, it's closer to 1000, or 2 cups of Evo RM and even then he's starting to put on a bit of weight...

The Evo dry is 537cal/cup
The Evo RM dry is 487 cal/cup
The canned rabbit is 489cal/can
The canned beef is 479 cal/can
The canned venison is 568 cal/can..
You get the idea- they're pretty close to 500cal/can and close to the cal for a cup of RM, IMO... At at $2.29-$3.79/can, it's not as bad as it could be (and if I get it cheaper by the case, even better..)... Especially since my doggies have a pretty slow metabolism for their size.;)

Barkley, they tend to compensate for the temperature destroying some of the vitamin content by adding more prior to cooking.:shrug:

[QUOTE][QUOTE]The EvoRM dry is 537cal/cup[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

i was going on what the website said.... EVO RM 487 kcals/cup (regular EVO is 537 kcals/cup) - mind you that's a only small diff :rolleyes: what about 1 cup dry and 1 can per day? and how about miss jemma?

oops, I'll fix that...:o

Yeah, I thought about that, 1/2 a can and 1/2 a cup twice a day...

Not sure what I'm going to do with Jemma yet... Have to wait and see what happens when the cortisone wears off... In the meantime, NO grains at all for her.:shrug:

A 2 cups dry of Evo Rm a bag for one dog is going to last longer than 15 days

where as 2 cans evo(beef) x 15 days = $75 and you are mostly paying for water.

You would be better off with the slower cooker to help keep feeding simple than trying to feed canned , find someplace that sells regular ground beef cheap buy a bunch freeze into 2 cup batches in the morning throw a batch of beef in, some whole small potatoes , some frozen veggies, squash and let stew away cool throw in a calcium carbonate tablet for each(unless you feed bones calcium is required) and human multi vitamin tablet for each since cooking will destroy vitamins , fish oil if you want and split between the dogs