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I'm putting this out there just as food for thought.
I've always owned larger dogs, that had at least some of the more bloat-prone breeds in them. It has always bothered me that kibble swells to around triple its size in liquid.
A few years ago a Bil-jac demonstrator showed me how Bil-jac turns to powder rather swelling in liquid. I did feed it for a time, but didn't like the chicken byproduct meal, or the corn in it.
I started thinking a few days ago how Bil-jac says their food is not processed by extrusion like other brands. After a lot of fooling around on the internet I found several brands of kibble that were not extruded but oven-baked. The one I was able to find in the smallest quantity, to test out my idea, was Flint River Ranch, which you can get variety sample packages of.
Well, UPS brought the samples today. I split one of the samples between my dogs for their dinner (they loved it) saving out 2 pieces, one to put in water and the other to use for comparison. After an hour the piece in liquid wasn't appreciably bigger than the other, and in less than two hours it had broken down into powder.
Maybe some of you are shaking your heads about now, but I am really happy about this. Flint River is only sold online, so I want to look around in stores for the other brands to try (Evolve, Lotus, 3 Dog Bakery, and 2 kibbles made by Avoderm. I've ruled out the Avoderm with beef oven-baked after reading the ingredients because it doesn't have enough meat.) If you have a large, deep-chested dog you might want to give one of them a try. Even for other dogs, the idea of food swelling up so much in the stomach seems really unappealing to me.
subject, completly agree, interesting about the baked vs extruded, thats good to know.
i feed kirkland (now 4-health which has pratically the same ingredients) and have been soaking it for Dozer as hes still learning on the solid food scale and was suprised when it didnt swell up neer as much as i thought it would...it swells a little but its barely noticable, doesnt seem to turn to powder though
definatly food for thought, especially with bloat prone breeds.
I went to Pet Supplies Plus and found the lamb Avoderm oven-baked and another brand I forgot to mention, Life4K9. So I think I'll be trying that for the dogs too. I'd rather be able to buy stuff locally rather than having it shipped if I can.
subject, completly agree, interesting about the baked vs extruded, thats good to know.
i feed kirkland (now 4-health which has pratically the same ingredients) and have been soaking it for Dozer as hes still learning on the solid food scale and was suprised when it didnt swell up neer as much as i thought it would...it swells a little but its barely noticable, doesnt seem to turn to powder though
definatly food for thought, especially with bloat prone breeds.
Foxy, is the Kirkland, Costco?
Tnx in advance!
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