We have two great danes who consume just a little food?!... When, I lived in the Netherlands I used to purchase frozen trip for my then troop of Danes. As we are moving to France shortly can anyone advise on bulk dog food please, need dried and either tinned or frozen. (In the UK we use 15 kilo sacks of working dog dried food, plus bulk tins of good quality locally produced dog food - the latter at a price but dogs in excellent health and condition so want to keep it this way. I would appreciate any guidance as to what is on offer above and beyond the likes of Pedigree Chum etc.
zooplus get my vote too - a couple of months ago my allocations were suspended and a local charity organised ordering me food for my lot (dog and cats) from them to help us out
Hi Liz, we have a big Swiss sheperd and he eats Royal Canine. We buy it from Truffaut the garden center because for every 9 bags bought, you get 1 free.. as for tripe, you can buy it in super markets here.
Thanks Theo , sound advice, we normally produce enough meat ourselves but will take us some time to get ourselves organised with new stock in France. In Holland, I used to be able to get frozen packet tripe which was excellent, but this is now obsolete. We did run a poultry processing unit on our farm at one stage and thought about using waste meat for dog food but the regulations here were so tough, more so than human food regs,. that we donated it to the local meet for their hounds instead. I am sure we will find a butcher and are bring about 200kgs of biscuit over initially as we pay about €8 for 20 kg worknig dog organic mix here. Mixed with meat, which we always do this will last them initially until we have time to narrow down a reasonably priced supplier. Here is is illegal for butchers to supply us with offcuts etc. yet they are allowed to give them to their own dogs. Daft isn't it. ? We have had danes in different countries for over 30 years and these two are rescues as we stopped breeding years ago, having more fun in re-homing them. They are not too fussy and are in excellent condition, having survived various surgeries on arrival with us, due to neglect by their previous owners and subsequent accidents - torsion on our lass - at the vet within 10 minutes of us realising, and a strain injury on the male, but he recovered wonderfully. Just got their dog passports and raring to go. again many thanks for the tip.
Liz if you are willing to cook a bit, you may consider to approach your local butcher. He will be happy to give you certain cuttings. This way I'm getting after cooking and sorting out fat and mutton meat (dogs would then smell) good quality food, cartilage and bone marrow (I don't give them the bones) Out off 25 kg, ca 5 are left after cooking and is good nutritional value. but 5 kg for 2 Rottweiler is barely enough for half the the week. Sure, I could get much more meat but then it becomes simply too much work with all this cooking... The cooking is kind of work for the kitchen in the garden, inside the house never...
The rest is simple and probably very much as John is writing: get a manufacturer close to you. I get Natyka because the manufacturer its on my way when I travel regularly to Switzerland. His food is good and can be stored for quite a while, its GMO free, made and licensed in France and strangely the dogs did not got fed up with it which was the case with most other.
If you have a look in the Dogs Group here, you will find there also someone in Langedoc Roussilion she is also doing secure food. You must search a bit
I used to have all my food from the UK purchased in bulk, 60 15kg bags we have 3 Old English Sheep Dogs used to be 4 but lost one early this year to cancer at a saving of over £1000 per year for the same quality food purchased here storage became a problem so had to look elsewhere and right under my nose a local factory making dog food http://www.codico-plus.com/ a company which it seems started by one of our local vets.If you have secure storage perhaps approaching your preferred food manufacturer in the UK would be a possibility most will give a trade price for bulk orders my food worked out at 12€ a 15kg bag including transport
Many thanks teresa, will check it out now! Love the idea of a dog toy, except my girl always eats them and steals them off her big brother who loves playing with them ha ha.
zoo plus deliver my dog & cat food for free here in provence, plus i often get a free dog toy which he loves