I currently have my pup on beta as fed by the breeder but am thinking of changing it due to the volume that he poos.  From each 15kg bag of food which lasts 4 weeks I am picking up what feels like 14kg of poo.

I am looking for some suggestions about what dry food to feed him.  He gets his diet supplemented with raw a couple of times a week which he likes but at present I don't have the freezer space to do it full time and am concerned (maybe wrongly) about rapid growth when his diet should be encouraging slow growth.

I am not looking for posts that say 'the best food for your dog is the one that he looks/acts best on' as he has only been on beta so far and I don't want to have to try lots of different foods.

Does anyone who has a large breed or has experience of large breeds and is aware of protein and other component levels have advice about a food that is known to have a low output.

My staffy is fed salters and I am very happy with her on that but there is only a generic puppy one and it has very small pieces of kibble so I don't think it is suitable.  I would consider putting the pup on raw when he is fully grown but don't know enough about it at the moment to mess about with it.

personally i always liked wellbeloved till the current boy who didn't do well on it. i'd suggest pm'ing mastifflover for stuff about the protein requirement etc, she's very up on it.

on another but related note where do you get your food? The Dog Food Shop on dock street deliver- they don't have a huge range but will order in for you.

hth

usually I order food online and get it delivered.  I used to get the Salters from Letham in Angus but now get it direct from the company and the Beta comes from PAH.

I also thought that about beta when my girl was on it! :-( her stools were never "right" aswell. I noticed a huge difference when I changed her over to Arden Grange. She has been on AG for about 9/10 months now and im so happy with it,it suits her down to the ground :-) I was feeding kia 15kg sack per month but since switching to AG it now lasts around 7/8 weeks for 15kg bag.HTH :-)

Thanks Heather, I will have a look at AG and see what the ingredients are like.

What about the wet completes like Naturediet, Natures Harvest etc?  Excellent quality and very low output, IME.  Also, it's a bit more of a natural progression from wet completes to raw than from kibble, if you see what I mean?

Thanks for that thought shaynlola, I have had a look at the PAH website and they don't do a large breed variety.  Does this matter and if not is there any harm in feeding him the dried food my staffy gets?  I am so confused and hate picking up monster poos!

Naturediet comes in a puppy variety and a senior (gold) variety I think.  Other then that, all the other varieties are suitable for any age, size & breed of dog.  Many giant breed 'people' advise never feeding puppy foods anyway as they can encourage excessively rapid growth.

I think Natures Harvest comes in a senior variety as well but no specific puppy/adult/large/small breed types.  Again, I wuld have no qualms about feeding a young large breed on the 'regular' varieties.

I fed my Newfie on a combination of adult completes and Naturediet for the first 8 months or so of her life (before switching to raw) and she developed perfectly well.  She came to me from her breeder on large breed puppy food but after that, I didn't stick to foods specifically for large breeds.

It's up to you whether you wish to stick with 'large breed' foods but I personally think they're a bit of a gimmick.  I can't see any reason why not to feed him the same food as your Staffy if he's happy to eat it and it agrees with him

feed him the same as the staff. tripe can also be given and this tends to firm the poo up and they dont seem to go as often .

> feed him the same as the staff.

even though he is only 17 weeks old?  Missy didn't go onto adult food until she was about 8 months and the beta bag says they should stay on it until 2 years old.

has anyone tried orijen large breed puppy and found it good.  At nearly £50 for a 13.5kg bag it is expensive but hey they are worth it...

Oscar was on Gusto and did huge amounts of poo and had problems with his anal glands. I've since changed him to JWB and the results have been really good - much less poo, he looks better, and no trouble with his anal glands anymore. He's not a large breed though but thought you might be interested anyway. :-)

I agree with what Shaynlola says, that "large" breed varieties (and most others for that matter) are a marketing gimmick.

Thinking about it logically, from the way wild dogs etc feed, all ages are fed the same, with the exception of small pups getting milk and regurgitated food from its mother.

Esme came to me having been fed on Beta puppy and pedigree chum tins (huge poo's as well as eating the poo!). I carried on with the Beta for a short while and added Naturediet to that, then gradually changed the Beta to Orijen and fed a combination of ND, Orijen and raw (the complete blocks from Naturesmenu). She is now on raw, as are the rest of my dogs, with the odd ND meal. I'm sure the cereal content in most dry completes causes the massive amounts of poo.

Of all the drys available, Orijen is one of the few I would consider feeding if I went the dry route.

this is interesting. my new dane pup is on adult beta and does more than the horses - not good. I'm going to put her on JWB I think.

What is JWB??????

Doh!  Sussed it!  Wellbeloved!

I bought the first bag today at 45 quid - 45 quid!! its insane!

£45!!! What a rip off!  Mine is £18 for a 15Kg bag of Skinners.  My dogs reacted to JWB, had lots and big poos, and they are only wee dogs.

I know - I am only paying £19 quid for a bag of Beta, I nearly fainted when I saw the price of JWB, but when house training a 6 month dane pup you'll try anything lol

Will you keep the other dogs on the Beta.  Does it suit them okay?

Yeah, Willis is looking better than he has for years, its the only food he eats every last scrap of and the only one thats ever put any weight on him
First night for pup on JWB... I will report back!

I had the same problem with my GSD, huge poos & going up to 6 times a day! Now I feed Burgess Supadog Lamb & Rice in the evening & raw in the morning. His poos are now nice & firm & he only goes 3 times a day maximum. A large sacks costs around £20.50 (depending where you get it). PAH have just put their prices up by 19% (now £24.46), but I have had invaluable help on here finding another supplier, they charge £20.50!

> I am only paying £19 quid for a bag of Beta

OMG, where do  you get it at that price Carla.  I have been paying £30 a bag and like pedlees dog he eats the poo too! 

For small firm poos in large dogs try any of the Purina Pro Plan range.
If you have a Batleys C&C nearby you can purchase most of the aforementioned dry foods at almost half the RRP.

im using pro plan now and at the mo its half price at a pet shop near me :) £6 30 for 3kg bags ...betta and pro plane are made by same ppl too .

Its funny, my friend's 7 month old Lab puppy has been on Beta Puppy/Junior and she does huge big bulky poos - and eats them :-( Perhaps its a Beta thing?! Also another friend got a GSP puppy at the weekend and he is on Beta, and my friend says he's doing about 8 poos a day :-O

I have a Malamute and she is a very big girl - she is fed on AG lamb & rice, usually with a bit of leftover 'human food' mixed in (meat, veg, pasta etc) and her poos for a big girl are small and firm - then again she does have a cast iron stomach - she raided the bin once and got leftover curry (jalfrezi so quite a hot one!), and still had firm poo. I'm sure not many dogs would get away with that!!

I agree re the cereal in foods causing massive amounts of poo. I used to walk 2 Cockers who were fed on Chudleys which was almost all cereal (I think - this is going back a while ago now!) and I was always amazed at the size and weight of the poos.

Before I owned dogs I would never have thought of discussing poo in such detail :-P

> Before I owned dogs I would never have thought of discussing poo in such detail

:-) To add to the general poo discussion, my cocker is fed Beta and poos twice a day which seems reasonable to me as she is fed twice a day.  Her late companion was just the same on it.

I think it's horses for courses really - what suits one dog may not suit another. I know dogs that do fabulously well on RC but mine didn't at all. I think when you find something that works, you have to stick to it! 

> I think it's horses for courses really

Defo :-)

I think it's horses for courses really

And they produce serious amounts of poo :-)

Can't beat feeding raw. I feed twice a day but mine poop only once and this is nice and small. Not complicated and pups do well on it also. Take a look at this site www.krisannrio.com it shows how the breeder converted a puppy from commercial food to raw, also lots of info on feeding this way.

tell me about it...

Bron is much better on JWB, but not gaining weight like I would like her to *sigh*

others doing fantastically on Beta - Willis has put about 2 stone on, in all the right places

I have 2 giant breeds, 2 smaller hounds and a medium sized dog  all mine are fed on Vitalin Lamb and rice, it is hypo-allergenic ideal for dogs with stomach upsets or collitis it can be fed to puppies also. It averages about £25 a 15kg sack i buy from a web site called feedem and if you buy 2 sacks its delivered free for a total of £45.  I have used this food for about 14 years and my last IW lived to the grand old age of 11, so it can't be that bad for them lol, despite my vet constantly trying to get me to buy the giant dog food from the practice.
Oh and very firm poo's too from all the breeds I own.