With all the different types of feeding available, I wonder how much people on here spend on their dogs weekly food bill. Comparing size of dog to food fed, as in cheap complete to BARF. If you have a similar breed, does it require more quantity of the cheaper food when compared to the high meat more expensive complete? And would 'real' meat and bones work out to be better value (money wise) with the quantity needed to be fed each day?

To feed 6 dogs (3 Golden Retrievers, 2 Dobermanns and 1 Sussex Spaniel) it costs me approximately £60 a month to feed a BARF/RMB diet. I found it MUCH more expensive when I fed Naturediet. Bones are free from my local butcher, eggs from my own ducks and chickens, only feed vegetables/fruit occasionally, natural yoghurt, supplement with FBO/vit E/EPO/Keeper's mix and feed tripe/meat minces from Landywoods.

Alfie (Irish Setter) is on Burns and it costs about 80p per day to feed him.  Fagan (Irish Setter) is on raw and it costs about £1.50 per day to feed him, he does eat a lot more than he should in order to keep the weight on him, so probably should only cost half that for a dog his size, probably works out the same cost wise, although if Alf was still fed on Autarky it would only be costing 20p per day to feed him !!!

I have 4 boxers and spend about £50 a month on BETA and frozen tripe.  Thats only because I get my food from batleys which are alot cheaper.
A 15 kg bag cost me £15

I feed 2 Alaskan Malamutes on Barf,they have 2 meals a day.I would say it costs me less than £1.00 a day for 2 dogs.I have 2 local butchers that supply me and charge 50p a kilo for mince then  I add veggies and fruit that I blitz in my food processor and then add raw egg or natural probotic yogurt.I give my other 2 mals Royal Canin and some mince and this easily costs twice as much.Bones are free.

I feed raw and have a Golden Retriever and a terrier cross.

I usually spend about £14-18 a month on food for the dogs but every few months my reserves have built up a bit so don't place an order that month. I share a Landywoods delivery with another person in my area and buy liver and tinned pilchards from the supermarket.

When I was feeding kibble I was paying about £35 a month to feed one dog on Arden Grange (the GR).

My Mastiff has Tripe, Beta complete & mixer biscuit. It costs me approx £55 per month to feed him.

My lab cross has tripe & mixer, he costs approx £15 per month to feed.

Hi
     I spend around £90.00 a month on beta dried food for my 8 my SBT's including liver, treats and roast dinner.

Carrie

For goodness sake you can feed your dog on delecious home cooked dinners,but you will have to take the time to prepare and cook it,but it will be a lot cheaper

what do you mean by saying "for goodness sake"? Has someone said something wrong?

For goodness sake you can feed your dog on delecious home cooked dinners,but you will have to take the time to prepare and cook it

Or you could cut out the cooking and feed your dog raw - no preparation time at all :) Kibble takes no preparation either :)

I have 8 dogs, two Irish Setters and 6 American Cockers. They cost me £65.00 a month in dog food. The Irish Setter puppy is on James Wellbeloved and the adults are all on Burgess Supadog Sensitive. I buy two x15kg Supadog and one 7.5kg of the JWB puppy a month.

Dawn R.

bridie redmond, was the following comment aimed at anyone in particular?

> For goodness sake you can feed your dog on delecious home cooked dinners,but you will have to take the time to prepare and cook it,but it will be a lot cheaper

What size/breed is your dog (s), what do you feed & how much does it cost to feed?

With limited freezer space and city butchers who charge people for bones it would cost me much more to BARF my dogs than to feed a good quality complete.

At the moment a bag of Arden Grange that my Friend can get me wholesale for £19 and would be under £22 on the breeder scheme lasts my 4 dogs 3 weeks.

They get the odd treats, hoofs marrow bones and any suitable human food leftovers, fruit and veg on top.

I spend about £45 a month on food a bag of Arden Grange, tripe, pigs ears, veg left overs and bones. :)

i spend £65 a months on just complete (burns at the moment but am changing to arden grange) then i add extras like tripe, liver and chicken wings

I was feeding Burns mixed with a little natures diet and for 2 dogs it was costing approx £50 - £60 a month for 2 dogs. However, I have started making my own version of Burns and the cost has almost halved! Plus I know exactly what they are eating. They also get bones regularly to keep their teeth clean (I get these for free) and the occasional raw hide chew. The treats they get are jerky, small peices of meat or raw carrots which they love!

Polo costs about £45 every 2 months for Arden Grange, plus chicken legs and occasional treats. He's a large Standard Poodle , weighs about 27 kilos.

50p a kilo for mince!! thats cheap! I havent been lucky enough to find that the cheapest I have found is 1.28! Mind you the online companies are much cheaper...but I need a deep freeze! I have been feeding Raw to my Dogue de bordeaux for 2 days now....I dont know quite yet what its going to cost...

It's common sense really !

You can buy meat which has been reduced,and the same applies to veg.
Cook meat and veg,add a bit of garlic and the result is good,nurshing,and tasty. My dogs love it.

I usually buy one 4kg mixer biscuits per week. I add some biscuits to the mixture.

I feed 4 large breed and 3 small on Pro Plan - they love it, wean puppies on it too.

My Mastiff costs me £55 per month (approx), he eats approx 1.5kg per day that equates to £1.22 per kilo (including biscuits).
I can't see how reduced-to-clear meat & veg would be cheaper to feed, especially taking into account the cost of electric to cook it & the time involved.

If  you shop around and go to the independent butchers and ask if they could sell you pet mince they may do it cheaper.Possibly in larger towns and cities these type of 'old fashioned'butchers are dissappearing.I live in a rural area and many butchers sell there pet mince for this price.In fact an organic farm butcher i use even asked me to name my price!!!Good luck with the Raw.My pups are on week 3 of raw and just love it.

>Bridie-Cook meat and veg,add a bit of garlic and the result is good,nurshing,and tasty.

This sounds ok as a treat,but if that is all you're feeding your dog there will be many vital nutrients missing.
I know you said you also fed mixer,is it the type that "balances" out a meat diet,or the usual 100% wheat kind?

If  you feed BARF correctly then there is no need to supplement.I use a good quality organic pet mince.I then whizz up  a combination  of carrots,swede,parsnip,beetroot,cabbage,sprouts,broccoli,apple,orange,banana,plum,garlic,thyme,basil,parsley.Then I alternate between a raw egg or probotic yogurt.I also whizz up some linseed,sunflower and flax seeds.They also have large bones and chicken wings.Yum Yum.LOL.

Sometimes people with little or no experience think they are equipped to dish out advice.
Always remember not to confuse animals with humans !!!!

We have had dogs for over 25 years and have always fed them on either a premium complete (royal Canin)or RAW.Everyone has there own opinion and preferences as do Dogs!.We have always liased with our vet for advise and have many friends who feed BARF.I always use the philosophy of if you are not sure ask.

Now I feel like I dont spend enough!
I spend $12.95 every 5-6 weeks for Canidae dog kibble.  I spend $12.45 once every 6 months for Holistic Blends Seagreens to add 1/8 tsp every day to their kibble.

So to do some rough conversions:
http://coinmill.com/CAD_GBP.html#CAD=12.95

so $12.95 is roughly 6.42  pounds every 5 weeks or so for food, and about the same for the holistic blends seagreens every six months.

Ah but yours are very wee Little dogs :D

It has its benifits, to having small dogs, especially the low cost in food!  They only get 1/2 cup a day of food!!!!!!  Very easy to feed smaller dogs!

> It has its benifits, to having small dogs, especially the low cost in food!

And you can have several small dogs at the same time :) I haven't got room for more than 1 Mastiff :(

>Sometimes people with little or no experience think they are equipped to dish out advice.

Whats that supposed to mean?

>Always remember not to confuse animals with humans !!!!

And this? FTR i totally agree than one should never confuse animals with humans!!!! :-)

If your question is supposed to be directed at someone then it would be helpful to use their name :)

Also Bridie if you would like to get into a debate,reasoning or the actual science behind canine nutrition i would be more than willing and able to accommodate you :)

Getting on to the topic,i wouldnt have a clue how much i spend on the dogs food per month...Too much is all i can say.I buy bibs and bobs during the week and here and there which makes it too difficult to calculate exactly how much i spend.
I can say though that i would dearly love a bullmastiff or two but i know i couldn't afford to feed them the way i would want to.I would have to feed supermarket stuff :(

Sorry to go on again Bridie,but now i'm really confused :-D On one post it seemed as iff you were recommending feeding nothing but mince,veg and garlic(and an un named mixer) and then on another post and thread you mentioned the chicken wings and barf style feeding etc.

I'm obviously having a very large Blonde moment :-p

just done a bit of working out (and on a monday morning too - eek!)

to feed BARF costs from £2.35 - £5.75 per day (4 Deerhounds, 1 Lurcher) depending on what they have.

they always have green tripe for breakfast which costs 75p a day

they occasionally have Skinners Rough and Ready which works out at around £1.20 a meal, so on a Skinners day it would cost around £1.95 to feed the 5 dogs.

they get topped up with either raw (pre-prepped for us ooomans) or cooked left-over veg, rice and pasta depending on what we eat
they get leftovers from cooked meats such as roast chicken (skin fat and meat)

so to average the monthly cost out, the maximum it would cost feeding the most expensive would be around £178 per month (which it never is), the cheapest option would be around £72.85 per month, but on average it's more like £87 per month

sounds a lot, I've never sat and worked it all out before.....hmmmm 

> sounds a lot, I've never sat and worked it all out before.....hmmmm

lol, it sounds like you wish you hadn't worked it out :) But, your average total of £87 is for 5 large dogs, so that's £17.40 each - very good value :)

well when you look at it that way :)

the thing is I never think about what it costs, I just buy them what they need when they need it, and if I'm low on funds we always manage to sort the dogs out before we sort ourselves out ;)

It costs me about £15 for complete that lasts 2 dogs about 6 weeks - one a boxer and one a collie x.

But then they also get chicken wings, bones, veg, fruit, cottage cheese, other raw meat now and again.......so I don't really know how much it costs to feed my two.  Not that much I guess but they are both in good condition, love their food and seem happy so I'm fine with that. 

I would pay pretty much whatever to ensure they stayed fit and well.

I don't remember mentioning mince,and by the way my dogs are fed chicken,beef,lamb,fish,and yes mince. Added to the meat are a selection of vegetables,plus mixer biscuits. The name of the biscuits are irrelevent.

Ktee,you seem to be in a bit of a confused state,because I never mentioned chicken wings or barf style feeding

Out of interest Bridie, why do you cook your dogs meat?

I dont like the thought of my dogs eating raw meat. I think it might fill them with worms,and i'd rather deworm every six months. I don't mind preparing and cooking their food. I always remove all the bones from the cooked meat,whether it be chicken,lamb or beef. I wouldn't dream of giving them bones in cooked food.The odd large bone from the butchers is ok.

I dont like the thought of my dogs eating raw meat. I think it might fill them with worms

I actually think the opposite with raw feeding, I believe it makes the dogs more resistant to worms etc......I don't know if there's any evidence either way to be honest...

Bones are free - Not from my local butcher.  I went in and bought some chicken wings - can't remember how much they were now - but knuckle bones were £1 each and with 7 dogs that's not a cheap treat!

Your dog isn't going to get worms from meat that has been passed by an abattoir as fit for human consumption.  wild caught or road kill there is that risk (which is why some people do not let the dogs have the innards and liver).  Regular worming will take care of that.

Hydatid tapeworm is not common in Britain, which is the most worrying one, and probably the reason people avoid Pork for dogs.

Bridie redmond: From an earlier post you said "Always remember not to confuse animals with humans !!!!"

With all due respect, cooking all your dogs food is "humanising" them, dogs would naturally eat raw meat. As far as worms are concerned, I agree with Brainless, any meat passed fit for human consumption has very little risk and as you worm regularly the problem would be further minimised. We are all entitled to our own opinions, so if you are happy feeding as you do, then fine.

Ours(seven Mastiffs)cost around £170.00 per month to feed,with quite a variety,tripe,beta,bones,chicken wings,etc,
but if you have a Morrisons near you they quite often sell lovely packs of bones for about 50p.lamb bones if I remember rightly,and they are really quite meaty,the little old ladies normally wrestle you for it for their stews,
Wendy

> the little old ladies normally wrestle you for it for their stews,

lol, I can just picture my OH's gran doing that :)

I'll have to pop along to Morrisons - are they frozen or in the fresh section?  My dogs are fed mostly raw and they are thriving.  However, I can see Bridie's point of view as well.  A lot of my friends wouldn't dream of feeding their dogs raw meat.  Even meat for human consumption has been suspect in the past.  When we had the BSE scare, some abattoirs were found guilty of including banned offal and brain. 

Also a lot of (maybe the majority) of dog owners still feel complete kibble.  Bridie's home cooked meat fish and veg meals sound far healthier.

Humans don't eat raw meat. I cook the food because my bassett,and labrador adore it. It's fresh,full of goodness,flavour and better than any tin of dog food.

>Humans don't eat raw meat.

As you said yourself:

>Always remember not to confuse animals with humans !!!!

Bridie the reason why i asked the name of the mixer was because i was wondering where the vitally important calcium, and other vitamins and minerals are coming from.
And also if someone read your post stating all you have to do is give meat,veg and a bit of garlic and that is all they gave their dogs,it could end in dire circumstances.

>Ktee,you seem to be in a bit of a confused

My apologies,for some reason i keep confusing you with cornishmal