Right as this Credit crunch is starting to pinch me a Little even though i gave up our family car in March this year we'r still feeling it living in cental London so in preperation for yet more fuel hikes i'v cut out us having a lot of branded prouducts we would normalie buy in favour of cheaper products to save money for the bills when they come in, 
so now im looking at my Dogs food bill ,
on 20th of this month i went pets at home spent £98.00, on the dogs food ,
then it was £10.00 in a cab to get it all home  , now i need to get more ,
we have 3 dogs

1 rottweiller 3,1/2 years
an EBT same age
and a new EBT 15 weeks old
all are being feed Hills science plan the Rotties on large breed ,
                                                      English is overweight ands on prescription diet hills SP
                                                      Puppys on HSP puppy
All get a mix of beef and trip , or frozen cooked mince, and pup has Naturediet mixed with his dry HSP to make it less boring for them ,
I'd like to know what i could buy in place of the Hills thats as good and can get delivered,

i have found a place that delivers the froozen beef and trip my dogs love and they do the pups Naturediet it works out alot cheaper than going and buying it and buying in bulk is cheaper,

so Any ideas on a good complete feed thats a bit cheaper that hills please? ,

I think Arden Grange is good and cheaper others may be burns and James Well beloved. Have you looked at mobile pet foods for deliveries they are reliable and competitive and have a good range of food both dried and frozen. I think delivery is in the order of £3.00

Hi ,
yes mobile pet foods thats where iv just found out i can get all our dogs and pups tripe an Naturediet
then i came across their dry food and wondered which would be almost as good as what im getting now on the high street, but bit cheaper, thanks i will check out the brands you sugested,
im so happy to have found the this site it will make my life so much easier and i'll save money ,

I switched to AG a few months back now, previously my two were fed Burns and JWellbeloved.
Had used JW for years, but wanted to see how they would both get on being on the same food, so far so good!
And it's much cheaper, I order mine direct from Berriewoods suppliers, but I have noticed delivery charges and the price of the food has started to increase when comparing month on month.
Definitely worth shopping around,
Chelzeagirl - have to say LOVE your avatar of your bubba EBT!!!!  Gorgeous - love the breed!

Have you thought about the BARF diet, i know you've mentioned about the complete diets and the cost of them.
I have a fussy dog and we went through many different brands of complete food, with AG being the best as their HQ is the up the road from me so i would collect it, so i did save on delivery charges.

The BARF diet is so easy, i collect all meat and bones from the butcher at £1.50 for a huge bag which lasts a good 2 weeks.
All the other bits i buy from the supermarket which adds onto the food bill at a small cost. All in all i would say for my dog i pay £10p/m on his food.
I get our food delivered from the supermarket which costs little and with Sainsburys they don't charge delivery costs with any order over £100.

Just an idea if your looking to save so cash.

The Barf diet is extremely economic and the best for your dogs. Anglian meat products deliver. They are very helpful, 0800 0183770, why not give them a ring and see what they say. They also have a web site.
http://www.anglianmeatproducts.co.uk/

Try Berriewoods. They have a variety of foods that they deliver and are cheaper on most products. They may even deliver frozen in your area. For dry complete I prefer AG. You can get it for around £27 from Berriewoods as you get the 'working' bag. It's £34 from AG direct. If I wanted to save money I'd cut out the ND. My girl loves her AG Premium and even my dog that never liked complete will eat that plain (he's fed raw)  If you do want something yummy to make the kibble interesting a little freeflow mince would do, or if you want to add something more balanced Natures Menu does frozen banquet nuggets. They're like ice cubes of frozen, complete raw. You could just pop one on a meal.

For the overweight dog you could try AG light though I've never used light food myself. I switched to raw to keep my dog thin. He wasn't eating much complete and still keeping the weight on. Switching him to just meat with some veg has done the trick. He gets a satisfying meal since it's wet food and taking out the carbos seems to have worked. I have two GRs (total dog weight of 73 Kg) and spend monthly about £50 for raw meat, roughly 10 for dog veg (they eat a lot of what we don't get around to) and my youngster is still on complete in the morning so that's another £9.

Another Arden Grange convert here. If you order 2 x 15kg lamb & rice from a the seller on ebay who doesn't charge for delivery, you will get it for less than £25 per bag.

M.

The BARF diet is extremely economical I agree with Liz, it does help if you have a brilliant butcher as we do,  where we get all our chicken wings, lamb breasts, oxtail etc.  The veg and fruit are not too expensive from supermarkets or you could try market stalls.  The only thing I find a little expensive with BARF are the flax seed and vit e oils and various vitamins but they do last quite a while.
 

Big Thanks for all your tips im checking out the Berriewoods site now and all the sites mentioned look good, better than the way im doing it now anyhow,
i like the sound of the BARF diet i went to the web site i found a link to i was always told as a kid with our dogs never give them chicken bones due to splintering,
but the chicken wings have been mentioned a lot i have read on other posts also of breeders giving them,
I now understand that cooking the wings makes them more likley to splinter so is it Really ok to give them whole chicken wings ?, i would be worried my dogs would swollow it whole is it really safe to give the chicken wings and necks ?
i know our dogs would be over the moon on this diet though,
im off to asdas now will be passing our local butchers to and will pop in and see what he can offer also,
thanks i have found all this very usefull and will hopefully ride out this credit crunch and look forward to having a wonderful christmas without having to cut back on to much,

My dogs are better able to eat (that is with crunching rather than swallowing whole LOL) chicken thighs rather than wings - I have BSD.  I don't give any load bearing bones so miss out the whole legs unless I cut out the drum stick end of the bone out.    You may of course find yours take the time to chew on them :)

Lamb necks are good too for your size of breeds and breast of lamb, more cartilege than anything, is pretty good too :)

My dogs don't have chicken wings but it's all down to the dog. My boy chews but my girl likes to play snake with her food - down in one. I tend to give them things like whole fish, oxtail and poultry necks for their meaty bones. More meat than bone and something they chew - they are a lorge breed though. They mostly eat mince from a variety of animals. Raw feeding is good but it is more than just chicken wings. I'm lucky enough to have a couple of advisors to help steer me the right way. The Britbarf forum is a good place to start if you want advice on feeding fresh food.

I went to the butcher and asked for the offcuts of meat and bones which they would throw away.
There is another owner on here who goes to the same butcher as us. It would cost a lot more if i got chicken wings/thighs etc. like other owners on here have mentioned.
In the bag we have lots of bones, lots of good meat and chicken necks.
He is doing very well on this and have noticed that he is behaving a lot better on this as well.
He is gaining weight as well, finally as he was not putting on weight and didn't do for a few months as he was growing which was pretty worrying for me.

I also buy the tins of sardines which are about 35p a tin from the supermarket and add this in every now and then. He loves cottage cheese and goats milk.
It has been trial and error with what he likes and doesn't like. If we are lucky sometimes we'll find animal lungs in the bag which he adores.
I get my bag chilled so i can re-bag it up at home into daily portions and then freeze it.

arden grange also do a breeder scheme which you can join if you have more than 3 dogs i belive, i get a 15kg sack for around £20-25 depending on which food i get, i also buy naturediet from berriewoods, and get flavours when they are on special of £10 a box of 18

I use Arden Grange and find it excellent and quite reasonable for a high quality food.  I have seen others recommend Autarky but it didn't suit one of my dogs.

Louise

I find zooplus is pretty competatively priced and does a reasonable range

Pet planet delivers free for orders over £27 (I think)

As long as the chicken is RAW then you shouldn't have a problem.  Our breeder used to feed the litter with chicken wings and to train them to crunch them rather than swallow she suggesed holding the wing with a gardening glove on while they chew or use a pair of pliers to hold the wing, this should teach them how to crunch them and not just swallow them whole.

I forgot to mention some other toppings for kibble that are cheaper than ND. Soup was good (minestrone was Milo's favorite), broth (veg or meat worked), a bit of cottage cheese, sprinkling of grated cheese, a couple of tinned sardines. If you're just looking to make the kibble a bit more interesting then there are loads of choices for cheap. :)

Hi Chelzeagirl

I also use Arden Grange, I get mine from Melian Pet Supplies which works out at less than £25 a bag and they deliver it free - and the dogs love it. I dont add anything to their food as they all wolf it down. Mine have the lamb & rice adult. The 15kg bags last me a good month or 2 and I have 3 dogs as well, a Malamute, Samoyed and a CKCS.