Has anyone used Natural Instinct food?

Yes, I've been using them for a few years - minced foods, bones and treats. Very impressed by them. Would be cheaper to work out the diet myself and get it from source, but none of the butchers near me seemed very helpful about it. Natural Instinct have great variety, good quality and fast delivery. They are also very helpful if you give them a phone.

I know quite a few Miniature Schnauzer owners who use NI and are very happy with them. I personally prefer a DIY BARF plus it would also cost me a small fortune to feed 3 Giants on NI.
Haven't heard any negative comments about.

Yes, I use it all the time. Excellent quality.

Thanks for your comments, if you dog is on dry and tin at the moment how would you change? I thought of dropping one meal and replacing it what do you think.

I tend to feed NI only in the morning and NI mixed with a little Orijen/Acana in the evening. I've never had a problem mixing wet/dry/raw and have done so for years.

I started mine on raw after 24 hour fast and never had any problems. I think you're more likely to have tummy problems if you mix feed. I suppose it depends of your dog, they're all indivitual.

They recommend you switching one meal at a time as you suggest. So the first day would be a small raw breakfast and larger normal evening meal. The next day increase the size of the raw meal and so on until the switch is complete over a week.

In saying that, I just switched over a few days as the first few raw meals hadn't caused any ill effects.

I still use kibble for treats and in treat balls when I'm going out and I find Nature diet to be a great backup when I've run out of raw.

One thing I found was that initially my boy didn't take to raw chicken wings and bones immediately. He brought them back up quite a lot in the first few weeks. I've since read that you are best to just do the raw mince/bone mixes for the first few weeks as it takes a little while for your dog to produce the level of acid needed to digest larger chunks of bone.

I was going to use the beef tripe.

The beef tripe is one of their few mixes that doesn't contain bone. Because of this I wouldn't use it for regular meals - just occasional ones. Without bone content you might get loose stools. The working dogs beef would be better as it contains tripe and offal, but also chicken and bone.

I've used most of the mixes - none have given mine an upset tum. However, the chicken would probably be the easiest one to start with as it doesn't contain offal and isn't too high in fat so should be easily tolerated. I usually order mainly working chicken, but also some working beef and lamb and chicken.

You should give them a call though. I've phoned for advice a few times and they are very helpful so would probably guide you on which would be best to start with.

Thanks I do that Monday.

I changed my dog over to natural instinct over 2 years ago now and haven't looked back, he had really bad skin and anal gland problems and touch wood both have improved dramatically since we changed i cannot thank them enough for there support they have given me and they even sent me free samples at first to see what agreed with robbie, Michael and Suzannah are both really good for advice although the other members of staff are just as knowledgeable its just that i have dealt more with these 2 people. The food is of very good quality and if you buy the working dog in large amounts you also save 30% which is fantastic as the food has long dates anyway.

having been using it for about a year and use it for breakfast for my three BCs, its quick and easy.  Cant fault the product and the staff are fabulous.  I am lucky and have a distributor nearby so dont need to worry about the delivery cost.

If you have been using it for breakfast what do you feed at night. How much would you give an Australian Shepherd weighting about 30kg.

You can feed Natural Instinct for both meals, but to get the most benefit from raw feeding you should feed some raw bones - chicken wings, lamb ribs or necks etc. This will keep the dogs teeth clean. I feed bones for the evening meal several times a week, but often do NI for both meals. But as I said before I think you should use the minces for a few weeks before introducing the bones.

According to their guidelines, a 30 kilo dog should get between 600g and 900g total (mince +bones) per day. As a active breed, I'd expect Aussies to need nearer the 900g. My 30 kilo hpr would normaly get about 400g per meal. So 400g of NI for breakfast and either the same for dinner or the equivelant in lamb ribs or chicken wings.

If anyone orders direct from Natural Instinct would they like to give me their name so they can have £10 of their next order when I order mine.

evening meals alternate between raw meaty bones such as carcusses, lamb ribs etc and chunked meat such as tripe, beef etc. 

I feed on the basis if 2.5% of bodyweight and then alter according to need and dog.

Tried Natural Instinct one my dogs brought the food straight up again.

I've been using a natural balanced diet for 4 years now. I have Hamish a Cairn Terrier and Charlie who has just past away at a ripe old age of 18. Charlie was not a very healthy dog he was on all sorts of medication for fits, itchy skin and constantly at the vets. We got Hamish at 6 weeks and fed him on a natural diet since, we switched Charlie's diet and for 4 years he had never took a fit or had itchy skin. The constant diarrhea and being picky with his food totally disappeared, he would actually look forward to his dinner. The diet consists of RMB, Offal and vegetables, supplemented with Flax seed oil and cod liver oil.
a basic day is 40g of cooked mince(lamb, beef, chicken) 40g of carrot, 40g of brocoli, 1/4 tsp cod liver oil 1/4 tsp flax seed oil, 10 g wheatbran 5g wheatgerm for morning and 140g of raw minced chicken wings for evening meal. He gets a beef marrow bone once a week, we also feed him a lamb breast portion to chew on, this is good for his teeth. We swap the veg everyday for something different, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, pak choi, green beans, peas, parsnips, sweet potatoes. there are veg & fruits that you should not feed your dog, a whole list on internet. Sunday meal consists of morning meal and evening. the evening meal consists of 60g boiled rice, 40g mixed veg, whole Brazil nut grated(this is good for the brain, it's the only source of selenium that a dog gets) nuts are toxic to dogs, but at such a small amount given 1 day a week there is no problem. We often feed goats yogurt with fruit mashed inas a treat, this is good for the stomach to prevent upset tummys. basically the diet mimics how and what a dog would eat in the wild. some raw food and some processed food.
The gravy from cooking the meat gets used to the meal. This is good for the dog and also gives him fluid instead of water.
this diet was given to me by a breeder of Bracco Italiano and I owe the health of my dog to that man.

That is really interesting but I do not think I would have time to do that everyday.

I have sent you a message thanks

I just switched mine straight to raw on a Saturday morning never did any fasting at all, and never looked back- gave the kibble to my sister.
Never had any detox at all since I was feeding a high end kibble like Back to Basics, Epigen ect. Been feeding Raw since August. I heard not good to give kibble
& then give raw something to do with the digestion time it takes for raw to kibble.

Found it really doesn't take much time to do a feeding in the morning- weigh it out and give to the dogs, I'm feeding 3 dogs twice a day.
Mine is all ground with meat, bone, organ and sometimes has veggies or fruit added in. Depends what I buy.

I use different kinds- just tried the Nature's Variety Instinct Raw, Perfectly Raw, the Urban Carnivore & some others.

Don't think I am adding in any fish oil any more- just going to go to the store and buy some fish and give that to them 2-3 times
week.

I add in fruit & veggies myself that's only at supper meals and I never weigh that. Every saturday I add an egg and some green
tripe from a can ( I no partly cooked but all I can get) thankfully some of the raw food I buy has green tripe in it.

Is it ok to feed our RR pilchards in tomato sauce?

Yes that's fine just don't over do it on the oily fish though :-)

Many thanks

Does anyone feed their dogs liver cake?

I don't use it as a 'feed' but make my own for training treats, with lots of garlic!
If you scroll the page down you'll see a little [ Google site search ] box, if you put 'liver cake' in, it will direct you to LOTS of previous posts on this topic where we have all put our recipes.
:-)

sorry i meant as treats, I make this once a month and freeze large batches.

Many thanks for the tip.

I did read some where that garlic is toxic to dogs and then I hear from alot of owners that they feed garlic??

Garlic and onion contain thiosulphate, which with onion can cause gastroenteritis and a form of anaemia that causes red blood cells to literally burst in the vascular system ~ however, the level of this sulphate in garlic is nowhere near the same as in onion, so garlic moderately given ( such as in training treats) presents no problem in a healthy dog.
    It is used in commercial feeds and as you say many of us have fed it with no problem for years!
You're quite right to pull me up though my use of 'lots' was not meant to indicate I put 10 bulbs of the stuff in my recipe ;0) and 'concentrated' garlic should be avoided.
HTH?

I've copied and pasted the below from a google book I have on nutrition, puts 'dosage' into perspective:

By looking at the amount of blood cell damage the researchers can see the effects of feeding animals relatively low levels of onions or garlic. In the testing of onions and garlic on blood cell oxidation, onions have about 15 times the ability of garlic to damage red blood cells.

Testing Garlic in Pet Food

Although it is very rare to find cases of garlic toxicity in cats because they are finicky about what they eat, research looking at the damage to red blood cells in cats after feeding garlic showed cats are sensitive to garlic. For this reason, the use of garlic in cat foods was discontinued in the early 1990s.

It was not until the late 1990s that research was done on the effect of garlic on dogs. In 2000 a research paper was published which tested a garlic extract on dogs. The dogs did not show any observable toxicity symptoms, but there was a definite effect on the red blood cells. In the conclusions the researchers stated: "we believe that foods containing garlic should be avoided for use in dogs." This led to a flurry of warnings and panic that garlic should also be removed from dog foods. The problem with the researchers' statement (and many of the subsequent quotations of the study) is that they did not consider the relevance of the level of garlic extract used in the experiment, compared to the level included in dog foods.

In their research they fed a garlic extract equivalent to 60 g of garlic to dog weighing approximately 12 kg. A 12 kg dog will normally eat between 150 to 200 g of food. Therefore, if the food was about 30% garlic the researchers' concerns would be valid.

The Reality of Garlic in Dog Food

When garlic is added for flavor, the maximum usage level is around 3 g per kilogram of food. Our 12 kg dog eating 200 g of food would eat approximately 0.6 g per day. To achieve the health benefits of garlic, the usage level is around 1.5 g of garlic per kilogram of food. A 12 kg dog would eat about 0.3 g a day. It is very apparent that these levels are nowhere close to the levels used in their experiment, and at these levels research had not shown any effect of garlic on red blood cells. The confusion comes from not considering the dosage rate.

Question: What is the difference between a nutrient, a drug, and a toxin? Answer: Dosage.

That is an old saying among nutritionists, and it's true. To say something is toxic without some reference to the level needed to cause the toxic effect is misleading, especially in the fields of nutrition and health.

Lots of nutrients we, and our pets, consume are potentially toxic. An example is the trace mineral selenium. Selenium is usually added to pet foods at the level of 0.2 ppm (parts per million). Increase that level to 1 ppm you get additional health benefits. Increase it to 10 ppm and the level becomes toxic, possibly even deadly.

The list of potentially toxic items could go on and on. I could include nutrients like salt, vitamin D, or Zinc. You name it, and it could be toxic at some level.

Garlic is Healthy

Aww Thanks Husky! Very imformative!

Further to Natural Instincts special offer last month of Working Dog Chicken, I bought a chest freezer full, unfortunitly our Kito the Rhodesain Ridgeback (nearly 7 months)  has decided she doesn't like it now and will only eat chicken wings and given the chance our human food.

My question is, can anyone give me some ideas of foods to add to the WDC so she may eat it or I have bin the lot!

Can you add some mixed tripe to it? Maybe she'd eat it with that added?

I don't think you'll have to throw it away. You may be able to sell it on to someone else, or at worst give it away. Wish you lived closer to me, I'm going to switch my lot back over to raw soon :)

She picks out the tripe, tried this already. Added more fruit which she likes but she won't touch it mixed. I think I have a fussy pup. Gave her raw steak tonite and it was gone in seconds.

She's getting you very well trained :)

She's getting you very well trained :)

A bit like the wife then, the girls seem to know how to get round me.