[CoCo]

I've read post after post about dog foods and I am soooooooooo confused.   I was told to look at the first 5 ingredients.  I've listed the first 5 ingredients and protein etc.  Are either of these any good.........is one better than the other?  Are they both no good?  Coco is now 6 months old.  Other than the horrible farts, she is great

#1                                                     #2
chicken meal                                       chicken
brown rice                                           chicken meal
steamed oatmeal                                  whole grain brown rice
chicken fat                                           cracked barley
rice bran                                              beet root

crude protein        27%                         28%
crude fat              14%                         17%
crude fiber            2.5%                         3%
moisture               10%                         10%
Linoleic Acid            2%                  
calcium                 1.2%                        1.0%
phrosp                  1.1%                        1.0%
Omega 3               0.4%                        0.5%
Zinc                                                      0.4
Omega 6                                                3%

Thank you for ANY imput

 

[Florida4x4chick]

i really don't know much about foods i just have my girl on Nutro Naturals Lamb & Rice, it's supposed to be great for their skin and joints, all natural, and not the MOST expensive brand.  But from EVERYONE i have ever talked to with boxers including mine is the FART and their farts stink haha, i guess thats just what we put up with.

 

[sully]

Well #1 starts out right, chicken meal is one of the finest meat proteins available.  But you like to see a couple of meat proteins within the first 5 ingredients.  Chicken fat is not optimum because some studies have shown it increases bloat in larger breeds.   Rice bran is not an optimum grain either, it's considered a rice filler.  Brown rice is fine but when 2 of the first 5 ingredients are rice, that could indicate the meat content is misleading and much less than the ingreidents indicate.  Oatmeal is also a quality grain, but #1 has 3 grains in the top 5 ingredients....that's too grain heavy and too light on meat, in my opinion.

#2 lists chicken meal and chicken right up front, and although this is technically called "splitting" (ie listing 1 source like it's 2 sources to make the ingredient list look better), it is not followed by grains that are split (such as white rice, brown rice, rice bran, etc).  So although it's slightly deceptive, even some of the better quality foods do this on the ingredient list.   One concern is about the beet ingredient.  Theres a lot of controversy about beets.  Some say it's a sugary filler that can lead to kidney and liver problems.  Although I have to admit I've never seen it listed as "beet root," it's usually "beet pulp" so I'm not sure what the difference is.

All in all I'd have to go with #2 if I had to choose but I'd personally prefer a food that has 2 different meat proteins within the top 5 (ie chicken meal, turkey meal, salmon, etc) unless theres a known allergy.  I would at least do some research on the "beet root" ingredient before you make the decision.

 

[HannaBanana]

Id go with #2 myself Too much carbs for me in #1 and fat.

 

[CoCo]

Thank you for the info Sully, I really appreciate it..........I guess I'll have to do more investigating.