# Meat in pet food



## martyna (Apr 19, 2011)

Hello,
I am looking for a new pet food. Here in Poland most good pet foods have 20-30% of dehydrated(not fresh!) meat. I am afraid if its enough? Is that safe to give such pet food to dogs? These companies are premium or even super premium so I really dont know... Better practice BARF?
Or maybe if I give dry food 4 days and 3 days raw or cooked food will be ok?
I would love to hear your opinions.


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## shellbeme (Mar 1, 2011)

If I understand correctly, dehydrated meat in a kibble is a good thing-you get more meat then you would if it wasn't dehydrated. Most kibbles give you the specs based off of non dehydrated-which then looses a great deal of its mass and consistency in processing.

It is up to you how you want to go about feeding. I think raw can be great-but I'm not a huge believer in the BARF diet. There are some good books out there Dr. Becker's Real Food for Healthy Dogs and Cats is a good one, it breaks down all the supplements you would need and you can make the recipes raw or cooked.

Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet is an incredibly outstanding book that I absolutely love and it goes into detail about raw feeding. I feel like this one is an invaluable tool for any raw feeder.

The only thing negative I have heard is not mixing the two-so you could feed raw at one meal and kibble at the next but not mix together. I don't fully understand why not-the reason I have always seen given is that they digest at different rates.

There are also several premade raw varieties but I'm not sure what you have in Poland. Good luck on whatever you decide!


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## kilodzul (Oct 7, 2013)

Hi Martyna, I'm from Poland too! 
There are many kibbles available in Poland with more meat, just look for them not in pet shops, but online
Just from the top of my head, there's Acana and Orijen - those two brands I used and can recommend. There's Wolfsblut - I haven't used it yet, but heard many positive opinions (Karma Wolfsblut to naturalna i hypoalergiczna karma dla psa. Nasza sucha karma dla psów to przede wszystkim bezpiecze?stwo i najwy?szej jako?ci sk?adniki. ), Platinum Natural (http://platinum-natural.pl/karma-sucha/), Applaws - I can reccomend their wet dog food. Other brands I remember: Taste of the Wild, Real Nature, Fromm, Blue Buffalo. All of those brands have 50 or more % of meat. Many good brands can be bought here: Karma ZiwiPeak dla psa i kota zawsze w Modern Pet oraz jaka jest najzdrowsza i najlepsza karma zdaniem u?ytkowników. | ModernPet, including Ziwipeak, about which I've heard many good things and it has 90% of meat. Personally I can't afford it, as 1kg costs... 85 zł. 

I can't say anything about raw, beside that I've heard that after switching to raw you can't mix it with kibble, but I do recommend home cooking, if you have time for that. Switching days of home cooking and kibble doesn't seem like good idea to me, it sounds like something confusing for dog's stomach and possible digestive problems.


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## martyna (Apr 19, 2011)

Thank you so much for your help  

If I remember well non-dehydrated meat has 50% of the fluids inside. Anyway, I have found a pet food called Markus-Muhle which contains 28% of dehydrated chicken's meat and 13% of boar(also dehydrated) and 5% of fish(dehydrated), sounds pretty interesting. Whats more it contains oils, eggs' yolks, fruits. No preservatives, GMO, colorants etc. I think, I will give it a try! 

I have found Orijen and Acana, but the first contains about 70% of fish, which is about 35% dehydrated. Both are much much pricey than Markus-Muhle, so I am going to try cheaper option which to me, doesnt seem to be bad 

About the BARF, its not popular here, if I want give my fluffs some raw meat I have visit the butcher. I didnt see any ready "meals" with barf.


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