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Natures Menu Frozen Food??

kaytee576

Well-known member
Hey guys, I am sorry to bother you again but I value your advise so wonder if you can help?

My Cavalier Kaytee has IBD and I am looking to change her food, whilst researching the net I came across Natures Menu, I am not sure if you guys have it over there? they do a frozen diet, I think it is raw meat, rice and veg frozen and ready to be defrosted and fed, Well on looking it up more a review mentioned it is good for IBD but I am not sure what to do as in the ingredients there is no mention of added vitamins, will this food alone be OK or will I have to add more vitamins? http://www.naturesmenu.co.uk/products/frozen/chicken/ Thats the page.

The other thing I looked into was James Well beloved but I was thinking would meat be kinder on her poor tum then having to digest dry? Also JWB often has Oats And Barley in it which I have been told to avoid with a dog with IBD. I know meat would mean more dedication to teeth cleaning which I do allready, Only prob is Kaytee has sore gums so I cannot brush so use Logic.

Well hope you can let me know what you think? I will go pick some for up tomorrow just hard as we dont seem to have many good foods here in the UK which is annoying not compared to the US who have many websites with food and treats made especially for dogs with IBD! Take care and thanks xx
 
Yes, this is a good stand alone prepared raw diet, however, personally I feel it has to much stuff in it the dogs don't really need, although it is better then others on the market. Where are you located? I've been feeding raw for some time now, and if your in the united states, I can make some recommendations for good prepared raw diets if you want to go that way. Raw period is really good for dogs with IBD, that's part of what led me to switching my dogs to raw! As far as adding extra vitamins, it's not needed for any prepared raw diet - Dogs can get all the vitamins they need from natural sources, and they actually absorb these vitamins better then vitamins commonly available to add into a diet for dogs that are from artificial sources. Same is true for people - It's much better to get the vitamins you need from the foods you eat VS taking a multi vitamin, however I know very few people that will spend the time to do that, myself included LOL I'll research out how to best balance my dog's diet so they get everything they need from their diet, and eat a big bowl of Easy Mac myself!
 
CavyMom, my vet recommended Nature's Variety raw food. Do you know anything about that brand? Dixie seems to like it well enough. I don't feed it to her everyday. I also feed her Royal Canin kibble. Judy and Dixie
 
Hey, thanks for your advice, I live in the UK so our choice of foods is very limited, I am a worrier so I thought about it and I can imagine getting quite stressed feeding raw, so what do you think of james wellbeloved? Or Wafcol foods? do you have them over there? sorry to be a pain xxx
 
Not a problem. I really like James Wellbeloved from the ingredient list and what I've heard, although I haven't used it myself, as I've never found it in where I'm at in the US. I'm not familiar with Wafcol foods, if you can give me a website, I'm more then happy to look at the ingredients and give you my opinion :)

As far as Nature's Variety Raw goes - Personally, not my favorite, but all in all a pretty good food. I prefer to go with Steve's Real Food for Dogs or Oma's Pride's mixes for a prepared food. I actually balance out my own raw diet for my dogs, but when we travel, I use Oma's Pride dehydrated foods, you just soak them in water, and they make a GREAT meal on the go! Especially if you travel by plane, they take up almost no room, and weigh almost nothing!
 
Honestly, I avoid senior foods with most dogs. I find little to no benefit to them, and often I find senior dogs have a hard time maintaining their weight on a senior diet, a good all life stage or adult food will generally be more then substantial for a senior dog that doesn't have specific issues that need to be addressed (such as kidney problems that would require some levels in their diet to be different, in which case most senior foods still aren't suitable!). Personally, looking at those foods, I like the James Wellbeloved better - For a dog with IBD, if you suspect it's secondary to an allergic reaction to something in the food, I wouldn't go with the lamb, as many dog foods have lamb in it, and it wouldn't give you a very good basis. On the other note, feeding a fish based food over time is not usually a good idea, as the excess oils can cause hot spots and other skin problems. Based on what is on the website for James Wellbeloved, I would alternate between the Fish and Rice and the Duck and Rice formulas. On the Wafcol, the Salmon and Potato sounds ok, but it's hard to give a really good opinion since I couldn't find an ingredient list on their site. After looking at their different foods, though, the James Wellbeloved would be my choice. Where you're not sure what's triggering it, you can try the lamb, as often I find it's the grains in the food VS the protein source that triggers IBD, so any of their foods could be suitable if you wanted to experiment - Keep in mind it takes ATLEAST 4 weeks on a feeding trial to really get a good idea of that food is going to work!!!
 
THANK YOU very much, it is hard as I was trying to avoid wheat, barley, oats and rye and everyother JWB flavour has at least one of these in, so lamb would be my only option, I am fed up with the choices of food we have in the UK :( I found this list of ingredients on the wafcol site (I think it repeats the same list loads sorry), thanks again xx http://www.wafcol.co.uk/content/dog/senior_uhf.html
 
Not very detailed, especially on the vitamin and minerals, but I'd personally like to see more meat and less potato. Definatly avoid wheat and rye, barley and oats aren't as big of a concern I've found, especially the oats - And as I said, you can try the lamb and give it a good try, as it is usually the grains in food that cause the problem.

Here's the other thought, can you get Innova in the UK? They make a food called EVO that has NO grain in it at all, and I often find is a good choice for IBD dogs.
 
I've noted a few times before that there are a huge range of foods available on order to the UK from www.zooplus.co.uk, a German company that has websites in most EU countries so there's no shortage of variety of food avaialble and it is delivered to the door so is very easily obtained :). Also, better petshops tend to have a very wide range of foods and as in the US, sometimes smaller distributors only have certain brands. The UK has quite a good range of foods available, but you may have to hunt for the distributors. There's no difference at all in quality and choice between European made and US made foods so really it is simply a matter of finding one that suits. Zooplus has many that are grain free and easy to order. There are at least 5 that are organic on their list ,too, if people prefer that.

Nature's Menu isn't exactly raw, it is quick cooked or seared according to their website. (oh wait, I guess the frozen is raw! (y))

Very few dogs have any problem at all with rice or barley or oats. That is why it is used in hypoallergenic foods. Most dogs do not need to avoid grains anyway. And the irony is that a lot of people go to great bother to avoid grains in their main food then feed their dog dog and human food items.... full of grains. Nearly all dog biscuits and human biscuits/cookies have wheat or corn flour in them and people routinely feed these to dogs.
 
Also people with dogs that have intolerances or food allergies should keep in mind that according to UC Davis Vet School, the most common causes of food problems are BEEF and CHICKEN and DAIRY PRODUCTS. Many of these diets people use to try to address allergies or tummy problems tend to contain, yes, raw beef, or chicken, or people get advice to add yoghurt 'to help their stomach'. All those things may actually be the *cause* of the problem in the first place. Elimination diets take weeks to test so it isn't adviseable to switch back and forth before giving a diet many, many weeks; and also make sure the dog gets NO TREATS that could have any allergans or upsetting ingredients.

I think a lot of ongoing problems are due to treats because people feed in treats the stuff that may not be in a special food.
 
I agree - 4 weeks is the BARE MINIMUM an elimination diet should be tried. I also agree if a dog is known allergic to something (beef, chicken, lamb, etc), raw or not, avoid it. That's why I mentioned lamb as a possible problem, it's a common ingredient in many foods, and in a dog that's having food allergy issues, lamb isn't usually a good protien source choice, but it doesn't hurt to try it!
 
I bought some of this today - the frozen nuggets - I bought the banquet nuggets. I just gave the boys one each chopped up in their Burns kibble for a taster and it seemed to go down well.

Whilst I was getting some dog food - the woman tried to sell me Nutro instead of Burns - having read the indegredients list I will not be buying it. the protien is 27%! The adult lamb and rice mini has salt ADDED - surely that can't be good? It seems to have a lot of egg products in it and Poultry fat! euughh!
 
Hi me again, sorry to be a total nightmare, I wanted to quickly tell you something strange I noticed with kaytee, About a week ago I had started to soak her dry wainwrights food, I was worrying as always about her not getting enough fluid, anyways we noticed a change in her, she doesnt seem to be sickly anymore and gulping like she is going to be sick like she always seemed to, I blamed the 10% barley in the food or something else in it but my fiance disagreed as she has been on it many months.
It just seems that now days she cannot cope with dry food, it seems to maybe stick in her throat so she wants to be sick so she can shift it, maybe I am wrong I dont know but I may stick with this, see how she goes having it soaked as there has been an improvement, If things go back to the way they were then I will definitely continue my food search, hope this is the right thing to do, WISH I had noticed this earlier :(
THANKS xx
 
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