This will be my third day of feeding honest kitchen. The correct way to do this is to gradually introduce them to the new food as you phase out your old food. I was very pleased with the Royal Canin German Shepherd formula, the dogs liked it and they looked great. But after reading some unfavorable reports about some of the ingredients added to the fact the place I purchased it from was out of stock. I switched to another premium brand. It was evident almost immediately they did not do as well on this new food. So I bit the bullet and purchased the Honest Kitchen. I purchased multiples of all the varieties except for the Preference which is the base mixture to which you add your own protein. So I started out by giving the puppies, and all the dogs in the house “Love” the packaging says it is for: Dogs of all life stages (puppies, pregnancy, nursing, active adult) of all breeds and sizes. Making this a good one for the house dogs with Ana being pregnant and being extremely picky about her food lately, while Maika looks pregnant because she is eating everything Ana doesn’t eat. Funny needs extra good food as she is healing from her surgery and Gavin is still a growing boy. When I mixed this I could really smell the coconut. I put down for the puppies and they dove into it. Today is their third day and I put in the Honest Kitchen and a bowl of the kibble they had been eating. They sniffed it and turned their noses up at it. Not interested at all. Ana loves this food and I am happy to see her eating with some relish. Gavin, Funny, and Maika also liked it but were a little slower to take to it.
I started the kennel dogs on Keen which is an adult maintenance food and their lowest cost food. Monica’s friend Collin helped me mix up the food and he liked how it smelled, it did smell like you were in someone’s kitchen as they were making dinner.
Before I go on I need to tell you I do not have picky eaters. They eat anything I give them. The only one that has not been eating well is Allie and that started right at the 3-week mark after being bred, this tells me she is very likely pregnant as this is one of the non-scientific indicators of pregnancy. Also because of the cold weather I have bringing all the dogs inside for the night. I feed them at night so this gave me a good opportunity to observe them eat. Because this was a maintenance food I added additional meat to the food. This time the results were more mixed. Allie pulled the meat out and refused to eat the HK, Heike looked at like I was trying to poison her, several others also just pulled the meat out. I was not very smart about this as I just put in big pieces of meat. A couple ate the Honest Kitchen and licked the bowl clean. Day 2 for the dogs being fed “Keen” I put beef liver and its juices into a pail and added the warm water that would be used to hydrate the HK. Made with the liver flavored water everyone ate all the Honest Kitchen some immediately and the others ate it during the night. But all dishes were completely eaten. I fed the kennel dogs early today (3rd day) the dogs that were being picky are eating up straight up but not with gusto.
I expected stools to be loose since I switched cold turkey, but they were perfect. The 10 pound box is supposed to be equivalent to 40 pound of dry. I fed 8 dogs 2 meals and the box was empty and that was in addition to supplementing with meat. That is more like an equivalent to a 20 pound bag of kibble.
I’ve not tried the Honest Kitchen, but I have used Sojos—both the complete and the type you add your own protein. I couldn’t make up my mind and went back to Fromms. All were doing great on Fromms, and now both Kayla & Garbo are itchy and coats don’t look as great as they did. Guru Karen also liked Sojos. http://www.sojos.com/
Are they itchy on the Sojo’s or after you went back to Fromms?
Batman loves the Love. He doesn’t do as well on Embark, but he licks the bowl clean with Love.
Being the weirdo I am, I tasted it. It wasn’t bad! Rather bland, but not bad.
If you cut the raw meat into chunks and coat them in the HK, you might have more luck. I also let it rehydrate longer than what the package says. I usually let it sit for 15-20 minutes. Once, I had some extra turkey broth left from a soup I made, so I poured some of it in to rehydrate the mix, and Batty went nuts over it.
The consistency takes some getting used to, but Batman doesn’t seem to mind it. He is not picky. I also like being able to mix-in all of his supplement powders and oils so easily. I don’t add his vitamix because HK already meets the AAFCO nutrient profile, so no extra vitamins needed.
I think a 10lb box is equivalent to 40 cups (not lbs), which is indeed 20lbs of food. One box should last Batman about 3 weeks. I found the best prices on doggiefood.com.
oops, I was wrong (imagine that)! The 10lb box of HK should make 40lbs of food, according to the website. But, HK is heavier than kibble, so I would guess that 40lbs of HK isn’t going to equal 40lbs of kibble in volume. In other words, you will get more scoops out of a 40lb bag of kibble.
it is bound to happen once in your life.
My dogs love Keen, alone or on top of kibble, but especially with their salmon oil in it.
This was very interesting to me of the different reactions of the different dogs! Some dogs who have always eaten kibble do have a little hard time switching to an oatmeal type feeding. Usually a little addition of a ground meat or a Tablespoon or two of canned salmon, like JK said, will do the trick until they get use to it. It’s funny that JK tasted it because that is what the HK staff does with every batch! I love this brand and feed it when we travel!
The Preference that you mentioned is a really great way for a person to incorporate raw into their dogs diet, as there isn’t anything to prepare before hand such as Meat Mix. You just re-hydrate the Preference and stir in some ground meat! Please let us know how the rest of the week goes with the feedings!
I’ve been feeding HK for quite a while now. I used to feed 100% raw, but my GSD got some kind of digestive sickness and I was told it was more than likely due to a batch of raw ground turkey I had been feeding. This was from a BARF diet expert, so I took it for the truth.
I started using HK instead of the ground turkey in his raw diet, still adding in chicken thighs, yogurt, sardines, neckbones, etc. etc. and he’s doing great. He still bounces around like crazy (and he’s almost 9) at meal time and can’t wait until the bowl is down.
You can get it shipped for free and a good price on it from wag dot com if you buy the 10 pound boxes!