Fromm, primal freeze dried...which food does your baby do well on?

[Wylie's Mom]

Originally Posted by pstinard

Okay. Their freeze dried formulas, their raw frozen formulas, and their raw pronto formulas are designed to provide complete nutrition according to AAFCO guidelines: https://primalpetfoods.com/pages/can...se-your-primal

I'm still trying to figure out how they expect people to know how to balance their other products like raw frozen mixes and raw frozen grinds to provide complete nutrition. Maybe I will send them an email to ask them, because it's not clear from their website.

Kudos to Primal for testing their raw foods for bacterial content and providing food that is safe from a bacterial standpoint.

Maybe even ask them if their nutritionist will email you directly - or maybe they will anyway. I used to have their name - but who knows if still the same person...? I'll see if I still have any info...

[Furmom]

Originally Posted by Wylie's Mom

Primal is one of my absolute faves, paws down! Fed it for years and years. And still would...bc I'm still feeding raw now. I just happened to discover SoJos, so now I'm just adding my own meat, and doing it that way for now.

Good to read your pups are raw fed. Raw is the best!!

[pstinard]

Originally Posted by Wylie's Mom

Maybe even ask them if their nutritionist will email you directly - or maybe they will anyway. I used to have their name - but who knows if still the same person...? I'll see if I still have any info...

I sent them a message. I'll let you know what they say. In the meantime, if you have any info, let me know!

[pstinard]

Originally Posted by Wylie's Mom

Maybe even ask them if their nutritionist will email you directly - or maybe they will anyway. I used to have their name - but who knows if still the same person...? I'll see if I still have any info...

I heard back from Primal about their mixes and grinds:

Hi Philip,

Thank you for contacting us. Our frozen Mixes and Grinds lines are intended for advanced raw feeders that wish to customize their pet's diet. You can look at our product lines as a three tiered offering.

Grinds: Meat, organ, bone (not a complete diet)
Mixes: Meat, organ, bone + organic produce (not a complete diet)
Complete Formula: Meat, organ, bone + organic produce + nutritional supplementation (complete diet)

The grinds and mixes are usually used to customize a pet's diet due to specific allergies or dietary needs. These are not complete diets as they both would require nutritional supplementation like a vitamin and mineral pack and omega-3 and -6 oils. Additionally, the grinds would also require food-based vitamins from produce. These products are geared more toward the advanced or experienced raw feeders.

We don't offer a specific recipe, for example, to make grinds or mixes complete diets since most users are feeding these to avoid certain ingredients that their specific pet does not do well with. There are many vitamin + mineral supplements and omega oils available commercially that may meet your needs. Additionally, there are many recipes on the internet that may help you customize your pet's diet to their needs while also ensuring that the vitamins and minerals are balanced with the rest of the ingredients.

Our Formulas are our flagship product and are complete and balanced diets. You simply thaw and serve. There is nothing else to add. Most users will go this route because of the simplicity. Plus the portioning is made easier with the options of 1-ounce nuggets, 8-ounce patties, or scoop and serve Pronto. I hope this helps.

I'm satisfied with the speed and honesty with which they replied. I can only recommend their complete nutritionally balanced foods. It's very dicey to suggest that there are "many recipes on the internet" that can help me customize their non-balanced mixes and grinds. They might want to rethink that advice. At least all of their foods are tested safe for dangerous bacteria and microorganisms. It would be nice if they could coordinate the proper nutritional balancing of their mixes and grinds with professional nutritionists.

[pstinard]

Originally Posted by pstinard

I heard back from Primal about their mixes and grinds.

I'm satisfied with the speed and honesty with which they replied. I can only recommend their complete nutritionally balanced foods. It's very dicey to suggest that there are "many recipes on the internet" that can help me customize their non-balanced mixes and grinds. They might want to rethink that advice. At least all of their foods are tested safe for dangerous bacteria and microorganisms. It would be nice if they could coordinate the proper nutritional balancing of their mixes and grinds with professional nutritionists.

I'm attaching a copy of the Recommendations for Selecting a Commercially Available Pet Food from the American Animal Hospital Association and the World Small Animal Veterinary Association. I'll also quote these recommendations below:

Recommendations for selecting a commercially available pet food.

1. The manufacturer should employ at least 1 full-time qualified nutritionist. Appropriate qualifications are a PhD in animal nutrition or boardcertification by the American College of Veterinary Nutrition or European College of Veterinary Comparative Nutrition.

2. The manufacturer should test its diets with AAFCO feeding trials. If AAFCO feeding trials are not conducted, the manufacturer should, at a minimum, ensure that diets meet AAFCO nutrient profiles through analysis of the finished product.

3. The manufacturer should own the plant or plants where the food is manufactured.

4. The manufacturer should practice strict quality-control measures. Examples include certification of a manufacturer’s procedures (eg, Global Food Safety Initiative, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, or American Feeding Industry Association); testing ingredients and endproducts for nutrient content, pathogens, and aflatoxins; materials risk assessments; and supplier audits.

5. The manufacturer should be able to provide a complete nutrient analysis for any dog or cat food of interest (not only the guaranteed analysis, which is listed on the label, but the average [typical] analysis as well). The manufacturer should be able to provide exact values for all nutrients. This should ideally be provided on an energy basis (ie, grams per 100 kilocalories or grams per 1,000 kilocalories), rather than on an as-fed or dry-matter basis, which does not account for the variation in energy density among foods.

6. The manufacturer should be able to provide the number of calories for any food on any requested weight or volume basis (eg, per gram, per pound, per cup, or per liter).

7. The manufacturer should conduct and publish research in peer-reviewed journals.

Recommendations are on the basis of information included in the nutritional assessment guidelines published by the American Animal Hospital Association and the World Small Animal Veterinary Association.

These recommendations are from an excellent article titled "Current knowledge about the risks and benefits of raw meat–based diets for dogs and cats" that's probably behind a paywall at the following link: https://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/ab...ma.243.11.1549

I'll probably review this article and other recent articles on the same topic at a later time.

I'm going to do my due diligence and ask Primal (and Wellness, the manufacturer of Bella's dog food) additional questions addressing these points. I'll let you know what I find out.

[pstinard]

Some of my research has already been done for me by others. Most of the questions in the AAHA commercial dog food selection guidelines have already been submitted to various dog food companies, and the answers to these questions collected in one place: Pet Food Company Survey

The companies surveyed include: Blue Buffalo, Canidae, Acana/Orijen, Eukanuba, Fromm, Nature's Variety, Innova/EVO, Wellness, and Royal Canin. Of these, Royal Canin stood head and shoulders above all the rest, but many of the others gave good responses as well. For a raw food company, I was impressed that Nature's Variety has gone through the AAFCO feeding trials for their raw foods. Kudos to Nature's Variety. Fromm gave a dodgy response, and Primal wasn't asked. I'll let you know what I hear back from Primal...

[Lovetodream88]

Originally Posted by pstinard

Some of my research has already been done for me by others. Most of the questions in the AAHA commercial dog food selection guidelines have already been submitted to various dog food companies, and the answers to these questions collected in one place: Pet Food Company Survey

The companies surveyed include: Blue Buffalo, Canidae, Acana/Orijen, Eukanuba, Fromm, Nature's Variety, Innova/EVO, Wellness, and Royal Canin. Of these, Royal Canin stood head and shoulders above all the rest, but many of the others gave good responses as well. For a raw food company, I was impressed that Nature's Variety has gone through the AAFCO feeding trials for their raw foods. Kudos to Nature's Variety. Fromm gave a dodgy response, and Primal wasn't asked. I'll let you know what I hear back from Primal...

I found that very interesting.

[pstinard]

I received the following in response to my questions from Primal Pet Foods:

Hi Philip,

Thank you for contacting us. In response to your questions: Our Formulas were developed with the guidance of a Holistic Veterinarian Nutritionist, Primal manufacturers our products in our Fairfield, CA facility as well as in a co-packers facility located in Portland, OR., and all Primal Formulas are laboratory tested to meet AAFCO nutritional guidelines as well as some of our Formulas have been tested using the AAFCO Feeding Trials.

I hope this helps and wish you and furry one(s) a purrfectly pawsome rest of your day! If you have any other questions, concerns, comments, feedback, or testimonials, please contact us again.

Kind Regards,

Paulette Johnson
Customer Service
866-566-4652
Primal Pet Foods

I'm not sure what a holistic veterinarian nutritionist is, but I'm satisfied with their answers about meeting AAFCO standards for nutrition, as well has having some of their recipes put through AAFCO feeding trials. Their foods are manufactured in the US in their own facilities, which is also a plus. If I were feeding Primal to Bella, I'd probably follow up with two more questions: (1) What is a holistic veterinarian nutritionist? and (2) Which recipes were tested using AAFCO feeding trials? but I'll leave that as an exercise to the people who feed Primal or who are considering feeding Primal. Considering that Primal is a smaller, specialized company, none of these answers are deal-breakers for me.

[mrssabes]

Fabian's been on Fromm Adult Gold since we brought him home from the breeder at 13 weeks. He's really thrived on it. I drizzle a little olive oil on his breakfast kibble to keep his coat shiny in winter.

[Britster]

Thanks for all your research, Phil! Glad my thoughts regarding Primal were seemingly correct. I recall liking their responses and research in the past but it had been a while since I looked into raw. I just know they're one of the companies as far as feeding raw goes that I quite like and would consider feeding.

[Noreen612]

The thing that confuses me about Primal, is my understanding is that a 4.5-5.5 lb yorkie should consume about 200-250 calories per day. Primal says that if your dog is about 5-5.5 lbs then they only need 90 calories per day or 2 freeze dried nuggets per day. So perhaps Wylie’s mom can answe this for me since she feeds that, but that seems like it’s not enough?

[pstinard]

Originally Posted by Noreen612

The thing that confuses me about Primal, is my understanding is that a 4.5-5.5 lb yorkie should consume about 200-250 calories per day. Primal says that if your dog is about 5-5.5 lbs then they only need 90 calories per day or 2 freeze dried nuggets per day. So perhaps Wylie’s mom can answe this for me since she feeds that, but that seems like it’s not enough?

I agree with you. It doesn't make any sense at all, unless Primal's calculations of the calories in their food are wrong. I'm attaching a couple of images to this post. The first one is the energy and food requirement for a 5 lb dog created using Primal Pet Food's feeding calculator. According to Primal, the dog needs 100 calories per day, or 2 freeze dried nuggets.

However, I checked the tables in the textbook Applied Veterinary Clinical Nutrition (Fascetti and Delaney, editors. 2012.), and the energy requirement for a 4.4 pound active dog is 219 calories (235 calories for a young dog, 160 calories for an inactive dog, and 177 calories for an active old dog). That averages around 200 calories for the average dog. The second attachment is the table from the textbook I got those numbers from.

As far as I know, there's nothing wrong with the nutritional content of Primal's food, but I'm wondering where they get their feeding recommendations from, and whether they are accurate.

[pstinard]

For what it's worth, I also checked out Stella and Chewy's website for their feeding recommendations for a 5 pound dog. For Chewy's Chicken Freeze Dried Dinner Patties, they recommend 2.5 patties per day, which at 60 calories per patty comes out to 150 calories per day. They also state that individual requirements might vary by +/- 50%. That gives a range of 75 to 225 calories per day. The top part of this range seems more reasonable for an active dog. By comparison, Wellness Core Grain Free Small Breed recommends 200 calories per day for a 5 pound dog, which is in keeping what I read in the Applied Veterinary Clinical Nutrition textbook.

Any thoughts from users of Primal or Stella and Chewy's whether they feed the recommended amount or a bit more?

[Wylie's Mom]

Gosh Phil - just seeing your calcs on calories now - forgive me - I'm behind lately on a lot of stuff bc of family things happening. But yes, that seems bizarre! I've been feeding Sojo's for the past 1.5yrs (where you add your own raw meet to the pre-mix) - but before that I fed Primal nuggets or Nature Variety. I always seemed to feed a bit above the average recommended and I do that too w/ Sojos. It seems impossible for Primal to be recommending 90cals - are they off their rockers ...?

[pokidee]

This is my experience with raw:

I gave Paris who is 8.5 pounds (great weight for her size but she is kinda on the thin side) Stella and Chewy's on average daily 4 dinner patties since she is too picky in eating and I'm not used to a pet not going right to their food and eating it. She started vomiting like in total 3-4 times after eating Stella and Chewy's a couple of days after. The doctor did X-rays and a Parvovirus exam and everything was fine and told me to just feed her a bland diet and change the raw dinner patties I was giving her since it was not agreeing with her. They gave Paris a shot and a pill and they told me if she vomits again then to contact them immediately. She has not vomited since then, her stool became normal again. I don't know if the patties had any cause or is it because I changed her diet from Blue Buffalo to Stella and Chewy too soon??? But I stopped feeding her raw after that since I'm scared she starts feeling bad again. I also feel like there is too much protein and fat in the raw patties of Stella and Chewy's compared to a typical recommended protein and fat diet for a dog. I put her back to Blue Buffalo since I'm comfortable with the ingredients they have more so than most dry foods and so far she eats when she is only hungry and she is back to normal. Again, this is my experience with raw food and I'm not an expert in raw and general food diet for dogs. Just putting out my experience here.