Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Grain Free Dog Food

Wild canids generally eat the animal whole if they can. If they're too large, they leave only the bones they cannot break.

My labs eat hickory nuts, dozens of mature shagbarks and pignut on the bluff here beside the house.

Crunch them and swallow up the hard parts too.


They’ll eat greasy lava rock and pork juice impregnated ash and coals if I let them.


Hard to ‘baby proof’ the yard from opportunistic foragers.

Hardly any grain in those grass bags, though.

I switched from 4health at tractor supply to Eagle Pack for my 80 pound lab. Here are the ingredients:

Chicken Meal, Pork Meal, Ground Brown Rice, Oatmeal, Rice, Dehulled Barley, Chicken Fat (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols), Tomato Pomace, Flaxseed, Brewers Dried Yeast, Potassium Chloride, Vitamins [Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin, Vitamin A Supplement, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Thiamine Mononitrate, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Riboflavin, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Folic Acid], Minerals [Zinc Proteinate, Zinc Sulfate, Iron Proteinate, Ferrous Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Manganese Sulfate, Sodium Selenite, Calcium Iodate], Taurine, Calcium Carbonate, Mixed Tocopherols added to preserve freshness, Inulin, Glucosamine Hydrochloride, Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Bacillus licheniformis Fermentation Product, Dried Bacillus subtilis Fermentation Product, Dried Aspergillus oryzae Fermentation Product, Dried Trichoderma reesei Fermentation Product, Dried Rhizopus oryzae Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus casei Fermentation Product, Rosemary Extract, Green Tea Extract, Spearmint Extract.

This is a naturally preserved product


Here is the review on Eagle Pack for Large Breeds:

https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/eagle-pack-dog-food/

Top rated grain free and grain added:

https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-reviews/eagle-pack-dog-food/

Coyotes and fox also catch and eat birds, which do contain quite a bit of grain. Coyotes will also eagerly eat fruits, insects, and other foods that "round out" their diet far beyond just meat. My point is that plant-based foods are very important to canines.

Mine also went to McDonalds regularly. She loved Mcnuggets and hamburgers.

Dogs are apex predators so they should be eating like one. Their digestive systems are too short to adequately digest grains. That's why they will eat the offal and shizl of herbivores. It's predigested. If you feed them commercial sack feed, they'll make 2-4 steaming piles in your yard each day because they can't process the fillers. Puppies on sack feed are constantly hungry because they aren't getting enough nutrition/volume.

Google up "BARF Diet."

We had a sweet rescue dog that had skin pustules and other problems when we got her. A savvy vet told us of the BARF diet. After a couple weeks of Costco organic frozen veggies/fruit whizzed up on a food processor with Costco chicken thighs heated up a tad in a sauce pan with a little water (think of how warm a freshly killed critter is when a wolf eats it) and sprinkled with some Brewer's Yeast, she had a beautiful coat, her teeth and gums were healthy. Also gave her about 500mg of vitamin C stuck into the thigh meat on occassion. The best part was she only dropped one deuce a day that I didn't even bother to pick up because it didn't reek and was just a bit of bone and the little bit that she couldn't completely absorb. They would turn white in a couple days and just disintegrate on their own. The cost was less than premium commercial feed. We'd make up the veggies in such a quantity so they'd keep in the fridge for about a week. For a 65# dog, she'd get one serving with a thigh in the morning and one in the evening.

It's a wonder that you're on unemployment.

Keepers for sure.

Two left, Yo.

But not grains, to any great extent. They have zero need for grains of any type.

I fed grain free for quite a few years. My dogs really slacked off eating it. I noticed that the vet didn't sell grain free food and asked what she fed her dogs. It was some form of Purina. Just find a quality food that they like to eat was what I took out of our conversation

That depends on a lot of factors, including your definition of grain.

A grain is the seed part of the plant.

I read up on that. when a coyote kills a animal such as a deer the first thing they eat is their stomach contents which contains all the grain they need... I just found a rabbit in my yard yestardey, and all that was eaten or had any damage was his stomach. all his guts were gone and I remembered about the grain thing and thought of a coyote killing the rabbit.. there are coyotes here .but not many..

We fed our mixed breed (terrier and hound) 4 Health from Tractor Supply for years. In the last year or two she started feeling sluggish and grouchy. We thought it was from old age. Last month, she got really sick and started throwing up and her bowels shut down. After a lot of money and treatment at the vet, we put her on a prescription Kidney diet that the vet sells. She acts like a new dog now. I am amazed how she has perked up. From what I gathered, the food we were giving her had too much fats and oils, and her body wasn't handling it well. The vet didn't think she would bounce back like she has being 10 years old.

Wonder what they fed this good boy.

I have an adopted mutt. We got her at 4 months after she came north to Vermont from Louisiana in a rescue truck. She is a real beauty, brindle in color and must have some plott and pit mix in there. Super nose and loves the water with big webbed feet. Just a mutt but I wouldn't sell her for a million bucks. The vet said stay away from non grain feed and we give her Wellness lamb and barley. Life is good for her here on Lake Champlain,

Wow. God bless him.

When I was a kid, we got a chihuahua puppy who lived to be 18, but she didn't look nearly that good when we took her in for her last vet visit. Deaf, blind, toothless, and unable to stand by then. Poor old girl. She made 18 years, though. No special diet, either. Mostly table scraps.

I guess you were never a fan of Bob Barker.