Yet to find an affordable yet good dog food.

We have large breed dogs and we have yet to find an affordable but good dog food.

We knew they would eat a lot but we never imagined as much as we are supposed to feed them! We go through 12 cups a day.(for 3 dogs)

It is expensive but that really isn't our concern so much. We want quality , but affording the good quality, that is the hard part.

Does anyone have any recommendations for large breed dogs that is somewhat affordable?

 

Have you considered making your own? I know that might sound daunting considering you go through so much, but what I do is buy large turkeys when they're on sale ($.69-.99 a pound) and eggs at Aldi's ($1 a dozen), etc....and when you consider how cheap rice and frozen or large cans of veggies are, it actually works out to be pretty cheap. It can be frozen so you could make a bunch up at once....not every day....and you would know exactly what you're feeding them.

As for commercial dog food brands, I honestly don't have any I can recommend right now....cheap or not.

 

I have but I really haven't checked in many recipes or finding out the true cost of it. We have three large dogs and I fear it would be too expensive.
But I really do want them to have healthy food.
Thanks for the ideas, I think I will have to really check out the possibility of doing this.

 

Feeding raw can also work out fairly cheap if you can find a good supplier for your meat and bones.

I feed mine a good quality kibble in the morning and then raw meaty bones in the evening, feeding the bones in the evening cuts the cost down considerably, so if you didn't want to feed all raw you could feed a mix.

 

I have been reading up on dog food and am quite shocked that some companies use ingredients that are almost rotten or moldy when making dog food. I am now thinking of making my own. I have medium breed and to my calculations compared to the premium brand that my Vet recommends I'm better off making my own dog food as it would be cheaper even if I buy dog vitamins to supplement my home made dog food. Since you have a large breed I'm not sure how much it would translate for you. Here is the link to the recipe I plan to use:

http://thefrugalfind.com/homemade-dog-food-recipe/

 

I agree that making your own dog foods can be cheaper.
And buying on larger quantities can also make those foods more affordable.

 

I read about this quite some years ago. To be honest, a lot of the things they put in are not even at the stage of "almost", they are badly spoiled. They even put things in, which are not really "food" such as feathers to cheaply fill out the product. As a result, we always cooked for our pets and never gave them commerical pet foods again.

 

Isn't that horrifying? I hate reading about it. I'm all for having the truth available, but the idea just completely grosses me out and disturbs me that it's okay to do that.

 

My dog eats wellness. A 30 pound bag lasts us almost a month. It costs $31 so really, the dog is eating at a $1 a day. Check the serving sizes on the more expensive and better dog foods. We were feeding him purina, and he was eating 4 cups a day, on the wellness, he only eats 2 cups a day (that's the suggested serving size) So really, we go through it half as fast as we were going through the purina.