"Periodic" food change

[Brutus112]

how long should you keep your dog on one kind of food before changing? I read that periodical food change is good. Is one year to soon or too long to wait to change food to maintain a good variety of nutrients? Also is there that big of a difference between a 4 star rating and a 6 star rating? I just switched from Premium Edge to Blue Buffalo, my 4 year old brindle was getting bored with it and absolutely loves the Blue Buffalo. I would like to think that Blue Buffalo is an improvement compared to the Premium Edge although on dogfoodsanalysis.com rate both of them at 4 stars. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Bigstabile]

how long should you keep your dog on one kind of food before changing? I read that periodical food change is good. Is one year to soon or too long to wait to change food to maintain a good variety of nutrients? Also is there that big of a difference between a 4 star rating and a 6 star rating? I just switched from Premium Edge to Blue Buffalo, my 4 year old brindle was getting bored with it and absolutely loves the Blue Buffalo. I would like to think that Blue Buffalo is an improvement compared to the Premium Edge although on dogfoodsanalysis.com rate both of them at 4 stars. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

A year is going to be too long, IMO. Don't know what the best answer is but I generally go 2 or 3 bags, which is about 2-3 months, before I switch.

I believe all of the 6 star foods on DFA are grainless, so that's the main difference between a 6 star food and the rest. It would be more accurate to compare 4 star and 5 star. The 5s seem to have higher meat content and just an overall higher quality of ingredients then the 4s.

 

[kayboxer]

There are a lot of 4 star foods that are high quality ingredients that just lack adequate meat content. You can add lightly cooked meat or canned meat (such as Wellness or Evangers) to supplement the meat content, or even feed raw meat for one meal or inbetween meals (but never with kibble). If you look at the pros and cons of the reviews you can see which ones are good quality but just lack meat content.

 

[bachser]

I change every bag to a different protein source. Keeps Creek on his toes and I haven't had any major probs as far as him turning his nose up at food.

 

[GreenVetToBe]

YES, absolutely rotate through formulas periodically! Using one formula their whole life is not a good idea and can be the start of over exposure to the protein antigens as an allergen or some protein sources (lamb, for example) are not quite as bioavailable as others, so there may also be very small deficiencies that add up over a lifetime. However, in case a dog needs to undergo food allergies, I would hold a few protein sources "in reserve," as a novel protein needs to be used in those cases. For my dogs, it would be difficult, as they've had beef, bison, chicken, turkey, duck, lamb, rabbit, goat, venison, pork, multiple kinds of fish, etc. So my advice is to find a good 3 different formulas of food and rotate them through, but keep a more exotic source in reserve just in case it's necessary for a food trial.