Irish pet foods

Hi guys, looking for some recommendations on Irish pet foods. We own an adult Newfie and Labrador puppy, and two cats. All are currently eating Royal Canin, there are three different varieties of Royal Canin in the house! The adult Newfie is now ready to move off his junior food onto an adult food. The Lab will eat Royal Canin Maxi puppy until he is 9 months, then we are getting him neutered and moving him onto the same adult food as the Newfie. We just haven't decided what that will be.

We are trying to cut down on the carbon costs of our pets so don't want to import from abroad anymore. Between Gain, Red Mills and Naturo, Naturo came up trumps for ingredients and cost. We love our dogs but we need to be realistic on how much we pay to feed them!

For the cats i could only find Red Mills dry cat food. We only feed them dry as wet just doesn't work for a few reasons. Does anyone know what would be the quality of this cat food?

Thanks in advance

fits

My pup is currently on red mills breeder and is doing well on it. I’m going to gradually move him to Gain small dog adult. When finished this 15 kg bag.

Like you I want to try the locally produced pet foods first. My past dogs were fed Burns and did well on it but I’ll try the Irish brands this time. This is the one I’ll try. ( my dog will be medium sized)

https://www.petstop.ie/gain-elite-small-dog-adult

manor

I use Happydog, I purchase online from their warehouse in Ireland.

https://www.happydoguk.com/

fits

manor wrote: »

I use Happydog, I purchase online from their warehouse in Ireland.

https://www.happydoguk.com/

Thread is about Irish manufactured pet foods…

muddypaws

manor wrote: »

I use Happydog, I purchase online from their warehouse in Ireland.

https://www.happydoguk.com/

Happy Dog is a German food

muddypaws

I don't know anything about it but I keep getting ads for Oscars on Facebook, says it's an Irish company. Now they may manufacture outside of Ireland, a lot of petshop own brand food is made by Golden Acres in England, so you'd need to look into it.

2forjoy

I use zooplus for prescription food. Same price as vet's supply. Quick delivery though.

2forjoy

2forjoy wrote: »

I use zooplus for prescription food. Same price as vet's supply. Quick delivery though.

That's what we're doing now, but it comes from Germany. That's the part we're trying to avoid!

anewme

muddypaws wrote: »

I don't know anything about it but I keep getting ads for Oscars on Facebook, says it's an Irish company. Now they may manufacture outside of Ireland, a lot of petshop own brand food is made by Golden Acres in England, so you'd need to look into it.

I think it’s from the UK but can’t find where it says that now.

Interested in this thread.

I’m going to try Phoenix Bark, which is Irish made when he’s a little bigger.

anewme

anewme wrote: »

I think it’s from the UK but can’t find where it says that now.

Interested in this thread.

I’m going to try Phoenix Bark, which is Irish made when he’s a little bigger.

I would love to try a raw feed diet but with two large dogs it would be unaffordable!

The Naturo dog food is grain free and made in Armagh so it looks like the best decision for us it's the cat food I am having more difficulty deciding on!

muddypaws

It's actually Oscars Farm that have been targeting me. Says all ingredients from Ireland or UK, which may mean NI. Looks pretty decent actually

https://oscarsfarm.com/

anewme

muddypaws wrote: »

It's actually Oscars Farm that have been targeting me. Says all ingredients from Ireland or UK, which may mean NI. Looks pretty decent actually

https://oscarsfarm.com/

My sister trialled it…one liked it, one didn’t, I thought it was made in London.

Might be one to look into, I don't mind buying from NI as there's no travel involved in that.
Unfortunately they don't do catfood.

muddypaws

anewme wrote: »

My sister trialled it…one liked it, one didn’t, I thought it was made in London.

There is a company called Oscars in the UK that has franchises, the food is delivered locally by the franchisees, was it definitely the Irish one she trialled? It may well be made in England, it doesn't actually say on the website where it's made, but I wonder would they import Irish ingredients for it?

anewme

muddypaws wrote: »

There is a company called Oscars in the UK that has franchises, the food is delivered locally by the franchisees, was it definitely the Irish one she trialled? It may well be made in England, it doesn't actually say on the website where it's made, but I wonder would they import Irish ingredients for it?

I think it was. Can’t find where it says that now. So it could be getting mixed up.it says they big into sustainable delivery etc which would indicate its Irish. It was cold pressed and decent quality but one pug liked it and one didn’t. They drank a lot of water after it.

Hoboo

[Deleted User] wrote: »

For the cats i could only find Red Mills dry cat food. We only feed them dry as wet just doesn't work for a few reasons. Does anyone know what would be the quality of this cat food?

Thanks in advance

It's bad.

The Supreme version is poultry dry meal and maize which is pretty poor.

The regular food is cereal and animal derivatives. It's the lowest grade food you can get.

muddypaws

Deleted User wrote: »

Might be one to look into, I don't mind buying from NI as there's no travel involved in that.
Unfortunately they don't do catfood.

Yeah, cat food doesn't seem to have the same marketing capacity here, so you may have to continue with overseas cat food.

I've only ever seen Red Mills Irish cat food.

There is a factory near Longford that makes food for different companies, C&D foods, maybe with some research you could find out if they make any for companies within Ireland

muddypaws

anewme wrote: »

I think it was. Can’t find where it says that now. So it could be getting mixed up.it says they big into sustainable delivery etc which would indicate its Irish. It was cold pressed and decent quality but one pug liked it and one didn’t. They drank a lot of water after it.

Yeah that's the Oscar's Farm one.

Hoboo

Hoboo wrote: »

It's bad.

The Supreme version is poultry dry meal and maize which is pretty poor.

The regular food is cereal and animal derivatives. It's the lowest grade food you can get.

Thanks! Do you know is the Gain any better?
Also people mentioning Nice and Natural, made in Mayo?

Hoboo

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Thanks! Do you know is the Gain any better?
Also people mentioning Nice and Natural, made in Mayo?

Gain Cat Food is absolute muck. Nice and natural is excellent, I'm going to try it myself! Thanks for sharing it.

Look at the ingredients, first one named is the main one, you want to see an animal, salmon chicken whatever and maybe 30% up. Never ever ever animal derivatives, claws, brain, ears, all that stuff. You'll get that in lidl, Aldi, Tesco, etc Pedigree Chum and Whiskers which are in some cases more expensive than good food, just heavy marketing. Both owned by Mars, and you know the ****e they make for humans. Royal Canin btw isn't much better, it's just promoted by vets, although with medicated food like the ones for kidney or urinary you have no choice. Avoid fillers like cereal maize or any other grain.

confusticated

We recently switched to Gain Kindness, it's grain-free. He seems to like it and it's agreeing with him a lot better than the Carnilove that we were giving him before (also grain-free).

Hoboo

confusticated wrote: »

We recently switched to Gain Kindness, it's grain-free. He seems to like it and it's agreeing with him a lot better than the Carnilove that we were giving him before (also grain-free).

Sorry, for clarity I was referring to the cat food (edited now).

Gain Kindness Dog Food looks top notch, salmon has double the omega 3 so I'd be after that one in particular.

confusticated

confusticated wrote: »

We recently switched to Gain Kindness, it's grain-free. He seems to like it and it's agreeing with him a lot better than the Carnilove that we were giving him before (also grain-free).

The Gain Kindness looks amazing but it's cost prohibitive for my dogs. I love them but I don't 600 extra a year love them. The Naturo food seems both quality and cost effective.

The Nice n Natural cat food looks great, I was horrified when I saw it's normally 45 euro for 4kg but I have been assured by one of the stockists that it's never at full price, it's always on offer. 11 euro per kg is definitely too much!

tk123

Just on the whole animal derivatives thing.. I'm a raw/wet feeder so i feed all manner of derivatives as do many other people I think without realising? Tripe/heart/lung/pigs ears/chicken feet/chicken stomach/neck/gizzards/offal/furry rabbit ears/carcass/bone/...all those dried treats in the pick and mix at the petshop etc etc etc - they're all derivatives

On topic - Naturo did NOT agree with Bailey = poo explosion in the hall >_< Have you looked into home cooked? You can pick up bargains in the reduced section of the supermarket/weekly specials. Dump into a slow cooker and then portion up. I'd use eg dogaware.com as a guide as you need to make sure you're balancing the calcium levels especially - http://dogaware.com/diet/homemade.html I used to use ground egg shell for Lucy's meals.

muddypaws

tk123 wrote: »

Just on the whole animal derivatives thing.. I'm a raw/wet feeder so i feed all manner of derivatives as do many other people I think without realising? Tripe/heart/lung/pigs ears/chicken feet/chicken stomach/neck/gizzards/offal/furry rabbit ears/carcass/bone/...all those dried treats in the pick and mix at the petshop etc etc etc - they're all derivatives

Yep, and dogs wouldn't be living with us now as they do if it wasn't for them eating derivatives, the bits that humans didn't want. No way could good meat be given away, so our relationship with dogs adapted, with them eating our waste and doing different jobs. Tbh I am not comfortable with the thought of one animal being raised purely to feed another, (humans excepted) I'm happy for my dogs to get the leftovers of meat production.