food?

[bullnrutt]

what dog food do you feed in the summer? the winter? Do you add anything to their food to give them energy on thoes cold nights, or before you hunt them?

[bearcat]

I feed PKC 26-18 year round in the winter I hunt every day through the cat season, and then I often cook up a broth with fat from butchering or bobcat meat and pour that over their food to give them a hot meal. Especially when it is real cold. I prefer 24-20 over 26-18 or a mix of the two in the winter but it is hard to get out here. To get PKC here several of us go together and buy a semi load at a time, either 10 or 21 tons depending on the trucking outfit. Everybody else likes 26-18 so thats what we get. I used to feed Black Gold but it got hard to get and the price went out of reason. The best dog foods I have fed are Black Gold, Kasco and PKC. Cosco also sells a pretty good dog food under its Kirkland brand.

[reed]

I recently started feeding PZAZZ. If anything I will give them an extra cup in the winter.

[nmplott]

I buy a 37.5 pound bag of puppy chow add a 10 pound bag of proplan and kirtland puppy chow and mix it in a bin. The dogs look good and I have this female that is now gaining weight on the mix and no longer looks like a whippet.

[treeing walkers]

yeah most puppy foods are 26/18 or higher. But puppy food seems to be higher in price around here. I like to feed black gold 26/18 black bag or 30/20 red bag. I get it from the distributer and it cost $428.40 a ton black bag and $533.76 a ton red bag.

[Josh Kunde]

see now I use the back gold trainers blend, in the yellow bag, have you ever used this? I use it all year just because they dont really sell aything else around here, anything very good at least. I finally talked the grocery store that sells the yellow bag into getting more and now they have the black and red. you think I should swith or stay with the yellow?
Josh

[treeing walkers]

If you hunt them hard I would switch to black bag in winter and yellow in summer. Black has more of what they need if they are working. I would feed red bag if you are hunting 'em real good and hard as it has more protein and fat 30/20. black is 26/18 and yellow is like 24/12 so not really enough fat and protein if you are working 'em often and hard. With my dogs I can not keep the weight on them with nothing less then 26/18 and times even it doesn't do it but the 30/20 fixes all that.

[Dan Edwards]

But most of the fellas I know and including myself have found that the blue which is the 24/20 is their best feed. I dont know why but my dogs will not hold up on the 30/20 when I am hammerin. I dont even consider the black which is the 26/18 cause they will just got to nothing. About the only time I will feed the black is in self feeder for all my pups running loose.

[bearcat]

I agree I liked the blue bag when I fed black gold, especially in the winter when I was hunting every day in cold weather. I have heard of people having problems with constipation in dogs that weren't get a lot of exercise when feeding the blue bag. Never seen this personally, as my dogs usually get all the exercise they can stand. But it is something to think about if your laying them up for a while. I like PKC and think it is on par with Black Gold, not all dog foods are comparable, even if they have the same protien-fat ratio, have fed several others that weren't near as good, including Daimond. It is fine for a weekend hunter, but if your going to hunt your dogs hard you need to spring for the better stuff, or the dogs just won't hold up as well

[mixed bunch]

i like to use the Blacks Gold and use the black bag when i'm running and use the yellow bag when they are not running. i have not seen the red bag is this better? my dogs seem to be doing better since i have swithced to black gold

[Gary Roberson]

I have been feeding Black Gold in the black bag for over 5 years. My dogs like it and they do well on it without getting overwieght. There is an interesting article in this month's AMERICAN HUNTER about feeding hunting dogs. It is written by Ron Spomer, I reccomment that you read it.