Wafcol success!

Following on from F4D thread, I have now migrated Lola over to Wafcol salmon & potato - went for large/giant breed kibble (even though she is a tiny tot really) as the kibble is a really good size for her to crunch.

Eating really well on it and good, hard stools - even with her first time of also having raw apple in her kong this week. No gurgley tum and wind free posterior. Result. Off to P@H to get more - £10.99 for 2.5kg so doggie dinner money left over for treats!

Sounds good!

Pleased to hear you found something that works for you.

I'm waitting for 1,5 kg f4ds new formula to give ot a try ,if it fail,I'm going for Wafcol.

Pleased she likes it

Just about to order Wafcol for Zeus as hes got no better with F4D (very runny poos), you mentioned that you went for the Large breed kibble, I noticed that the daily feeding guideline is almost double compared to the small/medium breed kibble, isnt there a danger of over feeding? Medium breed kibble is for dogs with expected growth of 10-25kg, large is 25-40kg..

What would everyone else go for? Medium breed or large?

I just cut down the quantity to match how far up the bowl previous kibble went with F4D! Nothing scientific and might be a bit trial and error but she's looking good on it and her weight is stable at 16k. I have found with smaller kibble that, because she's a scoffer, some of it used to stick in her throat because she hadn't crunched it properly. Hope it works for you-I'm very glad we changed.

Jaq wrote:I just cut down the quantity to match how far up the bowl previous kibble went with F4D! Nothing scientific and might be a bit trial and error but she's looking good on it and her weight is stable at 16k. I have found with smaller kibble that, because she's a scoffer, some of it used to stick in her throat because she hadn't crunched it properly. Hope it works for you-I'm very glad we changed.

Zeus is the same, I had him on large bite F4D as he just scoffs down the smaller one and ends up coughing/choking on it! Thanks for your help anyway, I'm going to order it now and hope it sorts out his runny poo problem!

Good luck - let us know how you get on. I used the kibble as walk and training treats for the first day or so to aclimatise her stomach before starting to swop over in quantity and that seemed to work too.

I really do swear by it for the dogs with sensitive tummies and skin in my care! Glad it's working for you too

Rachel33 wrote:I really do swear by it for the dogs with sensitive tummies and skin in my care! Glad it's working for you too

Rachel, do you feed medium or large breed kibble?

For the staffs I generally feed small/medium as most of mine are under 25kg, and as far as I remember that's the maximum weight for their small/medium range

Rachel33 wrote:For the staffs I generally feed small/medium as most of mine are under 25kg, and as far as I remember that's the maximum weight for their small/medium range

Thanks! Didn't realise how much of a pain in the ar*e it is to get the big 15kg bag of small/medium kibble. I can't find it online anywhere, only the 3kg bags (which are a rip off).

Following up on this thread, its been almost a month since Zeus has been on Wafcol and I've seen no improvements, if anything things have gone worse.

His stools are still very soft and mushy, he seems to be scratching his body alot more (maybe an intolerance to something in the food?) and for the first time since I've had him, I've put the food down and he's turned away from it and left it. Hes never the type to do that, hes always scoffed his food down without a second thought, so I'm going to give him a couple more weeks on it, if nothings changes, I'll have to consider another option

Have you considered anything from our recommended list of foods, I can vouch for Barking Heads as Rocky has this and loves it. Maybe get a few samples packs of foods and see which he likes the best:

http://staffy-bull-terrier.co.uk/dryfood.html

The body scratching sounds like a reaction to something possibly in the food, does it have a high wheat content?

No, not really, on paper, the ingredients for Wafcol are pretty good. So far, Zeus has been on Wainwrights, Fish4Dogs, Applaws and now Wafcol, and none of them have settled right on him.

I think I'll give Barking Heads a go soon enough, I did research it before I switched to Wafcol and it looked good.

Another issue is that Zeus is going to be a year old in February, so do I just keep him on Wafcol puppy until then, and choose a different adult food in February, or change now..?

You could change it now, just do it gradually over about a week. Just mix in the new to the old gradually adding more of the new.

Barking Heads is available in Jolleys but I'm not aware of Pets at Home ever having it in stock. Try on line, we pay £24 for a 6 kg bag in Jolleys.

Theres so many to choose from, all for different needs, shall I just go straight to the puppy one?

Rocky has the adult TLC why not try that:

http://www.barkingheads.co.uk.php5-18.dfw1-1.websitetestlink.com/product/tender-loving-care

Have you tried or thought about feeding RAW? Not all but allot of the problems that dogs have aren't found in the basic no added anything simply plain raw food.

Mike wrote:Have you tried or thought about feeding RAW? Not all but allot of the problems that dogs have aren't found in the basic no added anything simply plain raw food.

I've thought about it but don't know where to start!

Plus, would it be much dearer than feeding dry?

Perhaps Zeus has an intolerance for fish, what protein source was in the wainwrights and the applaws you used? Barking heads is good, perhaps try the 'bad hair day' one which is lamb-based. or raw?

goldie87 wrote:

Mike wrote:Have you tried or thought about feeding RAW? Not all but allot of the problems that dogs have aren't found in the basic no added anything simply plain raw food.

I've thought about it but don't know where to start!

Plus, would it be much dearer than feeding dry?

How much does it cost per day to feed kimble?
I've just changed suppliers and I bought £50 worth but I'm guessing that it will last me about 3 months.
The main cost is the chest freezer to store it all. But I was lucky as my sister was getting rid of one as she moved into a smaller house so I got it for nothing.

Nosipho wrote:Perhaps Zeus has an intolerance for fish, what protein source was in the wainwrights and the applaws you used? Barking heads is good, perhaps try the 'bad hair day' one which is lamb-based. or raw?

I was thinking this also, we tried two types of wainwrights (lamb and the fish one), the applaws was all chicken but it was too much protein for him, the food was too rich, his anal glands got really sore and had to be emptied alot, which is why we took him off that. Is lamb ok to be fed every day? Considering its red meat?

Mike wrote:

goldie87 wrote:

Mike wrote:Have you tried or thought about feeding RAW? Not all but allot of the problems that dogs have aren't found in the basic no added anything simply plain raw food.

I've thought about it but don't know where to start!

Plus, would it be much dearer than feeding dry?

How much does it cost per day to feed kimble?
I've just changed suppliers and I bought £50 worth but I'm guessing that it will last me about 3 months.
The main cost is the chest freezer to store it all. But I was lucky as my sister was getting rid of one as she moved into a smaller house so I got it for nothing.

£50 for 3 months worth of feed is really good, it costs me 50 odd quid to get one big 12kg/15kg bag of dry kibble which lasts about a month and a half! What would the £50 consist of?

Aw no!! Sucks that it didn't work out for Zeus, personally with skin and digestive problems I would be straight onto raw feeding, I've seen it work wonders and a colleague of mine feeds her 11 dogs on it with much more money to spare than she did with kibble, and they're all in great health.. there are loads of brilliant books about with all the information that you need to get started and I'm sure there are people on here that would be more than happy to gives you some pointers