BarkChef food?

[April S.]

I did a search on the site and couldn't find anything about this.  Has anyone looked at BarkChef dog food delivery?  It is pre-portioned and they only have 3 varieties.  I had it come across my Instagram and then read about it later.  The ingredients on their "Lamb" and "salmon" really bothered me because they have chicken and turkey meal?  This doesn't seem good.  I commented on their instagram post to see what they would say.  I was wondering what the group's thoughts were.   We have a new puppy who is eating the same food from the breeder (purina large breed puppy)  for the next couple weeks but I want to transition her to a quality food as soon as we can. 

Ingredients from the Lamb recipe:

"Lamb, Turkey Meal, Chicken Meal, Peas, Potato, Chicken Fat (Preserved with Citric Acid and Mixed Tocopherols), Pea Fiber, Tapioca, Menhaden Fish Meal, Tomato Pomace, Carrots, Brewers Dried Yeast, Natural Flavors, Blueberries, Fish Oil, Flaxseed Meal, Potassium Chloride, Salt, Dried Kelp, Calcium Carbonate, Zinc Sulfate, Vitamin E Supplement, Choline Chloride, Ferrous Sulfate, Niacin Supplement, Copper Sulfate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin A Supplement, Manganous Oxide, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Sodium Selenite, Riboflavin Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Calcium lodate"

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I've never heard of BarkChef. I looked briefly at their website, and will look again when I have more time, but I'd steer clear of this. For one thing, you are dependent on them to get your food; if there is a shortage or some type of shipping issue, you don;t have the option of running out to a store and picking up some food. For another thing, the food is not AAFCO approved, and with a young puppy, that's very important. The feeding guidelines are very hazy and confusing, and they don't take into account that a young pup needs as much as twice the amoutn of calories per lb of body weight that an adult dog needs. So it's also almost impossible to know how much to feed your puppy, at least from the website. 

Which Purina puppy formula are you currently using? Is it Pro Plan? Purina One? Puppy Chow? If you can give me the exact name of the formula, I can suggest some other options. 

[April S.]

Thank you.  She is on Purina One large breed puppy.  Our goldendoodle has been on Orijen forever and has done well but she didn’t as a puppy.  I was also hoping the new baby could tolerate a less pricey food like Fromm :) 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

If it's this one, https://www.purinaone.com/dogs/products/dry-dog-food/smartblend-lar...

you do want to get her off of it as soon as your two weeks is up and her stools are fine. It's absolute garbage, and is one of the few foods out there that still contains synthetic vitamin K. :(

You'd be fine switching to Fromm Puppy Gold. You don't have to go with a "Large Breed" formula, they are really intended for dogs who are expected to go over 80 or 90 lbs, but if you want to stay with it, Fromm's Puppy Gold comes in a large breed variety as well as the regular puppy formula. 

[April S.]

There's no reason for her to be on large breed, she is half standard poodle, half border collie and only expected to be 45-55lbs.  Thank you!   She is really runny right now, I'm assuming its stress. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

If you haven't had a fecal done, I'd do that ASAP. It's very common for doodle puppies to come home with parasites, specifically giardia, and since it has a 10-14 day incubation period, it doesn;t always show up right away. 

[April S.]

I just sent her fecal test in this morning :)

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Let us know the results. 

[Scotty]

Just wanted to address your "chicken & turkey meal" issues. Named meat meals (like turkey meal or chicken meal as opposed to meat meal where they type of meat isn't specified) are actually considered better than just turkey or chicken. The reason is that plain meat is mainly water, when that meat is cooked it loses about 80% of it's weight. The ingredients are weighed before cooking so if you have chicken as the top ingredient after cooking that meat should really be farther down the list.

A lot of top foods include named meat meals. Now if Karen says to avoid this food I'd take that advice to heart. However don't eliminate foods based on them including meat meals as long as the type of meat is specified.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

You are correct about named meat meals (and fish meals) being far superior to unnamed meals.

But I think that in this case, April is referring to the fact that these particular formulas are called "Lamb" and "Salmon" but contain chicken and turkey as well as lamb or salmon. :)
I know that's confusing, but in fact many formulas on our recommended brands list do the same. Every animal protein in the food is not always reflected in the name of the formula. This is not a bad thing, but it is a reason to read labels carefully. 

[April S.]

Our 5 year old goldendoodle has issues with chicken so we avoid it :) 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Okay, so then you want Fromm's Heartland Gold Puppy food; beef and pork based, no chicken.

https://www.petflow.com/product/fromm/fromm-prairie-gold-grain-free...