The Cost of feeding your Doodle

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

I was in the Pet store and standing by the checkout counter when a woman came up with a bag of 'cheap' dog food.   I couldn't help overhearing what she said to the checkout guy.  She said she had to buy it because she needed to save money and had to move to a cheaper brand.  This got me wondering if there has ever been a proper cost analysis done here.  Perhaps we could post how much it costs us to feed our dogs per week and perhaps go someway to find out if better foods are much more expensive and if so by how much?

[Adina P]

Cost per 100 calories would be interesting.  Or even taking a few diff dog sizes and estimating what they'd need on 3 diff foods.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

The only way I can see to do a comparison of cost per 100 calories would be to first know how many cups are in X lbs of food. I know that JD eats about 5 lbs of food per week because that's how long a bag lasts. So I could figure it out based on 3 cups per day times 7 days equals about 21 cups per bag. Then I could multiply the calories per cup by 21 to get the total calories in the bag. Then I could divide the total calories by the price of the bag. I would actually be willing to do that with the orijen formulas that JD eats.

But I'm not willing to buy a bag of every food out there (or even any food out there, lol) and measure them out cup by cup to find out how many cups each one contains. And you'd need that number to determine the cost per 100 calories, I think.

Or am I not doing the right calculations? can you think of an easier way to do it?

[F, Calla & Luca]

That is why I suggested that we could, at least some of us, do the math for what we feed. I think the mfgs. tell you how many cups per bag and certainly the calories per cup. So I for instance could tell you the cost of Wild Prairie Acana  per 100 calories.

[F, Calla & Luca]

So I did the math. Calculus wasn't my strong suit but I did well enough in basic arithmetic but still please check this out. A mistake is easy enough to make. But I think this is about right since one bag does last about a month,etc.

A bag of Acana Wild Prairie is currently $59.99 at doggie food.com. I get 2 at a time so there is free shipping.

Each bag contains 13.5 kg =13,500 grams.

Every 115 grams (a 250ml cup) contains 425 calories. Divide that by 4.25=27 gms. So every 27 grams contains 100 calories.

Every bag contains 500 of these 100 calorie portions ( 3500/27).

So each 100 calories costs 12 cents. ($59.99/500) That is the only true comparison. Not pounds or gms.

That said my doodles consume 4 cups per day total. That said the food costs  about $2.04 for the kibble alone.

Even if the cheapest kibble cost half as much, and had the same number of calories per cup, which it doesn't,I'd only save $1.00 a day. Generally cheaper kibble has fewer calories per cup and you need to feed more.

 

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Wow. I love when someone else does the math   :)

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I don't know where to find out how many kgs are in a bag of Orijen. Is it on the website?

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

I don't think so but  13.5 kg is 29 lbs.  I just go to the convertor on Google.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Then I guess I have to figure out how to convert kgs to grams, because there are 120 gms in a cup of Orijen, according to the bag.

I also don't buy the larger bags, so I will also have to research the cheapest price for the largest bag (29.7 lbs.)

Oy!

[F, Calla & Luca]

!000 gms in a kilogram : )

[F, Calla & Luca]

Should be on the bag itself but you could do the same math with pounds and ounces. It the calorie part that's a constant. There are 2.2 pounds per kilo though.

[Nicky, Riley & Boris]

I paid 77 euro for the large bag of Orijen 13.5kg.  I don't know how long it will last but I am reckoning maybe six weeks. Which is just over €11  per week.  That seems very reasonable to me.  I am not feeding anything else at the moment until he is a little older and am using some of the daily allowance for training treats as he loves his food.  I'm going to have a good look at that cheap stuff and see how much you have to feed and the cost of it.

[Jess and Pippin]

We feed Acana puppy and right now it is costing about $65 per month plus HST