These are difficult times for everyone, where the crisis is taking its toll on our pockets and therefore we must find the best way to balance our economy. Therefore, finding cheap dog food can be a great help, since we can continue to feed our dog with quality products without having to waste.
Choosing a cheap feed for our dog is not always easy, since unknowingly we could be feeding it with animal waste and toxic substances that can cause serious health problems in the medium and long term, such as cancer. Something that will mean a large financial outlay on veterinaryns and medicines.
That is why we will explain in a very simple way how to learn to choose a cheap and quality feed for our dog. And in case it is not clear to us, we will also make a small guide with the best cheap dog food. What more could you want? Let’s see how to save on feeding our dog without giving up quality.
How to save on feeding our dog?
Although it may seem strange to you, the best way to save on a dog’s diet without sacrificing quality is to prepare its food ourselves. It may seem complicated the first time, but once you do it you will see that it is much simpler than it seemed.
The BARF Diet is the name given to homemade dog food, which in short explains how to prepare dog food with homemade ingredients. It is very simple and above all very cheap, since we will only pay for the ingredients. Neither manufacturers nor intermediaries will charge commissions, thus making the final product much cheaper.
We recommend that you do a little research on the BARF diet and see what it is and how it works, you can get detailed information and recipes from: BARF diet for dogs.
But if preparing food for your dog does not convince you, either because you do not have time or simply because you do not feel like it, the next best option to save on feeding our dog is finding a cheap and quality feed.
You must be very careful not to fall into the trap of cheap feed from Mercadona or similar shopping centers, since if you look at the ingredient label of those feed, they are all formulated from cereals as the first ingredient or from animal by-products. Something that we must avoid at all costs, since it will have a very serious impact on the health of our dog.
How to find cheap and good dog food?
You will be surprised to find out how easy it is to find a cheap feed without having to compromise on quality, you simply have to read the label on the ingredients of the feed bag.
In Spain, as in many other countries like Mexico or Argentina, manufacturers of dog food are required to put the products they use on their labels, from highest to lowest. So if the label of a feed starts with “Wheat” or “Corn”, we will know that the main ingredient of that feed is “Wheat” or “Corn”.
It should be noted that wheat and corn are harmful cereals for dogs, they do not have a nutritional value for them and they are simply used as a filling ingredient to reduce costs in the manufacturing process of the feed. The only cereal that we must admit on a label is rice, and it should never be the first ingredient, but should be in third or fourth place.
We should focus on looking for feed whose label contains meat, fish or both as the first and second ingredients. It can be dehydrated or hydrolyzed meat, even fresh meat. However, we must avoid “meat by-products” or “meat meals” since they are very low-quality ingredients.
If we spend a few minutes looking at the feed ingredients, we can easily differentiate cheap low-quality feed from cheap high-quality feed. Remember, forget about feed that contains wheat or corn and also discards feed that does not contain meat or fish as the first ingredient.
What happens if I feed my dog with cheap low-quality feed?
Inexpensive low-quality feed is full of cereals with a low nutritional and biological value for dogs, and they also use animal waste (by-products and / or flours). This altogether causes that the dog is fed with a feed that will take away the hunger, but that will seriously harm the health.
A dog fed with low quality food will suffer much more diseases than a dog fed with quality feed. This implies that the veterinary bills will be very large, in addition to the possibility that the dog will end up dying from a disease caused by poor diet.
Dogs fed quality feed live longer and have much better health than dogs fed poor quality products. So please, do not mistreat your dog by feeding it with meat waste, invest a little time in finding a cheap feed but made with quality products.
What is the best cheap dog food?
It depends a lot on the country where we are looking, although common sense prevails in all of them. The brands for I think that they invest a lot of money in advertising, either sell their very expensive products to recover the investment they have made in advertising or save on the quality of the products, to recover their money saving on raw materials.
There is no feed manufacturer that works miracles, quality raw materials have their price and it is impossible for a brand that invests thousands of euros in advertising to offer high quality feed at a very affordable price, because it simply would not be profitable.
So the first thing we must do is open our minds to new brands of dog food and completely forget about the huge advertising campaigns that many manufacturers do. We must focus on the quality and price of the feed, leaving aside the most popular advertising and commercial names.
A good example of cheap, high-quality dog food is offered by the company NFNatcane, which has focused for years on offering high-quality products without wasting money on major advertising campaigns, radio or television commercials.
And although without a doubt NFNatcane becomes the best brand of dog food, a benchmark in Spain in cheap but quality dog food, other brands such as Dingo, Gosbi or Criadores can also be interesting for their price and composition.
Tricks to save on dog food
There are small tricks that can help us save a little more on feeding our dog, although we must apply them whenever we have found a cheap but quality feed. Remember that a poor quality feed will be very expensive in the medium and long term, since you will have to pay veterinaryns and medicines for your dog.
Once we have located a cheap feed brand that meets our quality criteria, we must use the following tricks to further reduce the price of feeding our puppy:
- Buying large bags is always cheaper than buying small bags. If we keep the feed bag tightly closed and in a cool place, without being exposed to the sun, it will keep in perfect condition for a long time. It is much cheaper to buy a 15-kilo bag or a 20-kilo bag of food than a 4-kilo bag.
- Try to make joint purchases between friends, most manufacturers offer discounts when you buy more than one large bag. If you buy for yourself and your friends, surely making the joint purchase will save you money with a good discount.
- Use promotions and “friend plans” from manufacturers. The manufacturers themselves
(like NFNatcane) have their discount plans available to customers, they are very easy to use and you can save a lot of money with them. - Buy more than one bag of feed, or ask for the minimum order to cover shipping costs. In this way the shipping costs will be free and the food for your dog will be cheaper.
- Heed the manufacturer’s instructions to feed your dog, using the exact measurements provided by the manufacturer, you will not waste feed, and your dog will not get fat. It is a practical way of not wasting feed.