The truth about pet foods article

[michickenwrangler]

We've never bought grocery store dog food for our dogs. We've always given our dogs table scraps topped off with some good quality kibble. My dog is 11 years old, vet says she looks great, good joint mobility, good weight, just a bit of a cataract forming in her eye. She's had two abcessed teeth in the past although I know people who give their dogs worse food who never get abcessed teeth.

 

[Slinkytoys]

It's true. I own and operate a pet crematory. There are a lot of people who have the vet take care of their pet's body. Many of the vets will contract with a crematory to handle the bodies. Some large scale crematories will sell the carbonized cremains to be made into fertilizer, or possibly bone black. A friend of mine who works on the East Coast manages a rendering plant. His men go to the different vets offices to collect the bodies and the are in turn rendered. The leavings are turned into livestock feed, including pet food. When you see Meat or Meat By-Products, it may well be "Fluffy". I call them "Dirty Little Secrets", but most people don't want to know----out of sight out of mind.
Slinky

 

[noodleroo]

Here is a good article on the subject, too: http://www.naturalrearing.com/coda/l_food_for_thought.html
I trust the advice of the person that wrote this.

 

[bock]

All I can say is

: . I feed TOTW, do they really get their meat from a rendering plant too? Before I knew how bad it was, I used to feed Kibbles and Bits and Purina I feel SO bad that I fed that "food" to my poor babies.

 

[michickenwrangler]

I had always figured chicken in dog food comes from spent layers or from broilers who just dropped dead in the big barns before slaughter.

BUT ... my dog's food says "chicken" or "chicken by products." Since the dog eats molted feathers from our birds and when she caught a ruffed grouse, she ate the beak and feet, I don't worry too much about chicken by products

 

[welsummerchicks]

Why are people so grossed out at pet food containing...pets?

It is impossible to maintain the environment and bury all the pets that die. The pet industry operates at a tremendous cost to the environment already. If the same amount of people pooh appeared on lawns all over the US and in trash cans to go to land fills without being processed correctly, people would be more uncomfortable and articles would be all over news sites.

But this, somehow it just does not bother us, all that pooh everywhere - kids falling in it, babies playing with it, mailmen sliding on it...but pet remains being processed, cooked, sterilized and turned into something useful that provides food for animals...it does? Really? How very odd. We refuse to clean up about 95% of our pet pooh, because feces everywhere 'doesn't hurt anything', but a dead animal, processed and sterilized according to a pet food product, is...icky?

The amount of animal feces and what they do to land and water quality and waste treatment is mind boggling.

Dead pets? There isn't enough ground available to bury them all. And animal feeds would be about 3X more expensive if such ready sources were not available.

The pet and animal product 'chain' is already somewhat regulated. I would be happy were it regulated more. I'd like to see diseased and medicated animals cremated completely to carbon, and processed pet products that go in feeds, consisting only of animals without certain residues that would persist and affect the quality of the products. As for diseases and such, I think even prion diseases would be destroyed by the current processing.

The remains should be processed properly. Animal products can be processed correctly, for the right amount of time and temperature, to provide safe products. Processing plants can be clean and well run.

The animals should be put down humanely, without pain, in a quiet environment. I would prefer animals were put down at home. Transporting a sick, confused, old animal can be traumatic. Old animals are usually creatures of habit. I cringe seeing old animals at the livestock auctions, and I hope most pets get better treatment.

I have other objections to some of the cheap pet feeds. I have an abiding feeling of discomfort when I see bright pink or orange dog pooh. I think some of these feeds contain a lot of dyes, preservatives and cheap ingredients from foreign sources that could easily be contaminated with chemicals or infectious agents. But some of the cheap dog foods are rather good quality. I won't paint them all with a broad brush.

I'm more ambivalent about the 'quality ingredients' issue. I think there is some FIERCE marketing in the pet food industry, most of it based on no science or junk science, and Barnum and Bailey's principle. The key is - people believe it. 'What I feed my dog' has always been a little bit more about 'What I think YOU should feed YOUR dog', but thanks to recent marketing, the battle has had the volume turned up to a fever pitch and anyone who isn't a 'believer' is a heretic and an animal abuser.

According to least cost formulation, the source of a protein or fat is not as important as meeting a certain percentage of protein in the feed. Most animal feeds are formulated according to least cost formulation, and the exact type of the ingredients changes from time to time. Processed protein could come from chicken meal, lamb meal or other products. Pet owners may have favorites and believe fervently one is better than the other (today pet owners also have very, VERY strong feelings about specific grains as ingredients, again, marketing very successful there as well), but the thinking on the part of the manufacturer is probably a little different.

I stick with companies that have a more consistent formulation, and have ingredients I like. I stick with companies that I know the label and the product have something in common. But I don't buy the most costly or the newest all-the-rage food, and when someone starts 'evangelizing' me about the subject, I run as fast as I can to a space in the universe that they don't occupy.

 

[noodleroo]

Welsummerchicks: You bring up some excellent points. I guess my biggest concern is that diseased (or poisoned) animals can't be processed properly and I don't really trust the people making the profits to consistently do the right thing...

 

[Brindlebtch]

Wildlife centers also use a knacker to come get the dead animals. Same guy that picks up frozen animals at the vet. So you may well be getting poisoned possums and grackles hit by a car in pet food, too.

 

[welsummerchicks]

knackers pick up grackles? really?

 

[Brindlebtch]

Quote:
They empty the dead animal freezers at the wildlife centers, just like vets. Probably not all wildlife centers, but certainly a few!