Eukanuba and Pedigree

ORIGINAL: sarah_b

Your first real meat in the Eukanuba formula is chicken by-product meal (intestines, feet, etc.

Well now, you had me going on this one. As not all chicken by products are created equal. So I went to the Eukanuba sight to see if they had an ingredient description. Now mind you, this what their web sight has posted....I have no idea if the Euk people would fabricate or falsify their ingredient description, or why they would want to.

"Chicken By-Product Meal (protein)
Chicken by-product meal is flesh and skin, internal organs including intestines, and bone that have been cleaned, dried, cooked and ground. It provides essential amino acids for muscle building, tissue repair, hormone synthesis and other metabolic processes. Internal organs are rich sources of protein, fats, and minerals, such as iron, that are essential to dog and cat health and add to the palatability of the pet food.

If their formula contained chicken skin and flesh, it would be listed under "Chicken" or "Chicken Meal." They do have "chicken" listed which means that it's including water weight and is further down their ingredients list once dehydrated. Any chicken flesh or skin in by-product meal is completely incidental.

Including some ground bone provides a good source of minerals, such as calcium. Some pet-food manufacturers formulate their products without such ingredients to appeal to dog and cat owners, rather than for optimal health of dogs and cats. However, the nutritional needs of dogs and cats are not the same as the nutritional needs of humans.

Their Eukanuba Natural Lamb & Rice doesn't contain bone of any kind. Make no mistake, what you're reading at Eukanuba's website is "make you feel good" marketing speak. I'm not condemning feeding the food, but please don't use their marketing speak to elevate to more than it is.

I'm not condemning feeding the food, but please don't use their marketing speak to elevate to more than it is.

And that "marketing speak" goes both ways. If a food puts "HUMAN GRADE!" and "ALL NATURAL!" on its bag, it's alleging that any product that *doesn't* have these claims is superior. But those little slogans have no standard description and are not regulated in any way. What do they mean by all natural? What do they mean by human grade? I could feed my dog a diet of all natural human grade hot dogs but that doesn't mean it's good for her (or me!)

Well, with Eagle Pack, for example, natural means USDA approved chicken is used and no pesticides are used on any of the grains. Human grade is used to substantiate the quality of the ingredients used, not the type of ingredients used. There are companies out there that use the "human grade!" marketing and I wouldn't feed them to my dog except in the most dire straits; I completely agree with you in that aspect.

Their Eukanuba Natural Lamb & Rice doesn't contain bone of any kind. Make no mistake, what you're reading at Eukanuba's website is "make you feel good" marketing speak. I'm not condemning feeding the food, but please don't use their marketing speak to elevate to more than it is.

 
Just wondering how you know it doesn't contain any bone at all?

My mistake. I was just waking up and forgot that bone can be included in strictly meat definitions.

natural means USDA approved chicken is used

 
I wonder if the chickens are those that eat the food with the "miracle growth" stuff mixed in to make them turned into full grown chickens over night.    I have wondered where those chickens that ate chemical laced food to grow faster, much, much faster, end up.  By the way, hubby, a long haul truck driver of chemicals and haz mat told me about that chemical he has hauled to the makers of chicken feed.  he thinks it totally unnatural and scarey that they are fed this stuff to grow faster, hit the market faster.

Eukabana has generic fish meal in most of their formulas. Generic fish meal is almost always preserved with ethoxyquin. Ethoxyquin is not allowed in most human foods. It is listed as being toxic from ingestion, inhalation, and through skin contact. It's been shown to be "safe" when fed to dogs for five years. I personally hope my dogs live longer than that. If you feed Eukabana every day for ten years and then your dog develops cancer or goes into kidney or liver failure, well, how do you know if it's the generic fish meal? I'm not risking it.
 
Corn is contaminated with low levels of aflatoxins. Aflatoxins are carcinogenic and toxic to liver and other organs. You feed your dog a corn-based every day of his life he's consuming a whopping dose of aflatoxins. If he develops cancer or goes into liver failure at age eight, how do you know it's not the corn? I'm not risking it.

ORIGINAL: sandra_slayton

natural means USDA approved chicken is used

I wonder if the chickens are those that eat the food with the "miracle growth" stuff mixed in to make them turned into full grown chickens over night.    I have wondered where those chickens that ate chemical laced food to grow faster, much, much faster, end up.  By the way, hubby, a long haul truck driver of chemicals and haz mat told me about that chemical he has hauled to the makers of chicken feed.  he thinks it totally unnatural and scarey that they are fed this stuff to grow faster, hit the market faster.

Not in the case of Eagle Pack. They use hormone free.

ORIGINAL: schlep

Not in the case of Eagle Pack. They use hormone free.

Another marketing gimmick. All chicken is hormone free.

ORIGINAL: sandra_slayton

I wonder if the chickens are those that eat the food with the "miracle growth" stuff mixed in to make them turned into full grown chickens over night.    I have wondered where those chickens that ate chemical laced food to grow faster, much, much faster, end up.  By the way, hubby, a long haul truck driver of chemicals and haz mat told me about that chemical he has hauled to the makers of chicken feed.  he thinks it totally unnatural and scarey that they are fed this stuff to grow faster, hit the market faster.

Those chickens are most likely for human comsumption, and the pets get what's left after those chickens are butchered. I don't think chickens are raised just for pet food. Somewhere around here is a great post by Brookcove that goes into detail about some of that. I'll see if I can find it.

Edited to add post from the "Letter from Merrick" thread

For instance, a friend of mine takes loads of chicks to grow and often she'll say, "Those are for KFC." or, "Those are going to be Wendy's nuggets." Large corps that only use the white meat or certain parts will simply seperate what they want and sell on the rest and that meat is not grocery store quality. Ie, the breats from a nugget chicken aren't going to yield the kind of drumsticks a customer expects to see on the grocery store shelves - they will be rangy and heavy in bone to support the oversized breast. Same with a "wings" chicken - the breast won't be as thick and juicy because the legs wouldn't support such a bird with oversized wings AND premium sized breast.
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I believe this extra product will go to dog food. It's premium quality since it comes from the human food chain from start to finish. I used to buy "frames" from a plant that processed all-natural meats grown in Georgia - they were meaty and with just a teeny bit of meat and veggie supplementation, provided everything my dogs needed for over a year. And they were antibiotic free and humanely grown. Then they stopped selling small orders to the public - guess who started buying their product instead? Boo hoo - it's ironic that the premium kibble companies are actually making it harder for us little guys to feed their dogs by products from the all-natural food supply chain.

Mudpuppy,
 
Could you please site the research studies for these statements.  I would like to research it further.
 

ORIGINAL: sooner

ORIGINAL: schlep

Not in the case of Eagle Pack. They use hormone free.

Another marketing gimmick. All chicken is hormone free.

Chicken from this country (US) has to be by law. It's been that way for a long time. I don't pretend to know what the conditions are in other countries where some companies may be getting ingredients from, though.

I don't know what that product is called, but hubby and all the drivers that haul it call it Miracle Growth.  When he first told he was hauling "miracle growth, i corrected him and said it was Miracle Grow and he said no, it wasn't the stuff for flowers, it was to add to chicken feed to make them grow so much faster.  I didn't like the sound of that then--i cook chicken for my dogs, i love chicken livers, we loved fried chicken---and i still don't like it.

Marketing and advertising can be so ---.  Well, for instance, when we lived in ohio many, many years ago my 16 year old sister flew up to spend a couple of weeks with us.  We went out to shopping and stopped to eat.  The menu said hamburger, onion rings, cole slaw.  My sister made the comment "I bet we get two onion riings so they can put an S on ring and make it sound like we are getting several."  She was correct.It was perfectly legal to add the S, as it was more than one, but very misleading as you thought onion rings as in french fries, a decent size helping.

And of course the TV under $500----it is $499.99, just one cent under the $500, but the advertising sounds like you are making a savings. 

I don't want to be eating chickens that were "rushed to growth" like that.

I don't want to be eating chickens that were "rushed to growth" like that

About the only things in chicken feed are grains, vitamins/minerals, less than 3% animal deriviatives like bone meal (I can't remember exactly the percentage) and very low doses of prophylactic antibiotics (which cannot be fed for a certain number of weeks before slaughter). Miracle Growth is just a marketing gimmick. It's genetics and management (like lighting) that have as much or more impact on growth rate. My uncle raises free-range organic eggs and used to raise free-range organic turkeys. He thinks organic is great from an environmental and economic standpoint, but can't stand some of the zealots who blow things out of proportion healthwise. (But won't argue with them because he's making good money off their paranoia!)

It's genetics and management (like lighting) that have as much or more impact on growth rate.

 
Exactly. There are breeds of chickens, just like breeds of dogs, all bred for different things.
 
If you buy a chicken in the grocery store, you're buying a Cornish X Rock cross. They have been selectively bred to be the "perfect" meat chicken. They don't *have* to give them hormones (not that they can anyway) because they've been bred to grow so large so quickly. They've been selectively bred to be fat, stupid, eating machines. They eat so much that they actually have to restrict their food for 12 hours a day, or they'll eat themselves to death. They've been bred to have such large breasts, and for their muscles to grow so quickly, that their skeletons sometimes can't keep up and many of them die at a few weeks of age because their baby chicken skeletal structure can't support their adult size muscles. It's very, very sad, and IMO, cruel to breed an animal with those traits. When I got my chickens, I got a few Cornish crosses because I had heard they were good meat birds...I ended up putting them out of their misery at about 4 weeks of age because they couldn't walk normally...and this was after being pastured and only supplemented with grain.
 
The broiler chickens you buy at the grocery store are only about 6-8 weeks old. To give you an idea of how freakish it is for them to be that size at that age, my current chickens (I have Polish, Welsummers, Phoenix, and Cochins-heritage breeds, not production breeds) are 9 months old, and the largest of them would be probably 3 pounds dressed out. People think there is something wrong with my "skinny" chickens when they see them all cleaned and ready to eat...because they're so used to seeing the obese monstrosities at the grocery store. Chickens were never meant to grow that large, or that fast. But it isn't due to hormones- it's all genetic. [&o]