Bil-Jac users

Funny you mention this. I have a post out complaning about it- after having used it in my rotations for years and being generally happy with it.
 
I am a month and a half back into feeding bil-jac select to my guys. It's been more than a year, possibly 2 since I fed it.
 
The dogs were finally all in good health.  Darby the bichon had overcome her terrible yeast overgrowth on her feet and ears after 4 years of fighting it.  Lexi the bichon had finally put on some coat and Gobie the old minpin was doing well. (he's actually the only one still doing good on bj- but has large stool).
 
Ok, so now a month and a half into feeding bj (and after having defended how much I liked the food here) I"m no longer singing the praises.  Darby's yeast infection is back and suddenly raging in her ear and on her foot. It took a year for us to get that cleared up and her fur white and perfect and now.. rusty and the skin is angry and oozy and red.
 
Lexi actually had some hair start to grow on a bald spot from a vaccine last July while eating bj.  Monday she developed gallbladder/biliary duct disease which is caused by foods too high in fat my vet said.  Usually I supplement with fresh people food, etc along with kibble but the last several weeks I've been very busy and they've been getting mostly kibble. 
So bj is now officially off our rotation permanently.
 
However, I will say if you have a very picky dog and it comes down to getting the dog to eat Something, bj would probably work. They love the taste.
 
As for us, we'll be going back to PetGuard, which we had fed last time for 6 months straight (I usually rotate after 3 months because I begin to see some sort of other problem with most foods). I had no problems or complaints whatsoever on PetGuard, so now... if it ain't broke, I won't be fixing it.  I'll be using their dry and canned.
 
Hope this has been helpful for you.  Many people will pick apart the ingredients- and I defended them for a time, until now- the poor dogs are falling apart!
 

I'm assuming you are talking about Bil Jac kibble.    It wasn't even invented (I don't think) when I was feeding  my Dane/Shepherd Bil Jac frozen.   The frozen is not available all over from what I understand, but Bil Jac is made about 15 minutes away from me so the frozen is in all of the stores here.  I switched to frozen when everything else was causing stomach problems for Cinday. I would go  back to it in a flash if I had to get my dog off of Eagle Pack.  Bil Jac kibble I never fed but where I used to work, the owner brought his dog to work everyday, and Bailey got very very picky over the years and Gary switched him to Bil Jac kibble and Bailey LOVED it.  
About a year ago it got brought up here on Idog,,,,and I think it got voted down by the ingredients (go figure!!!) biggest culprit I think was corn syrup.  Probably why the dogs LOVE it!

biggest culprit I think was corn syrup.

I didnt see any corn syrup in the ingredient list,it does however list molasses,is this the same thing?

Molasses is a by-product of making sugar.  It's full of all kinds of good things including iron, calcium, copper, manganese, potassium and magnesium. 

Yeah,,,,I'll bet mollasses was the ingredient, not corn syrup.  AND see, Stef found something good in Mollasses!  Sorry, I just remember that from a conversation a while back ago....but then there is only a very few foods around on this forum that people approve of.   For me, when Bailey gobbled it up and loved it, after turning his nose up to everything else, it was a Godsend and I would't care WHAT was in it to a point.

Yes it does have mollasses, I like to judge a food by trying it as opposed to just looking at ingredients, been there done that. She has only been on it a couple of weeks, and she looks better than she has on any other food, and I have tried most of the premium kibbles.  She doesn't itch at all, only found one other kibble she didn't scratch on, so I am cautiously optimistic, but I have to say after 2 weeks she has done better on this food than any other.

She has only been on it a couple of weeks, and she looks better than she has on any other food, and I have tried most of the premium kibbles.
 
Then God bless you,,,,KEEP USING IT unless you see otherwise, because THAT to me is what is most important!

I agree- many people picked apart the ingredients when I asked about it a month and a half ago.  My dogs do seem to do better on the frozen bil-jac than the kibble.  I defended it and said that the performance speaks louder than the ingredients for bj, at least in my case.  And I rotated with it in my rotation now for 10 yrs.
 
Molasses I have no problem with, it's got lots of nutrients in it, actually, and I used to feed it when I was doing the Volhard diet from scratch.
 
Something is not agreeing with my guys unfortunately.  I looked back in their notebooks last night and it seemed that Darby had wicked yeast infections around the times I was feeding bj.    Now it seems that hte only thing that's going to work short of cooking for them (which, I don't really have all that much time for anymore) is PetGuard. 
 
Give it a try and see how your dog does- he might do really very well on it. I have one minpin that is actually doing quite well still on the dry bj.  But since I am not fond of having multiple bags, I try to find something that works for all 3.

Well, I don't mean to be an "ingredient nazi" but ingredients do matter....
 
Shamrockmommy, I'm pretty sure it was the corn, molasses and brewer's dried yeast that caused your girls yeast infection to flare up. Corn feeds yeast and molasses (or any type of sugar) also feeds yeast. It's not recommended to feed any type of yeast to dogs prone to yeast infections and the Bil Jac contains brewer's dried yeast.
 
Anyway, the ingredients above won't be a problem for every dog, but I don't think they're the healthiest either.

It's a common misconception that brewer's yeast causes yeast infections in skin.  It's a totally different type of yeast.
 
Likely the problem is the carbohydrates, grains, molasses.  Since my dogs can eat other foods which contain corn and Darby doesn't develop yeast infections on those foods (within the last year anyway- specifically PetGuard), I think it likely was the molasses.
 
At any rate, they will be switched back to PetGuard tomorrow, when teh stores open after memorial day.  Hopefully I'm able to get the problem under control with Darby.

Lexi- well, we have to see what her bloodwork says and go from there with her gallbladder/biliary duct disease.
 
 

We tried it for a small time when we were switching from puppy food to adult food. It was good nutritionally wise but it made her coat coarse and not as soft as the Nutro Natural Balance. But I think if they rank the same nutritionally then its whats best for your dog!