Cheap dog foods

HI! it's been awhile since I posted on this forum but now I would appreciate you help...

I am looking for a quality but cheap complete dog food (large dog) for a dog that apparently has some food alergy (very dry skin and sctrathing, tummy upsets).This dog is from Bosnia and there is not much choice in dog food there so we want to bring them food (I go there every 2 months) - the problem is that the dog owners don't have a lot of money (neither do I) so cannot afford premium foods like orijen and such. Can you please recomend me some cheap but good foods (I know pedigree and darling etc aren't good) - and please don't give me local brands like ASDA or Tesco.. cause I am now in EU, not UK.
I have heard that chappie is pretty good low budget food - but I don't know if it is the same chappie we get here. Cause here the package of Chappie is totally different (Blue) from the ones I have seen in UK - can someone please post the ingredient list of UK Chappie, please?
Thanks very much!

Lots of German Shepherd rescues around me use CSJ food - it's fairly cheap but seems to suit most GSDs (which are a breed prone to tummy issues). Also Ceri who works there is apparently very helpful to talk to, so you could give her a call to discuss suitable foods and perhaps shipping if you need it sent over there.
Another option would be to research raw feeding - whether it's possibly over there or not would depend on availability of all the ingredients (e.g. if they can get hold of meat, bones and offal in good proportions - getting free/cheap bones from a butcher is no good if they can't get hold of/afford to feed a good proportion of muscle meat too as the dog will just get too much bone in their diet), but it can work out to be cheaper than a commercial food and is usually great for dogs with sensitive tummies and itchy skin conditions, as often it's the grains in dry food that cause allergies/intolerances.

I don't know about raw feeding - I mean meat there is way cheaper compared to meat prices here but so is their income Will do some research and than calculate how much it would cost, but it is a big dog...

Will have a look at CSJ and have to see if it is available where I live or how much it would cost to ship it to me...
THX

I would avoid food with cereals if the dog has alergies chappie has cereals in it so might not be good?
Butchers is a good tinned dog food with no cereals etc we are starting to give some to our dogs for various reasons. It costs a little bit more than chappie but I would not say it was expensive and they sell it in parts of europe. http://www.butcherspetcare.com/
Some say it's the next best thing to raw food Landywoods raw food company recomend the tinned tripe for times like when you take your dogs on holiday and can't feed raw as easily.

Raw feeding worked out as cheap as feeding CSJ for me and I know of other people who've found it as cheap, or cheaper. It does depend a lot on suppliers though - I had a panic when my supplier went out of touch for a bit (turned out he was on holiday) because there's not many suppliers around here and I was looking at paying double what I normally was to have things shipped from further away, or buying pre-packaged raw meat designed for pets (seems they've cottoned on to this raw feeding lark and charge a lot for it). For my two, with my supplier, I pay about £40 a month to feed the two of them (and they're both large breeds) - I do then buy extras like fish, chicken/turkey breast etc from the supermarket but tend to scour the reduced aisle a lot to get some real bargains, this keeps the cost down.
If you follow the prey model diet of raw feeding (there are lots of different 'veins' of raw feeding, e.g. BARF, prey model, etc) then you aim to feed 2-3% of the dog's ideal body weight, and this should be 80% muscle meat (heart & tripe counts as muscle in terms of raw), 10% bone (non-weight bearing bones, so chicken legs, wings, carcasses, etc rather than marrowbones) and 10% offal (liver, kidney, pancreas, brain - as said, heart doesn't count as offal in terms of raw as it's just a big muscle). Your friend could perhaps make a list of the components of raw feeding and get prices from local butchers etc. - they may do a good deal on meat if your friend takes all the bones, offcuts etc. that butchers would often have to pay to have removed (not sure if it works the same over there though). If they want to get a list of suitable foods, they could look at the raw food suppliers in the UK to see what products are available. Landywoods, Durham Animal Feeds, The Dogfood Company, to name a few - just google for their websites & prodoct lists. If your friend has the internet, there's lots of information on raw feeding out there, I would recommend that they researchit thoroughly as it does mean their dog's health is in their hands, in terms of nutrition, but personally it works well for me and my dogs

I've tried to find the ingredients for Chappie on line for you, but not had any joy. However, i would say I know of a number of people who have used it successfully for dogs with sensitive stomachs.

I do think that kibble does not suite some dogs and I would be tempted to try tinned chappie (though I appreciate that it won't be as easy for you to take with you), or as someone else has suggested, a raw diet.

If you do want a kibble, then Skinners duck and rice is also a reasonably priced, reasonable quality food.

http://www.chappiedogfood.com/chappie-dog-food-ingredients/

http://www.chappiedogfood.com/

Here is some info on chappie it says ok for algeries BUT I would not give it to ours as one of them gets a bad skin reaction from wheat (as some other dogs can get to) so up to you if you think the dog will react to wheat but I don't know and as some have said they have heard it's good up to you, also read my previous post back up on here.

TBH when you`talking about feeding a dog, the price difference isn`t huge. It works out at less than 70p per day to feed a large dog. That`s less than a packet of fags over a week.
If you work out how much it takes (weight) to feed a dog and calculate it that way, the more expensive foods don`t work out a lot more. A 15k sack of complete Autarky from Berriewoods is on offer atm for £19 and Autarky is pretty good. Bakers (which I wouldn`t touch with a bargepole) is £22.
I would suggest Arden Grange Lamb & rice complete, currently on offer at £47 for two 15k bags at http://www.berriewoodwholesale.co.uk...grange-748.htm

the recommended amount for a dog the size of a German Shepherd (35-40k) is around 400g per day, so one 15k sack would last about 5 weeks (I recommend you check my math!). At £24 per sack for 5 weeks that`s not bad.

Oh yup, definately work it out by how long the bag would last, feeding the guideline amount, rather than the price per kilo. I worked this out for a customer once, when I worked in a petshop a few years back - he was feeding Bakers and when I tried to convince him to switch to JWB, he was horrified at the price. But when I compared how much he had to feed, he'd need to feed (going by the figures anyway - dogs can vary but it shows how much more digestible the JWB is on average) 3 times as much Bakers as he would JWB. Bakers being only 1/2 the price was actually more expensive to feed than one of, at the time, the most premium foods you could buy!

yeah I know about having to feed less of premuim foods (I fed my dog Orijen) but you see that is hard to convince some people...
They are an older couple that seem to love their dog but like they were just horrified when I told them how much orijen or similar brands cost...Tho I know I had a bag of orijen for more than a month for my (admitedly older) dog. I just want them to get there gradually
For now I think any dog food from here would be better than what they are currently feeding her (some brand I have never heard of before and it doesn't smell good nor does the dog want to eat it) - we always have some dog food from our local market with us to feed street dogs (there are a lot of them in some parts). It isn't a good food, its just dogs there are very happy to get it...
So anyway we gave her some of that food and she gobbled it down and the owners said wow, better food and thanked us. But man I felt so guilty - giving them crappy food and they were so thankfull (of course we just gave it for free). So they asked if we could bring them some dog food from here and they will pay us. I can't just buy some premium pet food - first I intend to buy some cheaper foods and than buy a little bit better brand every time - that's the plan anyway Cause I am sure it will be easier to convince them to give just a little bit more money every time and when they will see that it really costs them the same or even less...well you know!