OK, as you might recall, I have been unlucky with my recent kibble purchases – finding thingies in two different brands. And as I said, I don’t buy kibble that often so two bags of kibbles-n-mystery-bits in a row seems odd to me. Yesterday, with some hesitation, I purchased a bag of Natural Balance Sweet Potato and Fish. Have you guessed yet? Bits. Again.
Honestly, I don’t even know if I’m going to bother with contacting the manufacturer this time. The first bag, I contacted the manufacturer, they tested the food and basically said everything was A-OK, it was just grain chaff. Well that may be perfectly fine to them but I was not so excited to learn I was feeding my dogs chaff. Second bag, the manufacturer apparently didn’t care about the info and didn’t even want to see my photos or get a sample of the food. This third bag, I’m thinking if I contact them, I may be at risk of earning a reputation as one of those wacky people who make a living “falling down” in Wal-Marts and on slippery sidewalks in front of large hotels. I’m not planning on bringing any lawsuits. I would just like to know the honest answers to a few simple questions:
1. Is this just some type of coincidence or is this a symptom of a trend among pet food manufacturers? IOW, times are tough, ingredients are expensive and corners must be cut to maintain profits – thus, pet food manufacturers are bulking up their feeds with grain chaff.
2. Are these three manufacturers buying “ingredients” (if you consider grain stalks an ingredient) from the same source and thus the reason for the un-ground bits appearing in all three kibbles? Or is there some other explanation?
3. Since chaff is not specifically listed as an ingredient on any of these bags of food, are there any other ingredients the manufacturers would like to specify which perhaps they feel are covered under some other ingredient listing at present? Perhaps “chicken” is intended to include “feathers” or something like that, I don’t know. But I’d like to know what exactly it is I’m paying for and feeding to my dogs. Is that too much to ask?