| Website | ZIWI Peak |
| Country of origin | New Zealand |
| Available from | Pet Circle |
| Related | Eureka (Australia), Absolute Holistic (New Zealand) |
You’re probably reading this review because you’ve heard ZIWI Peak is an amazing dog food – one of the best in Australia in fact.
As a brand with an excellent reputation worldwide, it’s undoubtedly a top pick for the health of your dog, but it’s understandably one of the most expensive dog foods you can buy.
If you’re on a budget don’t worry too much, as there’s no reason ZIWI Peak can’t be a part of your dogs diet, for an occasional meal, mixed in with a cheaper dog food, or even as a training treat (yep, it’s great for training, and I used it to train my collie!).
It’s worth mentioning we have an excellent competitor to ZIWI Peak in Australia, and that’s Eureka – with a new-fangled deliver-to-your-door service. It’s worth checking out that review as well, especially if you’d rather support an Aussie company.
For the ZIWI Peak dog food review we’ll take a look at the Venison recipe, but they’re all equally as good.
ZIWI Peak dog food review
What the marketing says
On the ZIWI Peak website for the Venison recipe they say “Loaded with free-range venison, ethically raised on pastures of lush and native grasses in the remote valleys of New Zealand’s South Island.” Doesn’t that sound delicious?
If that doesn’t sound good enough, let these facts resonate:
- 96% Meat, Organs & NZ Green Mussels.
- Free Range Grass Fed Farming.
- No Antibiotics or Growth Promotants.
- No Grains, Sugars, or Glycerins Added.
When you know most dog foods on the market are bags of grain with token amounts of poor quality meat remnants preserved with chemicals then that makes ZIWI Peak dog food an absolute godsend.
Thankfully the marketing of ZIWI Peak really tallies with what the ingredients and analysis really say about this dog food, so let’s delve in a little deeper…
What the labelling really says
Most dry dog foods sit around 22% protein, 10% fat, and a hell of a lot of carbs. ZIWI Peak in comparison boasts a minimum of 45% protein, 23% fat, and in true raw diet style next to no carbohydrates or sugars whatsoever. Even with higher protein dry foods you find they’ve bulked up protein with stuff like peas or corn, but there’s none of that rubbish here. It’s literally all meat, organs, green-lipped mussels, and a range of vitamins and minerals to ensure your dog doesn’t miss out on anything. Many raw feeders turn their nose up at the insanely stinky yet incredibly nutritious tripe, but even with this ZIWI Peak have you covered.
Air-drying rather than baking at high temps into a kibble is a huge bonus. It retains nutrients and greatly extends shelf life with moisture removed. It’s worth noting meat content is mostly water, so what you’re left with after air-drying is all the important stuff – keep that in mind when comparing the price to fresh meats inclusive of water, as 1kg of Ziwi Peak is equivalent to around 3kg+ of fresh meat.
Green-lipped Mussels are a fantastic inclusion and a tell-tale sign of a quality product. They’re native to New Zealand, and a fantastic source of omega fats for a healthy skin and coat as well as a proven anti-inflammatory for joint health.
There’s no trickery used on the labelling, so you get exactly what it says on the tin. I don’t need to delve into the benefits of each ingredient as for a carnivorous animal as they speak for themselves: Venison, Venison Tripe, Venison Heart, Venison Lung, Venison Liver, Venison Kidney, New Zealand Green Mussel, Venison Bone.
It’s simply brilliant.
This is such a convenient alternative for those who wish to feed raw but simply don’t have the time. It’s more expensive than other dog foods, but you’re buying a food which is way over and above your average kibble. It’s mostly meat which is much more expensive than the fillers we find in other foods, and this does somewhat justify the price.
ZIWI Peak dog food is definitely recommended, so definitely buy a bag and give it a go even if it’s just for treats.
If this review has been informative, please share with others.
Where to buy ZIWI Peak dog food
ZIWI Peak dog food review summary
With so many people raving about raw food for dogs, yet so much complexity and uncertainty feeding such a diet, dog foods such as ZIWIPeak air-dried offer a wonderfully easy solution which is complete, balanced, with all nutrients required for a dog to sustain a very healthy existence. The trade off is price, with ZIWIPeak being one of the most expensive dog foods on the market. You can argue you get what you pay for, or you can look at it as most other dog foods are cheap, for a reason.
If you have a small dog, or if you’re super wealthy, then price won’t be as much of an issue. If like the rest of us you have to run a tight ship, or if you have a pack of big hungry labradors, then ZIWIPeak can still be fed as a treat or topper. Even if you just use ZIWIPeak as training treats (which they’re great for!), then you’ll still be contributing to the health of your dog.
Give ZIWIPeak a go!!
Ingredients
The ingredients of ZIWI Peak dog food:
Venison, Venison Tripe, Venison Heart, Venison Lung, Venison Liver, Venison Kidney, New Zealand Green Mussel, Venison Bone, Lecithin, Inulin from Chicory, Dried Kelp, Minerals (Dipotassium Phosphate, Magnesium Sulfate, Zinc Amino Acid Complex, Copper Amino Acid Complex, Iron Amino Acid Complex, Manganese Amino Acid Complex, Selenium Yeast), Salt, Parsley, Preservative (Citric Acid, Mixed Tocopherols), Vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Folic Acid).
Guaranteed analysis
The guaranteed analysis of ZIWI Peak dog food:
| Protein | (min) 45% |
| Fat | (min) 23% |
| Crude Fibre | (max) 2% |
| Carbohydrates * | Barely any whatsoever |
Been feeding Ziwi (and now Eureka) as 50% of the diet plus Lyka for the other 50%. Think it’s a great food. Would love to hear your thoughts on Ziwi’s new “Steamed and Air-Dried” formulations. Looks like they’re added more veggies/fruit and less meat.
I recently tried the steamed and dried version of Ziwi for my labradoodle, and he really loves it! It seems like a more affordable option, but I’m curious to know how it compares in quality to the original air-dried version. Does it meet similar nutritional standards? Would appreciate your thoughts or any insights.
i have been feeding my 2 year old Samoyed Ziwi peak air dried and now also the Ziwi Peak Steam Dried Lamb with Vegetables, his coat is even more stunning and great to see that Ziwi peak has included fruit and vegetables in their formulas. Highly recommend.
Review forgot to incldue that inulin is added to this product, which is a filler and a con.
Hi; I been feeding Ziwi Peak dry to my Xolo male since i got him at 3 mos old now 4 yrs old and i see the different in feeding this brand to kibble , I also add other healthy things to Ziwi food and i feed 1 cup of Lamb in the morning and 1 cup of Vension in the afternoon of a 2 oz cup. Ziwi peak made a few small changes to the food nothing to worry about . Ive been in touch with the company about it! Great Food ,i give it 10 Stars!
Hello! I just want to firstly say how much I appreciate this webpage and your reviews. I’d be lost without it!
I’ve recently heard that folic acid – a synthetic version of folate has been linked to cancer in humans. The jury is still out on direct causation but is perhaps more likely to show correlation in higher risk groups or supplementing in high levels. Could you speak to what you know about this? I notice it is in a lot of dog food. Including the beloved Ziwi Peak.
Hi Louise, that’s interesting to hear and I confess I can’t really add to what you’ve said. I’ve been doing some digging and found a lot of mixed results with research, with this summing up what would be my assumptions – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132377/
In many cases moderation is beneficial and excess is harmful, whether vitamins, minerals, grains, and more, perhaps even toxins. You often here garlic is bad for dogs, but the research I’ve read shows a dog would need a significant amount of garlic to suffer ill effects, or high levels of garlic over an extended period.
The way we feed our dogs – same food every day – tends to make matters worse in my eyes, which makes a poorly formulated pet food more of a health risk. i.e. if a brand is effected by high levels of toxins, and is fed for an extended period, then this can and does cause health issues.
Here’s another study on folic acid, which further adds to the uncertainty – https://gut.bmj.com/content/50/1/61
But if it puts your mind at rest, in any pet food it should always be a minor inclusion.
I am a HUGE Ziwi Peak fan… my late Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, who like most cavaliers her heart just couldn’t any longer, was on Ivory Coat grain free for many years until I read an article on the FDA website updated in 2019 about a potential link between those “filler” ingredients you speak about in grain free foods and canine dilated cardiomyopathy, especially in breeds with little to no previous genetic predisposition to the disease. I know it’s no research paper with scientific evidence and all that but as an owner of a breed where the cause of death is most likely due to some form of heart disease I knew I had to search for a different food to feed my furbaby.
I spent 3 hours inside a large pet store reading every single ingredient list, as someone with a background in food science, quality assurance & safety in hooman foods I luckily understand a lot about how labels work. If I saw an ingredient I couldn’t pronounce or didn’t know what is was I quickly moved on. I found Ziwi peak, saw the price and was convinced I could find something better but I couldn’t. I ended up taking home a free sample and never has my cavalier taken a dry food out of my hand as a treat so I knew this was the one.
Of course the first thing we see is the price of Ziwi. However because it doesn’t have all those “filler” ingredients, just literally pure goodness it means feeding size is drastically reduced. It’s like us eating a commercial high sugar breakfast cereal vs a bowl of porridge mixed with yogurt, berries, seeds, nuts. Long term the later is better for us and we don’t need as much to satisfy our hunger.
So I started jotting down the price of Ziwi retail and on sale and found a way, not sure if I’m allowed to mention it on here, to get the average price of Ziwi down to $30.18/kg from one store when on sale. With the long expiration and the help of another Ziwi fur fan I would buy up to 30kg and split the costs, or the savings with another fur mum.
My cavalier was doing great on it as well as mixing it with Prime100, her favourites being wild bore and kangaroo & pumpkin. Sadly as she got older her illnesses played a part in what she was fed. With her tracheal collapse she struggled eat the Ziwi, even adding a little water didn’t help and as her brain diseases progressed, chiari-like malformation & Caudal occipital malformation syndrome, also the activity of crunching on the Ziwi was starting to make her uncomfortable.
When she passed I still had 3 bags of 2.5kg and not knowing when I would become a fur mum again I gave them away to friends.
Now I am a fur mum to twin 15 week old Cavaliers. Wanting to feed them ziwi but with no puppy variety on the market I decided to ask them directly and their response was it is safe for dogs over the age of 6 weeks of age. While I don’t doubt it is a really good choice I do have to question what are some puppy specific foods similar to Ziwi including in their foods and what are the regulations for a company to call a food a specific stage in a dogs life. Also until writing this today I only found out Prime100 does their meat rolls for puppies but tapioca in the name after the protein.
While I’m still undecided on my long term choice for my girls I had to make an educated guess because anything is better than foods sold at the supermarkets. So for now they are doing well on both taste of the wild puppy varieties and leading raw puppy.
Love to hear your thoughts on if Ziwi or other similar products that don’t specifically have a puppy variety are sufficient for this important stage of their life.
Hey Lani,
if you’re Looking for a puppy option for ziwi, you can give them ziwi for cats. All the same formulas as ziwi for
Dogs except the pieces is are cut smaller. Puppy formulas are generally smaller in size and have a higher fat content. Supplementing this with a little goats milk or fatty topper can give you the ziwi benefits and will make it a little easier for the puppies to digest/chew. Hope this helps.
Hi Lani,
Puppy foods have stricter requirements to be complete and balanced. Or to look at it the other way, adult formulas require less nutrition. When a brand like ZIWI is suitable for all ages (known as all life stages) it meets those stricter requirements. Actually brands like ZIWI go way above what those minimum requirements are, which is why you can feed from such a young age.
The FDA investigation you mentioned was subsequently dropped due to lack of evidence. Unfortunately due to the FDA naming specific brands without evidence, it severely damaged those companies and you still see “grain free causes heart disease” all over the Internet to this day, even though it wasn’t backed by scientific evidence. Ironically the investigation was instigated by a certain Dr Lisa Freeman (on the payroll of big pet food manufacturers), and recently the brands that were damaged the most by the investigation have now been acquired by one of those big pet food manufacturers. Dubious, isn’t it!?
Congrats on your new pups!!!
I have a question about fat content in air dried products like ziwi and eureka pet. Even freeze dried K9 Natural. I see in their analysis the fat is always quite high, usually over 20%. Everything I read however says that that much fat can be detrimental and can cause issues with the pancreas. And fat should be around 10-15% of a dogs diet. Just wondering if you can clarify please. Or does it matter which source the fat comes from? Thanks!
Hi Amanda, I believe in raw feeding circles a recommended fat percentage is 10% to 20%, but there are other factors – namely moisture. Air and freeze dried foods have moisture mostly removed, so when you account for that (i.e. if you add moisture or your dog drinks water) then that effectively lowers the percentages of protein, fat, and also carbs (if any) of a food. Or to look at it the other way, prior to a dry food being dried the protein/fat/carbs etc would be less as a percentage.
So in short, don’t worry if your dog is otherwise healthy! If a dog is suffering a condition such as pancreatitis then it may pose an issue, but you always have to question what caused the condition in the first place.
[Tin Foil Hat]Another aspect is pet food marketing (and research conducted by pet food companies). It’s not in the interest of a kibble manufacturer to promote fats or (meat) proteins as key ingredients, as carbs (grains/non-grain alternatives) are cheaper and more profitable.[/Tin Foil Hat]
Great! Thanks for the informative reply
NOPE! I tried a few KiwiPeak varieties and I hate dog food that makes my dogs drink a lot.. or excessively! I have one super fussy dog and 2 that will eat anything and all 3 aren’t keen on KiwiPeak and the super fussy one has to have his favourite food mixed in to touch it.. THEN he drinks a lot.. I also go by their stool when assessing pet food and this stuff is super average and one dog had loose stools which was unusual for her..
I definitely would not rave about this pet food and I won’t be buying it again. It’s amazing how the ingredients can’t be taken as gospel with a lot of dog foods!
Any chance you will do a review Tu Meke. Have seen this brand pop up on pet circle.
How does the provenance range compare?
Unfortunately, Ziwi was just acquired by a Chinese investment firm so without a doubt they will do what they always do. Might as well have been bought out by Nestle or something.
Ziwi has a special place in my heart as a Kiwi in Melbourne, knowing something is owned and operated by people an hour’s drive away from my home gave me great confidence in their product and I’d pay the inflated price to buy it in Australia.
Now, I don’t know. I’ll grab a last bag or two, and then start transitioning my dog likely to raw food.
Private equity have bought in but its still run and partially owned I believe by the same kiwis. They just opened up a new massive production facility in Hawkes Bay in NZ.
K9 natural has also been acquired by a Chinese company
I wish I could feed my dog just Ziwi but she gets very soft stools on it so sadly can’t do.
I have saved all the dry foods ingredients and analysis, plus some of the wet food. So should anything change, I’ll know about it. I have others I feed more of though, the dogs were never that keen on Ziwi. They prefer the softer stuff.
Have the ingredients changed at all?
Not from what I can see. Hopefully they never do, but yeah we’ve heard that before.
a bit unhappy, just got my 1st cans of ZP wet, would be close to the sloppiest stuff I’ve ever seen in a can, hopefully my neighbour will buy them off me for his dogs, it could taste amazing and have amazing ingredients, but my dogs just won’t eat slop, if it held any form at all, my dogs would eat it and this review might be different, this can’t be eaten with teeth, only tongue, I have to stand there with spoon in hand while they eat to build it up constantly for them so it’s not just slop stuck to the bottom of their bowl, will crack a K9 Naturals wet can tomorrow and see if it’s any better, fingers crossed
Recently purchased Zealandia lamb wet food for my GSP, good consistency, you actually need to spoon it out of the can as it holds its form , fantastic ingredients,smells terrific and he loves the stuff. Was actually looking at ZP or K9 but will stay with Zealandia after reading some of the comments on here
Let me know how you find the K9 Naturals wet food in comparison!
I think the ZP would be good for a topper when it comes to large dogs, it had a good smell, the dogs enjoyed the taste, but my adult didn’t finish as she got tired of chasing her bowl, I put it in the fridge for a couple of hours and it held form better and she finished it off, so I’ll keep the ZP in the fridge, will keep you posted on the K9N
I get the cat cans cause I need tiny cans as they are a one off treat and also cause once they sit in the fridge they completely loose their smell.
Anyways I opened both my ZP and K9 recently the last 2 I had from a shop haul 2 months ago. Both were great, not slop, especially not the ZP. So that’s kinda interesting.
Maybe a sloppier batch, cause yeah I ordered 4 cans total and none of mine were slop.
Highlight of K9 I find is it smells heaps better, like actual canned meat, whereas ZP had a bit more of a processed smell.
I bought 8 cans, 4x lamb/mak and 4x beef, only opened 2 of the L/M and they didn’t hold any form, we’ll see if the beef does, fingers crossed, opened 2x chicken K9 last night, 1st impression was that’s a lot of liquid in the can, a lot, held form better than the ZP, I used it as a topper on some prime100 roll for my bitch and she wasn’t interested in it at all, I think she might be coming on heat though and goes off her food a bit when she does, although I gave her only prime100 roll(best you can get off the shelf in my rural town) tonight and she smashed it down, she did try to eat the ZP, just gave up on it, my 16 week old pup eats anything, so can’t judge off him, but after the K9 last night he was in hypo mode for 4-5 hrs which is a 1st.
My old elder, long gone now was always hyper after eating the mainly meat foods. So nothing new to see here haha, unless it’s an annoying type of hypo.
I opened beef Ziwi and chicken and lamb K9 recently. The beef held form, the chicken/lamb was watery but my boy absolutely loved the broth.
The other 2 cans I bought were I believe lamb Ziwi and I’ll go check actually. So no there was only 3 cans how odd.
I’ll be buying another haul of cans soon-ish off Habitat and hoping for the best with those.
She might just not like it, it’s certainly not going to be appetising for every single 900 million dogs worldwide lol. There wouldn’t be any bad reviews for flavour if every dog loved it.
Based on my searches there is still plenty of flavours I have and wish to try. I’ll buy more K9 as I prefer them honestly, just really prefer the smell and the dogs seem much more enthused.
Good Luck with the rest of the cans =)
Cracked a ZP beef tonight, I know what you mean about the smell now, couldn’t smell it in the 1st cans opened due to the Mackerel, but the beef didn’t smell appetising, my bitch wouldn’t touch it until I took it out of her bowl and replaced with prime100. I’ll crack a K9 beef tomorrow to compare smell and texture to ZP beef.
I’m not a fan of ZP cans texture at all, beef would have been slop too had I not kept the cans in the fridge, it severely sticks to the spoon just as bad as the bottom of the bowl.
Definitely over ZP now, I think K9 might be in the same boat soon, with the silver lining being I’m going to save a lot of money on dog food, gladly they do like the Orijen dry.
I’ll let you know how she goes with the remaining K9 flavours, the reason I cracked chicken 1st is that’s definitely her goto flav, she loves(almost) everything chicken, from raw, cooked, even dog rolls and treats, chickens her fav, so not holding much hope on the remaining K9 cans if she turned her nose up at the chicken one, but I won’t get ahead of myself.
How did the K9 one go? my two liked the ZP beef, but yeah I just wasn’t too fond of the smell. I wonder why it’s so different to K9, both use the same meats supposedly. Yet so vastly different.
it does stick I noticed that too, I give the cans on a tiny plate, so no issues, but yeah it’s sticky. I was giving the rest of it to the ants and had trouble sticking it to the tree. It was stuck af on my fingers rofl.
Oh that’s good cause Orijen is great. Maybe they might be more fond of pieces of food like uhh Taste of the Wild. Ivory Coat too but with the issues people are having with this brand cannot recommend.
Yeah that’s interesting, mine are like that too, not every chicken is loved, maybe she’s the same. Maybe it has to have a particular smell and texture.
Cause like mine love chicken, so I’ve tested a multitude of chicken kibbles over their lives and most were binned/given away/sold. Because they just didn’t want anything to do with them. Some had less meat, some more, some were mid meat.
I figured it must just be smell and taste of the kibble in general, including mouthfeel. Chicken or not.
K9 naturals went well, I still had to keep the cans refrigerated, I picked up a bag of K9 freeze dried on sale which they love.
Will definitely stick to Orijen dry, no other brand comes close ingredient wise, got an 11kg bag of 6 fish on the way, just finished their 11kg original.
I did some research and am now making slow cooked low temp meatballs for the dogs, 1st batch I did was chicken and turkey but when I taste tested was a bit bland, so have gone the more gamey roo and turkey, throwing in 6 eggs(4 hard, 2 raw), 5% lamb brain and lamb liver, broc, sweet pot, carrot, blueberries, blackberries, 2tbls coconut oil, 2tsp turmeric, 1tsp black pepper(activates turmeric), topped with K9 f/dried and they’re loving it, it covers all vits, mins and nutes in the right percentages, that’s also why I went the 6 fish, I’m highly allergic to seafood, so can’t put it in the homemade, they’ll get it in the kibble, and kelps in the kibble too.
So with the home cooked, K9 f/dried and Orijen, I think I’m on a winning diet, the dogs look great.
This company has sold out to the Chinese, Google it. Been buying Ziwipeak for years. No more.
Funding is being provided by a funding company in China to allow the company to continue production. Research will tell you that (at least according to all sources) production and everything else will remain within New Zealand and be business as usual, including the quality of the food they produce and the ethically sourced meats and seafood. Selling to a Chinese company (or an overseas company) doesn’t automatically equate to production moving overseas or a reduction in quality of the goods they produce. Whether that happens with ZP remains to be seen, I guess. This is what I’ve fed my dog religiously for the last two years, so I’ll be keeping an eye on the ingredients list to see if anything changes. Thanks for the heads-up!
So far that has been what has happened to nearly all the companies who did that or sold out. So people are going to be naturally sceptical.
I took pictures of nearly every food and saved them to an album, if anything changes I’ll be the one that knows.
I hope for everyone’s sake and sceptical mind that nothing changes.
thanks for the info. That’s the end of ziwi peak for me then. I want local made and owned.
So sad to hear this also. We just bought a 1kg and 4kg bag. I noticed the 1kg bag had a different smell and my dog wouldn’t eat it. But she ate the food from the 4kg which looked and smelled the same as previous batches in the past. FFS.
Unfortunately both my dogs cannot tolerate Ziwipeak. It gives them an upset stomach even though they like the taste. This is the second time I have tried this food because I thought that as they got older they might tolerate the transition better. I purchased it because of the quality and also availability. I will be going back to Frontier Pets freeze dried. The only problem I have with this is the availability. I wish it could be found in pet shops. Green muscle is now included in this organic food and my dogs love the pork.
Yes my boy was the same with Ziwi Peak, I think it has too much Organ meats & organ meats can cause sloppy poos/diarrhea when dog have sensitive stomach/bowel.
Go “Pet Barn” try ” Providore” air Dried Beef & Hoki it has the lowest Kcals & fat or start with the Providore Treats first & see how your dogs go, look at the Providore-Chicken & Green Lipped Mussel treats or the Providore Beef & Kiwi fruit treats have the lowest in fat & Kcals, my boy is OK when eating as a treat.
https://providorepetfood.com/dogs/providore-air-dried-dog-treats-chicken-green-lipped-mussel/
It is available in some pet shops, would have to check which ones though, few online shops have it but that makes it more expensive.
Which Ziwi were you trying? and were they gulping it or chewing it?
Hi. Can anyone advise me whether this Ziwi Peak is suitable for soaking so that it swells up and is more filling? I have a mixed terrier who weighs 9.5 k but should be about 8k. He’s on a calorie reduced diet, but he has a big appetite and it’s hard to stop him foraging if he has smaller serves. I use Meals for Mutts after seeing its reviews here, but my vet recommended Ziwi Peak. Would this be suitable to soak so it increases in size and satisfies him?
Hi
you need “freeze dried raw” like “Frontier Pets” Chicken formula has least fat, your vet probably hasn’t heard of Frontier Pets yet, F/P is Australian made at Evans Head NSW, Holistic Vet Cathy Cornack from Newcastle formulated F/P. You add some warm water to the balls & the Frontier Pet balls swell up & I wouldn’t add no kibble, just feed 3 smaller F/P Chicken & Pork formula meals a day & dogs weight will come off, Frontier Pets has only 3% carbs.
Ziwi Peak is air dried & doesn’t swell up. You’d only need to feed about 1/2 a cup of Ziwi Peak per day & my cat (over weight) is still whinging for more food after eating 1/4 cup Ziwi breakfast & 1/4 cup dinner Ziwi Peak doesn’t seem to satisfy her. So now I buy the Purina One Weight management kibble for cats & get some of the dog “Providore Beef & Hoki” sold Pet Barn & break up a few pieces on top of her kibble or feed Providore as treats & I feed her 4 smaller meals a day so she stops her whinging, cats suffer from Pancreatitis when they’re over weight her vet said, my cat wasn’t happy when she was put on a diet.
https://frontierpets.com.au/collections/dog-food
If you need to fill dog up, add boiled sweet potato, I freeze boiled Sweet Potato pieces that’s been cut up in 1 spoon size pieces, add cooked frozen beans, fruit – peel apple, rock melon, watermelon, dogs love watermelon pieces & buy can Tuna in spring water, drain the spring water out put tuna in container & I add cool boiled sweet potato, use as a small meal or as a topper. Feed 3 smaller meals a day..
When feeding a kibble make sure Kcals are low under 330Kcals per cup.
If your dog isn’t losing weight eating MfM then buy a bag Eukanuba Fit Body Small Breed kibble, it’s only 280Kcals per cup, carbs are under 30% & fat is 40% less fat then other kibbles.. Eukanuba is made in Australia now..
MfM Kcals aren’t low, I’ve read a few people dogs have put on weight since being fed MfM, the grain formula’s are low in meat-20% & high carbs, you need more meat, less carbs, less fat when wanting dog cat to lose weight, my boy gained weight on MfM Sardine & Rice but I needed him to gain weight back then..
Play ball 20mins twice a day, Walks- make sure he’s going on daily walks same time daily, get him into a routine.
Our pet store recommends using Ziwi Peak as a treat due to the price. They certainly sell more than they would otherwise. Most dogs will do anything for it and generally go nuts for it. Which is certainly worth it for me.
So an interesting development has begun with Rusty and the new Venison formula, it gives him so much energy he literally jumps up onto Angels table and eats all the food there, we’ve had to start removing what’s uneaten or he’ll eat it haha.
I wonder if these new formulations are more digestible because he was never this speedy and powerful after Ziwi before.
The table is no easy feat with his weight.
I’ll keep an eye on if it helps with anything else this time around.
Hi, Rusty must feel good, I like it when Patch comes to life he’s a bit naughty but I know he fels good. I was just looking at Ziwi Peak for PAtch this is a sign a good sign, I was just converting all the Ziwi Peak formula’s & the Rabbit & Lamb recipe is the lowest in fat, when converted the fat-18.18%, protein-43.18%, Venison fat-20.45%, protein-43.18%, Beef fat-25% protein-36.36% if you want I’ll post the Calculator link so you can convert all the wet tin foods you’ll be surprise with some formula’s…I’m driving Patch to the Park before this bad storm comes…its suppost to be coming up the east coast…
Didn’t hear of no bad storms this week but while we were on holidays there was some really bad windy days and today my mum woke me up to snow falling from the sky so that was super cool, haven’t had that happen in awhile.
You could post it or email it depending on what type of link it is as after all it may need approval.
Good luck with Patch and Ziwi I really do think they did a good thing with this change, it’s made the food so much better.
Hi here’s the guaranteed analysis calculator save it & use when you want to know how high the fat & protein is when converted to dry matter (Kibble)….
I just did a can of TOTW Roasted Lamb I bought a few months ago, the Protein-8%=44.44% fat-4.5%=25% fiber-1%=5.65% moisture-82%=0 when converted to dry matter…you’ll be surprised howhigh teh fat is with some foods, I’ve noticed when the moisture is higher the fat is higher??? maybe it was just a coincidence..
http://www.k-9kravings.com/resources/calculator.php
Might want to chop the S from k-9kravings in that link Susan.
Yes Alan you are right, it was the “S” I have a bad habbit of adding S on the end of my words lol
The uhh server cannot be found for some reason, I’ll try getting into it by googling instead.
Should be all fixed now.. I’ll click on link & see.
Yeah I didn’t reply back but I found out that the S was the problem even before Alan did, the site works just fine thanks.
Can I feed Ziwipeak to my 7 month old puppy, even though they don’t have puppy specific food?
The Ziwipeak people claim that this stuff is suitable for all ages, and since it’s quite a rich food in terms of protein & fat, that seems reasonable. A bit of extra caution and research might be wise in the case of giant breeds though.
Thanks Alan. My puppy is a toy poodle. I feel like Ziwipeak is better than any other kibble for her even though there isn’t a puppy specific product.
ZiwiPeak meats AAFCO standards for all life stages so can be fed to puppies. It’s a great food, with the biggest caveat being the cost. Thankfully with a Toy Poodle a bag should last a decent amount of times. It’s a different story when you have two ravenous Border Collies like I do…!!
Hi Marina Ziwi Peak isn’t a processed dry kibble, its air dried raw…..
It’s best to rotate between a few different brands & different proteins,…..
Have a look at
“Frontier Pets” Ethically farmed free range grass feed Beef, Pork & Chicken.
https://frontierpets.com.au/collections/dog-food
“Balanced Life” complete air dried raw https://www.mypetwarehouse.com.au/store/filtered/d_12/b_BALANCED-LIFE/
these are new air dried raw, you add water…
I’d guess you’re on a winner then in that case. It’s certainly a quality product but dogs are all a bit different and there are some fringe reports of dogs having difficulty (I’m guessing those dogs were eating large-ish quantities as a percentage of their meal, with some perhaps struggling to transition from a very different food). With that in mind and because the stuff is relatively pricey, I’d be more inclined to experiment with a few formulas in the smaller bags first.
Just curious was is everyone’s opinions with this versus Frontier Pets?
I have a Rottweiler puppy.
Hi Timothy, sorry for the delay in replying, although Susan and Veronika have offered some good info. Both ZiwiPeak and Frontier Pets are very good, so you’re feeding your dog well on either one. You could always feed both?
There are marginal differences between air drying and freeze drying, with the latter being the more costly process but retains almost all nutrients and offers a longer shelf life. Air drying still retains almost all nutrients, but freeze drying seems to be the slightly better method of drying.
The ingredients differ between the two. ZiwiPeak benefits from the wonderful green-lipped mussels, yet Frontier Pets has a range of organics fruits and veggies. So it’s much of a muchness. They’re both very good.
Based so far on personal experience, Ziwi never helped Rusty with anything, it made Angel a little fatter due to the lamb formula but I haven’t seen any health benefits from it and I used to buy it all the time and feed quiet big quantities, after so many bags if there was anything to see I’d have seen it and I just didn’t.
Frontier was like an extra miracle cure for Rusty, I’ve noticed his leg pain is back so it doesn’t quiet help as good as K9’s freeze dried but it also depends on what type of joint issue it is.
His fur is nicer on the Frontier, he’s bouncier of that was even possible and he seems much happier then just on the K9.
Personally you have nothing to loose trying it, so I’d say go ahead.
Hi Pet Food Advisor, so which would digest better the air dried or freeze dried, I always thought the Ziwi Peak would be harder to digest cause when I’ve soaked a few squares in water nothing happens the Ziwi peak square stay the same but after watching a video on Frontier Pets the freeze dried swells up when water is added & it looks heaps better seems to turn back into raw food… cant they make a freeze dried cooked formula??? this would be excellent for dogs like Patch & could be made lower in fat….I wonder if a pet food company could do this cook a formula not over cook like a kibble is cooked, just lightly cook then they freeze dry the cooked formula??
Well in essence of what I said and what I saw personally, Ziwi was harder to digest for Rusty as both that and K9 have mussels but only the K9 actually worked. I was going to buy Ziwi again but I think everyone is better off on the freeze dried and it’s less fatty.
I think cooked freeze dried would be a great idea, I don’t mind the raw but it could be of use to people who can’t stand raw? I wonder however if the price might go up for such a product as it would take a bit longer to make.
Rusty digests Frontier like a pro though, I add it on top of his food to allow for better digestion of his food, I feel it has worked out fabulously.
The few times I checked his poop out it was better then just with his food alone.
He’s been getting a lot of K9 though as its about to hit its expiration date, I hope it holds out long enough for me to use the rest up.
Hi, I was going to get the Frontier Chicken the other day cause the chicken is the lowest in fat but Patch gets itchy red paws after he eats chicken so I changed my mind, I hate it, Patch cant eat this cant eat that’s Arrrrrrhhhhh
Well here’s to hoping that Frontier gets more formulas, ones that will be good for Patch, that or another company opens because new foods seem to be happening a lot these days.
Hi you might have to start giving Rusty a supplement for his leg pain, have you had it X ray to see is it arthritis setting in or something else… I know Glucosamine & Chondroitin is really good it helps build & maintain cartilage, tendons & other tissues in the body.. Glucosamine also been shown to help reduce joint inflammation & swelling & help relieve pain & stiffness, it can also help slow down the progression of joint damage… there’s also Rose Hip Vital I sent Rose Hip Vital an email & a man rang me & explained how Rose Hip Vital works & offer discount cause I was a new customer, you start off taking double the dose for 3 weeks then 1/2 the dose, the human grade Rose Hip Vital is exactly the same as the canine formula…
I just feed him K9 Natural Venison I have plenty left despite buying it about 6 months ago, always fixes it, not a fan of supplements to do with the leg he had quiet a bad reaction to one of them.
He was panting and unsettled all night my mum said, hardly a non severe reaction, imagine if that was you? I can actually as I’ve had something similar.
Not something I ever want to go through ever again.
Maybe the freeze dried is gone but the Venison wet food is still very much available I can use that when I run out of the freeze dried, which at this point in time feels like never.
I actually read something recently stating that Glucosamine is actually pretty bad compared to Chondroitan and hideously bad compared to green lipped mussels I bet, I recently saw capsules for that in a health food store, if I ever need it I could break a capsule I guess.
I guess it also depends on the price of dem capsules, some stuff is seriously overpriced for what it is.
Read a lot of comments of Rose Hip not helping or taking severely long to help.
Hi, my dog really likes this but it’s so expensive. Was wondering if I could use this as a topper for kibble? I read something about kibble and raw food being digested at different rates, does anyone know if combining this with kibble will be ok? Thanks.
Hi, I can’t see why not, it depends on your dog, if his stomach is OK to mix foods, some dogs are fine & some dogs like my dog isn’t fine…… What I do with my cat I feed her about 4 smaller meals a day, my dog has IBD he gets 5 small meals a day & the cat wanted to be feed the same 4-5 meals a day, that’s how she ended up getting 4 meals a day, I feed her Aldi’s cat raw sachets for breakfast & kibble in another bowl, she loves her kibble, if I don’t give her kibble then she tries pinching the dogs kibble, she probably was feed a cheap brand kibble when she was a kitten, cause when I bought the expensive grain free kibbles she liked the cheaper Purina kibbles, she’s a rescue kitten/cat from RSPCA then at lunch time she gets 1/4 of the 1/2 cup Ziwi Peak gives you of the Lamb & Mackerel, then for dinner she gets raw & kibble again & she’s fine no stomach problems, no diarrhea, but its a shame to mix Ziwi Peak with dry kibble, maybe feed the Ziwi peak as 1 small meal & the other meal feed the kibble…
Have you tried the new Frontier Pet freeze dried, you add water & it swells up you can get sample bags $15 & the sample bag is 1.2kg & it makes about 3kgs, the Frontier Pets might work out cheaper??
Hello, thanks for the reply! That’s a good idea, I’ll try giving it in the morning and kibble later in the day. I’ve never seen Frontier Pet freeze dried, but that sounds like a great idea! Thank you.
I have to say I find it rather sad when I watch a video from an online pet food retailer or some other vet video and they talk about how to deal with arthritis and only show the prescription foods like seriously? Any food with green lipped mussel should be shown, Ziwi and K9 should of been part of the video as natural options for joints, although Rusty had very little in terms of improvement with Ziwi his joint issue virtually disappeared with K9 and actually even Frontier (the turmeric).
I reckon they should hire me instead to talk about what foods are good for what ailment as I’d do a much better job.
To be honest more than half the time people’s dog’s arthritis could be dramatically improved through loosing weight/being kept slim; not many owners do that unfortunately.
So I think its just as much about portion control as it is about what the animal is consuming 🙂
Well Rusty is stuck around the 5-5.6kg range so it’s definitely the food that helped his leg as he has barely slimmed down at all, but it’s a thing to take into consideration that a lot of videos simply don’t mention.
There’s a lot that videos of ailments don’t mention including the lower carbs for diabetes and sadly vets don’t mention it either making it very difficult to control the disease and leading to the pets eventual blindness.
Ketogenic for cancer and wet food for urinary problems and of course the actual need for weight control foods being rather bogus, just feed less, don’t give treats unless you make them yourself by drying lean meat and don’t use meats high in fat like lamb, sadly a lot of this is still very much outside the boundaries of many people’s minds, they simply can’t believe it and won’t even try it.
It’s either prescription foods or less natural supplements containing yucky ingredients to bolster flavour or injections, instead of using more natural approaches first and actually the prescription food has the same joint stuff as healthier non presciprion foods so there’s really no need for it and much cheaper.
I had a small picture of Rusty up one time here’s a bigger picture. I took the picture just now and he bolted right after haha, but as you can see he’s better but still a bit pudgy.
I edited huge amounts of this with a whole heap of more info so some wall of text may feel out of place sorry.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34f02c8e22cb72926f681d2682f5cfa33733c30ed35693bdbc037d431b8b7f00.jpg
It’s such a shame they decreased the biggest size from 5 to 4kg and that only 2 varieties are available in the big size now.
If I were to feed this as my (22kg) assistance dog’s base food it would cost just shy of $4,000 a year!
Wish its price wasn’t so high; it would be my go to dry food otherwise. 🙂
I think it’s price is because it’s essentially dog food jerky lol and we all know how expensive jerky is.
I once saw some for like $97 a kilo as a kid, it’s likely much more these days.
I guess you could always use it as a topper or treat like I do and $4000 per year isn’t that bad based on some peeps comments I’ve seen over the years.
Our weekly food bill used to be around $300 so it would of went way over 4000 a year, it’s much subtler now but it gives you an eye into how much people are willing to spend on their food compared to their pets food.
Saw a comment on Amazon one time where someone thought the food they were feeding was too expensive, someone calculated the food to cost about 5 cents a week lol and then replied to that person saying you can’t afford 5 cents a week?
I think that person was the same person asking for coupons upon coupons.
Someone’s money off coupon didn’t work one time either and was asked to pay $5 for the food to which they went batshit crazy.
Or those that say I only buy this food when it’s on special for literally 50 cents to a $1 for a bag of dry food.
Hi Susan , no i don’t follow skeptvet , people on Dogz online forum are Quoting him as bible worthy
I had a look and wondered if that was the truth.
Hi there’s a nut case on the American “Dog Food Advisor”, she followers all my post in the “Forum” section always posting SkeptVet links, she is very anti anything natural & if it hasn’t been proven by science then its crap, I like ur post “Quoting him as bible worthy” I’m going to use it next time she post another link to the SkepVet.
There’s a lot of haters going at it lately on there, I’ve decided to take a break from it because it was pissing me off and making me even more depressed. I’d like to say that people don’t get to me but I’d be lying and although on ignore the usual offenders can still be seen and read on recent comments, so my health is in jeopardy every time I visit that section, these days I only go there when I feel I don’t care, if I start to I leave.
Trying to help people make better decisions and they bulldoze us down and those that suddenly believed us no longer do and would rather believe the offenders and like I wrote many times it’s sickening and I hate it.
Regardless of outcomes we need to continue to fight and hopefully beat them someday.
The pet fooled comments I’ve read from those guys was just pure sadness, it’s too bad they don’t believe it.
It seems Venison has some new laws in place or something like that making it virtually impossible to buy from a butcher now 🙁
I was going to try a venison steak cooked like normal steak cause why not? But no one is stocking it anymore, I wonder if the same reason applies to dog food and that’s why Ziwi and K9 removed it and left it in the smaller bags/cans.
Hi, also in America I was reading one lady can’t get the Royal Canin PV-Potato & Venison vet diet no more they have stopped making the Venison formula, Royal Canin told her way I cant remember but Hills are still making their D/D Potato & Venison formula, we have just gotten it here in Australia, so I wonder how Hills are still making their Venison vet formula??
I have a feeling that the not so venison heavy formulas will continue, they did mention their having stock issues with venison so I figured that’s likely to mean there’s simply not enough of it for so many formulas, some American brands also use NZ venison.
There’s no new laws, here in Oz (the southern states at least) it’s quite seasonal though, so there’s not much around until roughly springtime. You’ll probably find some with some searching but it’s almost surely frozen at this time of year, so don’t pay too much for it.
But it’s a lovely steak – just hit it with lots of olive oil etc. while cooking as it can easily dry out, being so lean.
The lady I spoke to she mentioned laws and that it’s unlikely they will ever stock it again for her shop at least.
Either this food is too rich, or a bad batch for our dogs. After feeding poodle and whippet with the lamb & mackerel variety, the both ended up vomiting, and the poodle (having being fed more) ended up with blood & mucus in stool equivalent to irritable bowel. Both poodle and whippet couldn’t keep food down (or water!) for hours. Happened on several occasions around treating with this food.
Our dogs can eat anything!
Vet confirmed food as too much of a coincidence not to be the source of malaise. Proceed with caution.
My dog had a similar reaction with k9 natural. Even after slow intro. It was way too rich for him.
Hi have your dogs ever eaten Ziwi Peak before & did you slowly introduce the Ziwi Peak over 7-10 days??? Ziwi Peak tells you to slowly introduce their foods…
At first the poodle got to the bag, and so illness was expected. The second time (after he had recovered) food was introduced slowly, as small treats. Poodle was still sick. It wasn’t until our whippet was given it in very small amounts and was very nauseous that we twigged it was the food.
Without scientific evidence, its only a hypothesis, but it is a big coincidence.
As I say, we could have got a dodgy batch. It happens. And the pet-food industry isn’t that highly regulated, so unless animals die, recalls don’t tend to happen as often as they should.
Even if it wasn’t spoiled or not made according to the manufacture’s recipe, I don’t think a food being so rich that you have to introduce it in such small doses is a good thing. It’s an indicator that it is too highly processed, even if the processing is “slow” and “air-dried”, and “natural”.
Issues which arise from changing foods are often a result of the dog being fed the same food for a long period which is often the case. Just like humans, a dog will develop intolerances from eating or not eating a foodstuff for an extended period. For example if a dog has been fed a wheat-based food for a long time, and then a food such as Ziwipeak is introduced. Many assume issues such as vomiting are the cause of the new food which isn’t necessarily the case.
In your case it definitely looks to be caused by the food (or the specific bag of food). Other factors could be the cause, such as both dogs have eaten something else (such as in the garden) or come into contact with something toxic. Often in these cases a manufacturer will completely deny any responsibility because it can’t be proved. All we can do is notify the manufacturer in the hope they investigate further, notify consumers, and recall batches if possible. For manufacturers a recall can be severely damaging in this world of social media, especially with small companies.
Hi Smah,
Although malaise means the source of the issue is unknown, it’s concerning both dogs have suffered ill effects.
May I ask how old the dogs are and what have they been fed previously?
It’s worth noting Ziwipeak is higher in fat than most foods, and your poodle’s reaction especially could be linked to pancreatis, hyperlipidemia, or digestive problems. It also can’t be ruled out the food could be from a bad batch or spoiled for some reason.
Hi there, I use the term malaise, but that is only because we didn’t get the food tested to be sure clinically.
In answer to your questions, the poodle (my mothers) is nearly 2 years old and the whippet 10 months old. Both have eaten everything from lamb mince and chops, chicken frames and necks, vegetables, kibblets, raw bones, rice, oats etc. They can eat anything. Illness appeared coinciding with the introduction of the food, and subsided with subsequent removal of it. On several occasions with the poodle, and once with our whippet when we came to visit and fed our whippet the poodle’s treats (only small amounts, whilst training on the beach).
Both have now fully recovered with no further symptoms once we ceased feeding them this food. As you say, it could be just too rich for them, but it’s a pretty severe reaction none the less. Vomiting is one thing, blood and mucus in the stool is another.
They are both completely fine now.
In that case it certainly points towards the food. Do you have the batch number and use by date from the bag, and I assume you’ve notified Ziwipeak?
I’m glad both dogs have recovered. Vomiting is one thing, blood in the stool is more worrying.
Thanks. Yeah, it was a bit worrisome there for a while!
When I received the same variant of the food as you I knew I was going to have to give less then what I had intended as I knew lamb to be the most fatty dog food ingredient ever! so them saying its on par with the venison formula is a lie because venison is virtually no fat compared to the extremely fatty lamb even if you trim it well it’s still going to feel oily when you touch the pieces.
Almost through the whole bag and so far no problems from anyone, Andzia has been getting the most and it’s really made a difference, she doesn’t eat very much so she was super skinny this put some weight on her which was nice.
Rusty he swallows the pieces whole so I don’t give him too much and to be honest Ziwi has never really helped Rusty with anything, K9 Natural helped with his leg problems and the new FrontierPets helps give him some extra spunk he becomes super bouncy when he runs haha it’s really funny to look at and it makes me happy that he’s enjoying his older years.
So in essence either it was too rich cause it’s still lamb at the end of the day or a bad batch as I’ve noticed from other comments that you can’t necessarily tell if it’s a bad batch or not, sometimes there’s clues other times nothing at all.
SkeptVet say’s do not feed RAW food or bones , as they do not make the dog any healthier
What do you think about his web site ?
Hi you don’t follow SkepVet do you?? go on his Face Book page & see how many people follow the nut, only about 1100 people, now go on “Rodney Habib” F/B page & look at all his followers over 1 million……. Raw chicken bones are soft the softest bone for dogs, chicken frames or chicken wings are excellent to clean dog & cats teeth……
Because edits don’t come up in notifications I’ll write this extra piece here, went onto the Facebook page and wow I could not believe some of the trash written on there, why I would go there before bed was also a dumb idea now I’m going to go to bed angry 🙁
That’s a good way to put it Susan glad to see you agree.
A lot of the better knowledge people on dog food advisor hate his website, to be honest there’s nothing on there that I’d ever take seriously, raw food is not dangerous to your dog provided you handled it correctly and provided you washed your hands and all surfaces it lay on correctly.
The problem is a lot of people have no raw commonsense when it comes to dog food or maybe they simply don’t understand raw as a whole? I have no idea how the concept of handling raw is misunderstood, clearly it’s raw meat with bacteria, why would you not wash your hands after using it? to blame the raw for your sickness oh well I wonder why.
From all that I have read the above reason is the most highly rated reason of why no one trusts raw, a little commonsense if you will people omg (not you).
Raw is the healthiest food for your dog period, when done right it cures all ailments even cancer, I’d listen to people like Karen Becker any day of the week over people who have false claims, I remember reading they have no actual proof of their claims that raw when handled correctly hurts anyone.
Very good points , I completely agree with that view , it makes quite good reason that dogs would do well on at least some raw food,
It’s actually good that you responded just now Karen has a new email out today here’s a picture of what it says and essentially what I meant in other words.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7cef9c85734f0f19de0fcc450f48985e945f48da5d7f08bf1082fd4a01fdcb8.png
Thanks for your enquiry regarding Salt and our NEW Mackerel and Lamb recipe.
I want to reassure you that we are only adding a tiny amount of NZ sea salt to our new recipe. The reason we add approximately 0.3% NZ Sea Salt to all our products is to meet the AAFCO requirements for sodium needs for puppies or cats of all life stages.
We completed testing on the new recipes and found that the new recipes needed some supplemental sodium, therefore the minimum amount was added to meet the needs of cats and dogs of all life stages.
We decided that the most natural ingredient to deliver the sodium was NZ sea salt.
Please let me know if you have any further questions, comments, or concerns.
Not sure whether the salt content has been posted already. I bought the new Mackerel and Lamb air dried recipe and discovered they added salt when got it home. I don’t think this was the case with the other varieties prior. I contacted them and got the following quick response:
I want to reassure you that we are only adding a tiny amount of NZ sea salt to our new recipe. The reason we add approximately 0.3% NZ Sea Salt to all our products is to meet the AAFCO requirements for sodium needs for puppies or cats of all life stages.
We completed testing on the new recipes and found that the new recipes needed some supplemental sodium, therefore the minimum amount was added to meet the needs of cats and dogs of all life stages.
We decided that the most natural ingredient to deliver the sodium was NZ sea salt.
Hi we need & pets need a certain amount of salt in our diets, 0.3% isn’t much at all… When I get my leg cramps first thing of a morning, I know my salt is too low, so I start adding more salt to my diet & the cramps go away…I bought the Mackeral & Lamb for my cat & she loves it, she doesn’t even chew the pieces & gulps them all, when you open the bag it smells so fresh, I see my poor Patch looking up & wanting some as well..
I checked the old formula there is no sodium supplement as far as I can tell, did the aafco change some rules? it seems that both Ziwi and K9 had to reformulate to meet aafco requirements as if something had suddenly changed?
Personally I don’t mind salt either, I eat quiet a lot of it and sugar and I don’t see the harm of having small amounts in dog food either, it’s just you keep up with everything going on around dog food and I was wondering if maybe you knew something.
Hi, I think cause they have changed ingredients, I’d say the new ingredients have less salt & the formulas didn’t met the AAFCO standards, I’ve read the AAFCO stamp mean nothing a lot of crap foods have the AAFCO approval & they are crap, chuck in all the right about of salt whatever is needed & some crappy ingredients & the food meets AAFCO requirements…
Yeah I think Karen once mentioned that a shoe plus some extras passed the AAFCO test for complete and balanced or something *facepalm*.
Personally from that bit of info plus other stuff I’ve read I really don’t approve of AAFCO at all, they don’t seem to care at all really.
I understand that AAFCO proposed some revisions in recent years which were finally ratified in 2016. Among other changes, the recommended levels of sodium, chloride, magnesium and selenium increased, while iron, zinc and iodine decreased.
Reference: aafco dot org and petfoodindustry dot com
I may have to change my outlook on info from stuff I don’t really care about aafco being one of them, that way I’ll be in the know and feel like I know much more about dog food then just the ingredients and what’s good or not for certain diseases.
My moods have been changing lately and I’m reading stuff I didn’t care about before and I seem to be remembering everything I read so perfect time.
Thanks for the info Alan always welcome.
I don’t know if it’s worth spending much time on – reading the AAFCO guidelines and the endless deliberations that lead to them is a surefire cure for insomnia :p
It does seem encouraging that their numbers are being revised, which suggests that there are people out there thinking hard about this and reviewing the available data with a willingness to correct their previous advice if necessary. They might not have all the answers but hopefully each revision brings us a little closer. Kudos to Ziwi for tweaking their formula in line with the current guidelines.
Alright received Rusty and Anja’s food.
I haven’t checked the other stuff as I’m on the road and not currently going home, but I’ve opened Ziwi Peak because I couldn’t help myself quiet frankly.
It’s oily to the touch which is a problem I knew would happen all too well, after all lamb is fatty.
It smells like Ziwi Peak foods usually smell haha, with a tad of fish smell as after all I got the fish formula.
Rusty liking it and licking the bag for more was not new to me, he got 3 pieces to start off with and will get no more until tomorrow.
Anja also took a liking to it and ate a few bites, this was good to see, she is however sick today and hungry and she always eats whatever she’s given when she’s hungry so poor way to flavour test it, will need to see her reaction to it tomorrow and following days.
I guess the only thing left to do is post results after at least 1 month of eating it.
Picture of how it looks like. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b18a92349f97414e7747a3f63bbcf80ddceb120b51c23e6786bfb89df1e12df5.jpg
This may come a little too late but if you’re in an eastern state and near one of the Best Friends Pets outlets, they’ve just recently become a Ziwipeak stockist and are offering some quite significant discounts for a while to celebrate. From memory the 1kg bags are going for about $35 apiece – the same ones I usually end up paying the best part of $50 for everywhere else. It’s early days so pricing of the canned products is still unclear.
I checked it out online, they don’t appear to have the venison, I wouldn’t buy 1kg worth of Ziwi that isn’t venison as it’s likely only Anja will eat it and it would probably get mouldy by the time she ate it all.
Really truly a wasted opportunity in my opinion ah well.
It’s taken a week to learn more about the venison situation (I wanted some too) thanks to the usual offers of return phone calls which never eventuate etc.
The story goes that they do intend to stock it in the 1kg bags, however since the venison generally costs a few bucks more it has been excluded from this current special. Apparently it would be at or close to their buy price, so they can’t offer it with such an aggressive discount. The stores I visited already had it available in the half kilo bags, but not discounted as heavily as the other varieties. Anyone planning a trip from any distance would do well to phone ahead to check stock levels, as around here it’s been flying off the shelves and staff advise they’re having trouble keeping up with demand, hence me needing to visit a couple of stores before managing to snag some of the mackerel formula.
For those interested in the contents of the two newly released formulas, Tripe & lamb (left) and Mackerel & lamb (right).
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Hi I think all of Ziwi Peak formulas has been re formulated with different ingredients…. Has Ziwi Peak always had the Rabbit & Lamb wet moist tin? the fat% is the lowest at 4%min, when converted to dry matter, it will be around 15-20% fat?? I’ll have to email Ziwi Peak & ask them what is max fat % in the Rabbit & Lamb wet tin …My kitten/cat loves Ziwi Peak wet moist & the air dried…
I’m not really up to speed on their cat food offerings but I’m seeing the rabbit & lamb cans with the old style label, so I guess it’s been around for a while? They’ve certainly revised their dry formulas recently so it’s probably wise to take another look at the ingredients of any old favourite Ziwipeak formulas.
No this is the dog Rabbit & Lamb wet tin formula, I’ve been looking on all the Pet Food online sites & Ziwi Peak has never had Rabbit & Lamb for dogs before in the wet tin, I wish Ziwi Peak brought the Rabbit & Lamb out in the air dried formulas, it’s excellent for dogs with IBD & Food sensitivities & Skin problems…
The rabbit canned for dogs has been around for a very long time, no one has ever stocked it though and I’m not sure why as I did mention it to them, maybe they simply don’t have enough stock no idea.
I went on the Ziwi Peak site & just saw the Rabbit & Lamb wet formula, I don’t remember it last year when I looked but I was looking at air dried formulas not the wet formulas & Venison & Fish had the lowest fat %… I’ll send Ziwi Peak a email asking what is the max fat % in the Rabbit & Lamb wet & ask will My Pet Warehouse or Pet Circle be stocking their Rabbit & Lamb wet formula cause it has the lowest fat % for dogs with health problems & then maybe it will be sold at the online warehouses…..
Hmm the dog version appears to be the same story. I’m seeing rabbit and lamb in the old style labels, so I guess it’s been around for a while. To be honest I never paid much attention to the other recipes on offer – I just get the tripe version as it’s a convenient way to get some tripe into the diet. And the mussel content is always welcome too.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a0c166ed702e6cb48e8de9495ead83cdfefbb30e0e74521c31828d0a784c1467.jpg
So the lamb and mackerel formula has 28% fat, my Venison one has 26%, I think I’ll wait for that formula to be in stock and than I’ll buy it.
So Ziwipeak is changing ingredients or shortening the list anyways and remodelling their bags, I was going to buy a new bag but I might just wait for the new ones to arrive.
I saw a Ziwipeak rep the other day doing the promotion thing for a group of staff at a pet supply store chain – the bags appeared to be the new style so they must be getting close to the shelves. Interestingly part of their act is to eat some of the dry product and invite clients to do the same. Looks like they take the old adage of companies “eating their own dog food” quite literally at Ziwipeak.
Well at least you can be sure it’s a quality product by testing that quality with your very own tastebuds (never done that btw).
I’m looking forward to the analysis and new ingredient list in the future, I saw some websites with the food but wasn’t able to find concrete ingredient and analysis info.
I hope it doesn’t take pet warehouse and pet circle too long to get the new formulas in, as I really want to buy it.
Hi all, how many different foods are good too have on a rotation , can it be to many?
Pet Food Makers say only feed , one food or the vitamin & mineral balance can be wrong for dogs.
Which food has the best ME% , does it matter about the ME%,
Does it make the food easier too digest?
Manufacturers want your loyalty (or should I say repeat business?)
Most allergies and intolerances develop from eating the same foodstuffs over an extended period. If a food isn’t balanced, such as containing too much of something or too little, then that can also be problematic over time. Feeding one of the many cereal-based foods over a long period can lead to many health issues in later life.
From a nutritional perspective I believe rotation between many (decent) foods offers a much more rounded diet. I’m not being specific to dry foods here either, as I also believe fresh meats, offal, and other foods in tune with a canine diet are very beneficial.
Alan raises an important point about raw feeders who only feed breast meats and neglect the importance of offal and other providers of vital nutrients.
I rotate between many foods, and have had no issues doing so.
Adding fresh food to kibble is generally a must as Rodney has mentioned and others too, reducing your dogs chance at cancer and other nasties and improving health by a huge percentage.
A lot of people are still getting nutrition wrong and some are set in their minds and refuse to change which really isn’t helpful for your dog.
Lots of people who still feed only chicken breast to their dogs and nothing else, a girl who gives her dog rice and raw egg and calls it dog food and a plethora of others on YouTube doing it wrong.
To note it has also myth busted by a lot of people that eating only 1 food is the right way, consider yourself and other humans do we only eat 1 food to get all our vitamins from it? Not necessarily that’s for sure.
Deficiency in record numbers were observed in dogs only fed 1 food all their lives as opposed to the much healthier inner systems of a dog on a rotational diet and really would you want to eat the same food 2-3 times a day? They say that because it’s good for business as after all the money is top dog not your actual dog.
Some businesses are still very much about your dog, but I see them slipping into the money subconscious slowly, it’s really too bad.
On the subject of the number of foods being provided, I’d be skeptical of their claims. To paraphrase the immortal prophet Mandy Rice Davies, ‘they would say that, wouldn’t they’.
The only roughly related problem that I’ve ever heard of is 100% raw feeders who will provide lots of meats because that’s easy, but shy away from the offal and stomach contents (or substitutes) that would normally accompany such a diet in a wild setting, because that’s icky and more difficult. The end result is a deficiency of some sort. But if you’re talking commercial foods already fortified with vitamins & minerals, I’d say variety, variety, variety. In my case, commercial foods only represent about 1/3 of the diet but even so there’s typically 7 or 8 products in use from maybe 4 or 5 manufacturers and generally chosen for the broadest possible spectrum of ingredients.
(And I’m always on the lookout for more!)
Hi just concerned that the fat content is high at 30% compared to the kibble i am currently feeding which is only 19%
Fat is meant to be a dog’s primary source of energy. Unless the dog has a medical condition you shouldn’t be worried by it 🙂
My greyhound gets around 30% in her diet usually
Dogs digest animal fats much more efficiently than we do and it offers them a great source of energy. Foods high in carbs are much more a concern in a canine diet, so if a food is low in protein and fat (from meats) then it’s likely high in carbs.
If you don’t need to address some medical disorder, fat isn’t necessarily a boogeyman. Particularly in the canine context. Some of the raw mixtures I’ve seen intended for greyhounds have crazy amounts of fat, yet it doesn’t seem to be an issue as long as they have an outlet to burn it off.
I’ve managed to feed around 6-7 500g bags to a dog with pancreatitis over about 4 years and not once was his attack ziwi related, I realised that what seems to cause his attacks is my dad giving scraps intended for our other dog or yogurt with cream apparently and also Earthborn weight control caused quiet a severe reaction, no idea what ingredient did it though but I now stay away from certain offenders just in case.
He’s the one in the picture and he’s currently 9 years old and besides his pancreatitis he has now developed a heart murmur that can be felt and heard very easily, I was hoping me feeding him lots of freeze dried raw goodies with lots of heart healthy fats and other heart healthy items would reduce the onset time, since I know chihuahuas are known for having it later in life, sadly it didn’t he got it around the same age as our other dog who eventually died from it.
Interesting that you have the Dad problem – I have the same problem with my mother. Ya gotta watch these oldies, they’re crafty and always seem to have hidden biscuits and cupcakes ready to go as soon as your back is turned, like some sort of food-ninja.
I keep telling him not to and everything, he’s made Anja quiet sick a few times as well and he continues to push hams and salty oily stuff onto her and because she doesn’t know any better she eats it and alas sick dog.
Well Ziwipeak is not kibble it’s essentially like dog jerky so it will have more fat, as the fat unlike in the kibble isn’t cooked and extruded into pellet form.
I have a 3.3 kilo chi that I would like to try on very good quality grain free kibble .i cook her wet food with good quality ingredients which she loves. Yet I still would like to give her some kibble..can u tell me any suitable that I can buy online in Australia please
Hi Delia, Ziwipeak is certainly a good choice (it’s dried food not kibble).
Most of the foods on the best rated list are grain free and available online. Each review has links to where you can buy them from. My Pet Warehouse sell most of them – https://www.petfoodreviews.com.au/dry-dog-food/best-dry-dog-food/
Hi PFR, are foods with a high calorie% such as Ziwipeak good for a dog,
Canidae has kibble at 4000% ME a kilo, what would be a good calorie % to aim for
different foods have quite wide variances .
Select Pets Bicton also sells them
Opened up a can of Ziwipeak venison and fish today as I’ve waited long enough between cans for the old guy, I also don’t really want to run out too fast since I only buy two at a time.
It smelled divine though, I had to use all of my willpower to stop myself from taking a lick haha, must be great quality to smell that amazing!
I was peering into an empty Ziwipeak can last night vaguely recalling someone commenting on this, and found it here today. I don’t know if it was just olive oil, but there was a very definite ‘high tide mark’ running the length of the can. I can only guess that they allow their cans to cool horizontally after the canning process, and so most of the fats solidify along one side. As this can contained the tripe variety, I can confidently say that I successfully resisted any urge to lick it though :p
Never would I have ever thought about that but maybe.
The tripe one certainly smells nice though, unlike K9 Naturals tripe only which stinks so badly I have to sniff it every time I open it just to repulse myself for some unknown reason.
As a rule of thumb the stinkier the tripe the better!
My Dad used to eat smoked kippers all the time. The house would stink for days, but they were good for you too 😉
Well K9 definitely wins the prize as the stinkiest one I’ve ever smelt, I don’t have any doubts that it’s awesome quality, I really do love their foods and am quiet saddened by the sudden disappearance of their venison formulas.
If indeed they are dropping the formula I guess I’ll have to buy the canned variety instead, although I do much prefer the freeze dried as I don’t have to use it within 3 days of opening.
Hi, have your dogs tried any of the Prime 100 SPD or the Prime Raw foods, crocodile
kangaroo or lamb,
I would like your review on this food
Thanks
No my mum dislikes kangaroo after something she read, no one can have lamb because than they poop up the entire house and vomit all over it, it’s too fatty and crocodile is much the same as kangaroo she just doesn’t trust it.
I read maybe 1 review of it and that person used crocodile for their highly allergic dog and she said it worked well for her, however I like it when there’s more than just the one and when it’s not on the foods website which I’m sure is where I found it.
Ok I won’t re write what I wrote above about the lamb because it’s true, but I did actually get a free lamb from them one time, well I was first charged $9 for it and than we realised it was meant to be a free sample so we returned to set them straight haha, he charged it as a 2kg roll when it was only like 200g or something so much fail.
Anyways Anja at that time didn’t like it, tried it several times and nope she wouldn’t eat it, it’s very true to its word about the rosemary it smells of a lot of it.
The rolls have synthetic vitamin k in them so I wouldn’t feed them based solely on that, menadione bisulphate is the name of it for future reference. It has been known to cause liver failure and a lot of the comments on Purina’s website verify that, I wouldn’t use it long term.
I checked out the raw, they look really good, the ingredients are great you could try it if you want, considering how much their rolls cost though I could see it costing quiet a bit, unless it doesn’t?
Their treats are awful waste of $12 at Coles, they smelled horrible and when given to the dogs they were sick all day and night and the entirety of the next day eww.
They have a lot more than just jerky as the ingredients, a lot of unecessary things, dogs love plain jerky and it keeps for a long time no need to add anything extra.
The one thing they did right with the rolls is no sugar, every other company loads there rolls with sugar and salt, the only thing that’s amazing for is ruining your dogs teeth and health.
Thanks for your info
No problem, always happy to help as best I can 😀
I have a spoodle and a cavoodle puppies, have slowly changed from Ivory coat to Ziwi peak.
Have always mixed raw mince usually turkey in with dry food so they would eat it.
Today i was pleased when i gave them just dry Ziwi peak they ate it!!
So i have two Questions- 1. when i put raw meat in their evening meal just use half dry food? and try to wean them off it?
2. is it ok to switch flavours every few bags??
thanks Lisa
Hi Lisa, if you switch to a full raw diet then you need to ensure you cater for all nutritional requirements. The best diet you can offer a dog is a balanced raw diet, but you need to ensure you’re feeding the right diet. If you want to feed a mix then you could feed kibble (or a dried food like ZiwiPeak) in the morning and meat in the evening or vice versa. Yes, I definitely recommend rotating flavours and foods, there’s no reason a dog should have the same diet every day.
Found Kiwipeak in Petstock! So Rhondie now has 1.5 scoups of kiwipeak and 2 scoups of Ivory Coat Turky and Duck.
She LOVES kiwipeak!!!!
My pocket not so much 😉
As per my recommendation petstock now stocks this haha, although I doubt it was only because of me, I still found it very funny that they added it soon after I mentioned it to them.
Well you never know 🙂
Confirming this is the #1 pet food in my books. Not only is it perfect for fussy dogs who don’t normally like dry food – but the quality and ingredients are so superior to anything else I’ve seen on the market.
For those worried about the high price – understand that some simply cannot afford it, and that is fair enough. I hope you can spend the time to feed raw food and other alternatives.
For those who can, but are still worried about the price – please, it is worth it x100 to see the difference in your dogs life. Mine is SO excited for breakfast every morning, and has more energy than before.
To pet food reviews:
I am switching my dog’s food over due to issues with supply from my online retailer. His ideal weight is 17kg, he is a 2 yr old Finnish Lapphund who is fairly active but also quite easy to put weight on! -built like a little eskimo which I suppose makes sense given his breed.. he is at ideal weight with currant diet, however I feel he could have better coat condition.
He has thus far been on 185g Canidae grain free canned food (rotating flavours)
plus 130g (1 metric cup) of Canidae grain free dry food per day. I am wanting to continue with wet/dry each day as he loses interest in food if fed solely dry food.
I would really like to feed him the ziwipeak canned food (185g per day in keeping with current volume) and am looking at 3 different brands of dry food to combine this with. I love the idea of the ‘raw’ diet in ziwipeak but can only afford the canned variety combined with cheaper dry food at this time. 3 dry food brands I am looking at are; Earthborn Holistic, Ivory Coat and Taste of the Wild- all grain free versions. I have seen you prefer not to recommend particular brands over another but I am hoping you could give your opinion on which dry food best compliments the canned ziwipeak food best? All are close enough in price, he isn’t fussy and has no health problems.
The review on the wet ziwipeak food from dogfoodadvisor.com gave this breakdown: “The dashboard displays a dry matter protein reading of 41%, a fat level of 27% and estimated carbohydrates of about 24%”.
I would so appreciate if you could have a look and give your opinion on which of the three would be the best to mix in to this diet.
I will include that I am probably leaning towards earthborn holistic for the inclusion of taurine as his breed is prone to eye problems in later life; however am not sure if the combo of earthborn holistic and ziwipeak will be too rich?
Hi Emma, any of those three would compliment ZiwiPeak. Personally I’d buy whichever of those three happened to be on offer when you need to stock up, or Canidae if it’s in stock. There’s no harm in rotating foods. Sounds to me like you have a lucky Lapphund!
I’ve tried a lot of brand for my fussy Shibas over the years. Without any doubt, Ziwipeak has been the most successful. High quality and the girls love it. Other foods were causing my 14 year old girl to have stomach issues, but this food is both loved and digested easily….expensive…well not if you think about what’s in it.
Is this suitable for my new puppy? She is currently being fed nature’s gift chicken puppy can food by the breeder at the moment.
Can I slowly change to the air dry food of this brand?
Hi Christine, yes it’s suitable for puppies 🙂
Hi,
Thanks for your wonderful reviews. My little dog had terrible stomach issues and the foods the vet recommended (science diet, royal canin) only made it worse. I’m so happy I found your website. The information you have provided has been fantastic. I have since started my dog on Ziwipeak (she didn’t like taste of the wild) and it has been fantastic for her. No stomach issues at all. Best of all she loves it. She had become very fussy since most foods made her vomit. Lucky for me she is only 2kg fully grown so doesn’t eat much as it is expensive stuff. What are your opinions on the ziwipeak can food? I usually avoid canned food but since their dry food is such great quality I thought maybe as a once a week thing. I do worry though it will cause loose stools as most canned food has in the past. I would love to hear your opinion on it.
Thanks so much.
Hi Kirstie, yes the Ziwipeak canned food is excellent quality. I feed it to my own pets as part of my rotation (but not exclusively as it’s pricey!).
I have been feeding my 2 Maltese Venison & Fish for about 5 years now. Yes, its expensive and I have often searched for a cheaper alternative. I haven’t found one yet. The quality of this food is amazing. I am hearing good things about Black Hawk, but on comparing the 2, I just can’t bring myself to switch them over. I honestly believe ZiwiPeak is the best quality available. Because the quality is so good, meal sizes are really quite small (mine get a quarter of a cup for each meal, 2 meals a day) so a 5kg bag can last us up to 3 months.
Sorry but a half a cup of Ziwipeak per day for a Maltese? My chihuahua that weighs a little over 4kgs gets a little over 1 full cup per day… Perhaps your giving them other food as well I would think…. I agree it’s a great product but would love them to reduce the price a bit, I don’t think it needs to be THAT expensive
Hi. The carbs are listed on the Ziwipeak website so you didn’t need to calculate them, and the figure here is incorrect – the carbs range from 6-10.6% depending on variety chosen, not a huge 17% as you’ve somehow calculated (did you check their website?). Earthborn Holistic grain free lists carbs as 17.5% on their website, you state it’s 24%. I’m not going to go through every product right now but am I missing something? Are their websites incorrect and your figures more accurate as I can’t imagine you would ever do a review and not actually visit the websites, yet your figures are different? If this is simply a mistake on your part for the sake of those looking for a low carb dog food please correct this – I loved the look of Ziwipeak but 17% was way too many carbs so closed this page and tried to forget anbout it, but then later decided to go to their website and see if they had other varieties with less carbs and disscovered this product you’ve reviewed here is way less carbs and perfectly acceptable for my dog – I nearly lost the opportunity to even consider this brilliant product due to your info on carbs content! Now I’ve seen these mistakes I’m sorry but I can’t trust your figures and will have to look up every dog food separately you recommend to check values myself, such a shame given all your hard work and invaluable information which I do really appreciate. If I’m wrong please correct me! Thank you. 🙂
I’ve also checked the Earthborn Holistic website. I can’t find carbs listed at 17.5% on the Primitive Natural page? Earthborn Primitive Natural Guaranteed Analysis.
Hi Maddy.
Apologies – my information was sourced off the ZiwiPeak website only weeks ago when I wrote the review. They’ve since had a formula change, something that happens without notification with many pet food manufacturers. With this formula the protein and fat levels have increased which in turn reduces the amount of carbs.
I calculate carbs based on the formula stated under the analysis. It now works out at 12% carbs, based on the percentage of protein, fat, moisture, and ash that they state on the packaging.
Even 17% carbs is very low in comparison to other “dry” foods.