Please dont. Vet's know nothing about feeding and nutrition, unless they have been on some course and done extra training, and even then there knowledge is a tad dubious. They will just push whatever one they make £££ out of.

Tbh, you could feed any of the cheap brands if thats all you can afford. Some of the vitalin range looks good, and is reasonably priced. ANYTHING is better than Bakers.

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A price range of £30-40 is not a stupid one - you get what you pay for...
Not only that but some more expensive food may not be that much more pricey when you calculate how much your dog actually needs of it - a dog will need a lesser quantity of better quality food thus bringing the cost down a little over time.
Bakers is crap so yes almost anything is better than Bakers.
I feed my boy Orijen - Im not sure about the weekly cost yet (yet to finish the first big bag and plus now I have a another dog but it wont be more than £4 a week max (SBT, 20kgs).
For cheaper foods look maybe at Arden Grange, JWB, Wrainwright... check the meat is listed first, the meat content is high enough, the quality is decent and the cereals are, as much as possible, limited in amount (better without it actually).
oh and some working dog food maybe good value as well!

Yes Ive mentioned it before - I found it really useful too to understand how to read dog food labels; what to look out for, what to avoid, their detailed reviews are very helpful and make sense to me it complements a book on dog nutrition I got months ago!

xx

Skinners isnt too bad for its price. First ingredient is rice, but i dont think you are going to find a great food at the price you wish to pay. I know many dogs do well on this one..

Skinners Petfoods - Field & Trial Duck & Rice Hypoallergenic Dog Food

Arden Grange is another good one. You can buy either 30kg with free delivery on eBay for around £50 (free delivery and you'd have to do a search). Or you can get it from Berriewoods for £26 pounds.

Berriewood Wholesale - Arden Grange Adult Lamb & Rice 15kg(Breeder Bag)

I think Bakers is stupid expensive for the quality. I remember when it was about £12.50 a sack.

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This is from the Organipets website, does it sound ok?


Complete Organic Dry Adult Dog Food ingredients - Organic fresh chicken (min 22%), organic whole rice (min 19%), chicken meal, prairie meal, organic oats, organic barley, organic peas, organic skimmed milk, maize protein, organic sunflower oil, chicken oil, whole linseed, seaweed meal, vegetable pomace, salmon oil, organic herbs (including oregano, rosemary, sage and thyme). With Natural antioxidant Vitamin E (Tocopherol-rich extracts of natural origin).

Analysis - Protein 28%, Oil 11%, Fibre 2.5%, Ash 6%, Copper (as copper sulphate) 20mg/kg.

Vitamin Statement - Vitamin A 20,000IU/kg, Vitamin D3 1,250 IU/kg, Vitamin E (as alpha tocopherol acetate) 100mg/kg

I'm also looking at this CSJ Dog Food, which seems rather good. And as I've said before my vet that has 3 working labs, suggested Supadog to me for Milo.

Also with the Skinners Field & Trial would I need to feed more of it to the boys? My mum said I might as it may have missing ingredients so you need to feed bigger quantities. I've also looked at the non F&T range of Skinners food as well, that seems to be good.

I consider £30-£40 a stupid price for dog food, as Eukanuba, Royal Canin are in those price ranges and have bad ingredients in them. Zeus alone for a 15KG bag of bakers costs £25/month, so if I can find better then Bakers for lower, same price or upto £30 then I'll deffinately get it, once I've tried them on the samples to see if they're stomachs can take it or not.

If a food is missing ingredients, feeding more isnt going to make them magically appear

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Skinners is a Complete dry food. Surely if it's "complete" then it won't have missing ingredients.

We feed Skinners Duck & Rice, and it's 100g of food per 8Kg of dog, per day.
So we feed Honey 200g for brekkie, and 200g again at dinner time. Mixed with a bit of water for gravy

thats sounds quite oki yeah!
Id rather more meat and no cereals but if you're gonna have cereals better be oats and better be organic then for instance wheat...
sounds like a decent dog food to me, nothing ringing alarm bells...

Price is definitively not always directly related to quality; Royal Canin, Pedigree even and others are quite pricey and still quite crap...
But on the other hand good quality ingredients will to some extent always cost more than crap ingredients and fillers so for instance JWB, Arden Grange and my all time favorite Orijen will cost more than other cheaper, in all the sense of the terms, food - although the actual feeding cost may not be as much more as it may at first seem...