Recommended pet foods

Since this is 1/3 a pet and animal blog, I may as well give recommendations on foods.

This post will cover dogs, monitor lizards, dwarf hamsters, rabbits and ferrets.

For dog food, I have 2 recommendations.

First is Innova EVO. Probably the best dog food on the market. After a few months of feeding this to my dog, I noticed significant improvement in his coat and bulk in muscle mass. It may seem expensive, but you need to feed twice the amount of cheaper dog foods to give your dog the same nutritional content as EVO. My dog did not eat it by itself, so if your dog doesn't I advise throwing an egg into the food bowl, they'll happily eat everything that way. You can even use it for emergency ferret food, but be weary, as ferrets will get rather fat on it, due to higher calorie count. There are many types of EVO available, all of them are good.

Second is Royal Canin Maxi 32 Large Breed Puppy Food, and the subsequent Royal Canin Maxi Large Breed Adult Dog Food. I've given this to my German Shepard, and the results were rather favorable. This dog food is a very good product, with a nice effect on my dogs coat and muscle. I've fed both the puppy and adult versions to my dog, and they both seem to be very respectable feed. Very close second to EVO in results, but unlike with EVO, my dog will eat this without having to top it with an egg. As I've only fed it to a German Shepard, and only used the large breed dog foods, I can't say anything for their other products, but they are very likely just as good.

Moving on to lizards, I find myself most often feeding them drumsticks, or cuts of leftover raw meat, along with a sprinkle of crushed up vitamin supplement. I usually use kirkland multivitamin and calcium supplements, but since I don't know if those are better than others for the supplement, so I won't provide a link for it. Just use whatever you have I guess, or experiment.

A cheaper alternative to this is to buy a large bag of Crocodile food(again no recommendations, sorry) and mix up 2/3 crocodile food to 1/3 ground turkey, and add vitamin supplement dust if you feel it necessary.

For my hamsters, I never really had a set food for them, since just about anything worked, however there were treats I often gave them. Two they loved in particular. One was Kaytee Strawberry Yogurt Chips. My dwarf hamsters absolutely loved this stuff. A great treat for hamsters, or even for yourself(I know I've often munched on them). They last quite long too, since hamsters will generally eat half of it and then scamper off to hide the rest of it.
The second treat you may find a little difficult to stomach, and that is...
Live meal worms. They absolutely love the stuff, more than anything else I've ever fed them. As Amazon has only freeze dried mealworms, I can't add a link of recommendation, as I cannot guaruntee hamsters will eat a dead worm in the same way they would eat a live one. I used mealworms to feed my bearded dragon, and was quite shocked when I jokingly put one through the hamster cage and my hamster, along with every other hamster I have ever owned, just ravaged the thing and ate it to the very last bite.

As for rabbits, Kaytee Timothy Hay is the hay sold at the local pet store around here, and it's good. It's a rather large package and fairly cheap, which is nice since rabbits should have a stack of hay for free consumption all the time. My rabbits sure love this stuff at least.

Along with the hay, I feed them Purina Rabbit Chow(no link). If you have a large rabbit(such as my flemish giants, Fabio and Asches), you may want to mix what you give them with 1/4 part alfalfa(also no link) for higher calcium content while they are still growing.

Now for ferrets, I have 2 recommendations.

First is Innova EVO Dry Ferret Food. Just as with Innova EVO dog foot, with my ferrets I noticed a significant change in their energy, coat, and muscle mass in the period of a few months. They also eat less of it at a time, and also have to poo much less, showing that they digest all of it very well. Highly recommended.

Second is Pretty Pets Natural Gold. If I can't get EVO, this is the ferret food I go with. They seem to eat slightly more of it, but it's a little cheaper, their coats stay nice, and their muscles stay toned, so it's still good stuff.

Please comment if you found this helpful, or have recommendations of your own.