There are a few of us on here who feed Nutriment to our dogs so I thought it would be timely to start a thread on the product.
First of all, the company website is here. Nutriment is perhaps best known for it’s raw complete meals for dogs and there are four varieties reviewed on the Dog Food Directory of this website - all of them score a glowing five stars. They also sell cat food, accessories, treats and just meat for those who like to add their own vegetables etc.
Presentation of the dog food is either 500g cartons or 1.4kg chubbs. I have found that if ordered before lunch time they are delivered the day after (during the working week). They arrive well frozen and packed in polystyrene. At the moment there doesn’t seem to be many retail outlets that are selling Nutriment and I do hope that this changes in the near future. The customer service is good - it is a landline number 01276 63554. I have found them to be very helpful.
The complete meals are just that - nothing needs to be added. There are quite a few flavours to choose from and Nutriment recommend rotation to give variety and to try to prevent the development of allergy to one protein source. As with other raw feeding methods, the recommended daily allowance (RDA) is 2% to 3% of body weight. I have found that it is necessary to weigh the food because it is not easy to gauge the correct amount. They advise dividing the RDA into two meals per day.
Weight loss - the varieties that are lower in fat and best for weight loss are light, low purine, chicken and turkey. Salmon is higher in fat but should be included once a week. Duck is highest in fat so is OK for dogs who don’t have a weight problem but probably best only given from time to time in dogs who need to lose weight. Beef is also higher in fat than some and is best given sometimes but perhaps not too regularly in dogs who have weight problems.
Personal experience - I changed my dogs to Nutriment for weight control reasons. They are small dogs, speyed and easily gain weight. I was advised not to transition and just to start using the product straight away. They both took to the food readily. They have lost weight although we have also had a couple of blips. Because I have been weighing them weekly I have been able to identify why and to change things promptly. I would therefore advise anyone who is starting their dog on a raw diet to monitor weight for the first few weeks. Both of my dogs are doing fine on Nutriment. Bella’s coat has never been good but it is now looking much better and has lost the oily feel that it had. She had a few dry, flaky areas of skin and I can no longer see these. I will be continuing with Nutriment. Happily, it will now be much easier (and cheaper) for me because my local pet shop now has a Nutriment freezer in store.
I am feeding a mixture of naturediet, natures menu and just started adding nutriment into the mix. I am also feeding ‘Gentle’ as treats. I am going for the mix it up approach and see how we go.
I will be interested to see if people feeding nutriment notice changes in behaviour or energy levels. This is something I will be monitoring.
I’ve posted elsewhere that the Little Cav has been more laid back on Nutriment, less nervous of new situations, and he is generally calmer, less excitable than he was on Natures Menu raw or on dry foods. I can’t say I’ve noticed any difference in energy levels.
I started him on the turkey, then when he was settled tried chicken and then salmon. A couple of weeks ago I tried him on the low purine simply because I thought he’d love it, with the high green tripe content, and for further variety. I was right that he would appreciate it, in fact he goes nuts as soon as he smells it, definitely his favourite so far. I’m now rotating those four varieties, but I’m a bit nervous of the beef and duck because of the high fat content, given his history of difficult digestion. No problems at all on Nutriment so far though.
I got the salmon, duck and beef in smaller quantities to see how it goes. I don’t want to restrict her if she can tolerate them alright but like you, I am more nervous about the richer meals.
We had the low purine one on the go at the moment. It is going down well ;D
George - I wish I’d been like you and more observant regarding the fat levels. If the scales were right, my old Cairn put about 300g on last week. I couldn’t understand it but I am now thinking that it might be down to the duck and beef varieties. For now I’m going to rotate chicken, low purine and turkey with salmon once a week.
Nutriment publish a regular newsletter and I have just received their latest one. This can be viewed here. This one contains a recipe for warming bone broth for your best friend’s comfort in the coming winter months. That can be found here.
Nutriment are bringing out 6 new varieties in their ‘Dinner for Dogs’ range later this month, and all will be sold in smaller 200g trays. ;D
They say this range is ideal for small dogs. It is lower meat content than the original Working Dog Nutriment, at 75%, but that is still higher than any of the Natures Menu foods. It also lacks the ‘superfood’ ingredients, which some approve of but others don’t.
Thank you for the update. I received the newsletter but didn’t follow up on the new range so will do so now. The smaller quantity is a good idea. I know that if I had only one of mine on Nutriment I could not use it up in the specified time. I was looking at ways of chopping it up using a hacksaw! Having looked after my friend’s dog who has Natures Menu Country Hunter nuggets I think I prefer that format for small dogs though. It is really convenient.
I will be interested to see what the analysis is and in particular the fat content.
I’m not so keen on the Natures Menu raw myself, 40% raw vegetables is a lot for a dog to digest imo esp when it includes 10% peas. Certainly The Little Cav didn’t get on with it at all.
I think the Dinner for Dogs varieties are all likely to be lower in fat than the original Nutriment, though perhaps not as low as Natures Menu - certainly the chicken and turkey ones, which have been available for some time, are. I think lower meat usually means lower fat. We shall see.
The dry matter analysis (particularly fat) is what I am waiting for George. There is enough information on the website to work it out but I would need to get my head round it and I am not good at numbers. It was the high fat in the working varieties that was problematic for my two who tend to put weight on easily. The calorific content of the duck meal is 145kcal/100g so that is encouraging.
Regarding the Natures menu, I have not done a comparison so it is interesting to read your observations of it. The lower fat is what attracted me to it. My friend’s little dog who has been on NM for some time now seems to be holding her own weight-wise.
I’m not very happy with Nutriment at the moment, I wonder if anyone else has had any problems?
The food is no different as far as I can tell, but customer service seems to have deteriorated drastically. I twice recently emailed them with queries to which I have received no reply whatsoever, and when I telephoned with a concern that the smaller tubs used for the Dinner for Dogs range were significantly defrosted after the 48 hour delivery to me here in IoM, my concern was dismissed and I was told that even if it was completely defrosted it would be fine - they said I should just put it straight in the freezer and it wouldn’t be a problem. I pointed out that their own website says that defrosted food should be refrigerated, rather than frozen, and used quickly, but they said no, it was quite safe.
Now my latest order, which should have arrived today, has still not turned up so it will have been in transit for at least 3 days before it arrives and I fear I’ll be told that £126 worth of completely defrosted food is ‘no problem’.
I’ll report back, but whatever happens I suspect I’ll be ordering from Natural Instinct more and from Nutriment less - if at all - in future. The new NI Country Banquet foods are great, and NI always manage to get deliveries even to IoM in under 24 hours, so I don’t see why Nutriment need 2 to 3 days.
Hello George. It is unfortunate that you are having this problem with Nutriment. As you may remember I stopped using it last year as raw diet does not suit two of my dogs so I cannot really offer any useful comment on what is happening here. Personally I wouldn’t want to re-freeze thawed meat so I can understand your concern. I know that you are not keen on Natures Menu so going over to Natural Instinct seems to be the way forward, given your concerns. Nutriment have a Facebook page so if you are a member, perhaps it would be worth mentioning your concerns there. I know you are very keen on their products so I hope that something is sorted out soon. Please let us know how you get on.
I haven’t had any trouble with delivery so far but have only really ordered twice as we have an empty freezer for dog food and I feed nutriment and other foods. I am just about to order another lot so I will let you know.
I would not be happy to put defrosted food back in the freezer.
Well the delivery finally arrived this afternoon, and as I feared the food was completely defrosted - in fact the bottom of the polystyrene box was running with blood that had leaked out of the containers. I stuck a soil thermometer into the middle of one tray and it was almost 6 deg C.
In fairness to Nutriment the young lady I spoke to today did not try to claim it would be OK to refreeze it (it was a male voice who assured me that it would be fine last time I spoke to them, though I don’t recall his name) and she agreed to refund the cost to my credit card.
I’m not inclined to order from them again though, there seems little point in messing about and risking the waste of good food when Natural Instinct have been so much more efficient & reliable in getting deliveries to me. I’ve been alternating between the two for a little while, and the Little Cav does just as well on the food so I’ll stick with NI for now.
Having looked on the website, they are saying orders may take longer due to high demand. I think I will leave it until after the holiday weekend. I looked at natures instinct which seems similar but it is more expensive to buy the 500g cartons. I will have to get the calculator out and compare.
Natural Instinct is a little more expensive than Nutriment’s working dog range (though personally I don’t mind paying a bit more in exchange for reliability), but nowhere near as expensive as Nutriment Dinner for Dogs - a couple of the varieties of that are a massive £12.50 per kilo :o
Yes, the Dinner for Dogs range is more expensive. Like you, I don’t mind paying a bit extra but I would find it a bit pricey. As I posted in another thread, I was astonished at the savings my friend made the other day when we visited a small warehouse that specialises in raw food food for dogs. However, not everyone has such a facility, particularly in areas like yours. Currently I’m giving my youngest Natures Menu Country Hunter Nuggets. It’s handy because my local pet store sells it so I can just get a couple of 1kg bags when required. Maybe a bit dear but very convenient indeed and being small she doesn’t need much. She gets topped up with Gentle which I use for training treats.
I thought I would let you know that I have had delivery problems with a different raw food company. The food was delayed on route due to problems with the courier and arrived today thawed. The company didn’t suggest I refreeze and gave me a refund. It would seem not just to be Nutriment which experiences problems.
Well I have ordered some today. She hasn’t had any for about 3-4 weeks and I was finishing off some natures menu cubes I had been given. I was shocked to find, she has lost a kilo since last weigh in. I am obviously getting the quantities of NM wrong. I feed the recommended amount for her size but a lot of it seems to go straight through her. Dried peas a plenty. Seems like a waste if they are not getting anything from them. I am hoping it arrives with no problem.