 Barked: Wed Feb 14, '07 12:47pm PST |
 | |  | | The Max line of foods is the original formula that started the company. The main difference between that and the Natural Choice line is that the NC has more supplementation added like Glucosamine/Chondroitin (which in the Max is only in the Weight Control (purple bag) and the large breed (puppy I think?) Also the max line is the only Nutro that has beef & rice, but most of the max foods are chicken & lamb / rice. The Max line is very basic and is still a good option if someone is feeding a grocery brand because it doesn't contain any artificial coloring, chem preservatives or by-product meal. If you are on a really tight budget Max is a better choice by far than something like beneful or kibbles n bits which is loaded with corn and sugar. Obviously some of the formulas have some wheat flour and are not near the 42% protein of something like Innova Evo, but not every dog does well on a super-high protein diet either. Esp. animals like our cocker Punky, who had pancreatitis and therefore a serious problem metabolizing meat protein and fat.
Besides the fact that they have glucosamine and chondroitin for joint support (in rather large amounts) DHA and L-carnitine are in most of the NC foods as well.
The Ultra Holistic food takes the nutro base food one step further by adding a chicken lamb and salmon blend for a more comprehensive protein profile and what they refer to as 'direct-fed microbials' (it's probiotics, I don't know why they refer to them that way, I am quoting directly from the bag.) Also more antioxidants with tomato pomace, sun-cured alfalfa meal, cranberries, and (please note those of you who are sensitive) **garlic**.
Also something important to note when you are reading the bag, I noticed that the glucosamine and chondroitin aren't listed. But I called Nutro and they said it IS in there : certain States that Nutro distributes Ultra to do not recognize glucosamine and chondroitin as a supplement, therefore it is not listed in the guaranteed analysis on the bags of Ultra - but it's in there, you just have to call their customer support # to get the exact mg per kg amounts.
I started Noodle on Max puppy. He loved it and we never had a problem. Shiny soft coat, good energy, no doggie odor (which also is something that has to do with his breed) small firm stools, and definitely less shedding than the alpo crud he was on when I rescued him at 7 months old. When he became an adult I put him on the Natural Choice Lamb & Rice small bites. Again, he loved it and had no problems. Last year I switched him to the Nutro Ultra adult. He liked the lamb & rice fine, but you should have seen him inhale all the ultra first while we were transitioning over! I found that the regular adult ultra has too much fat for him and higher protein, so we switched to the Ultra weight maintenance, but he didn't like that one as well and his coat seemed a little duller (the weight maintenance formulas for all lines of nutro only have 2.5% linoleic acid (omega 6) because of the lower fat content, all of the other nutro products have 3.5% minimum and the regular ultra adult and puppy and large breed puppy have 4%. So our happy medium ended up being the senior ultra formula. Now that he's on fish oil or virgin coconut oil every day as well, we could probably go back to the weight management ultra with no problem since he is getting efa's from other sources (essential fatty acids.)
I get that Nutro isn't right for everyone. Use what works for you. But I can definitely say that we have had good success with it and I heartily recommend it to family and friends. Plus the company has excellent customer service in my opinion and stands completely behind the safety and nutrition of their products.
Ideally I would like to feed whole food to my dogs, but as a base kibble, we could do a lot worse than Nutro.
ps - the ultra kibble made whole dog journals list for top foods of 2007.
Noodle, aka
my mom researched a lot before she put me on this food. |  |  | |  |
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