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Long-term storage of pet food

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dog dogs pets
22K views 34 replies 30 participants last post by  Airilith 
#1 ·
I have not yet seen this topic discussed. I am interested in being able to store dog food long term in mylar bags with O2 absorbers. Does anyone see anything wrong with this? For instance, pet foods oftentimes have a lot of oils and moisture in them. Would this cause early spoilage. Of course, with any food storage I would be rotating stock. However, I would like to have a good 40 lbs of back-up at all times. I just want to try and get a handle on how long it will store for before I can get to it.
 
#13 ·
If you are referring to dilligaf's statement, he said "We simply count each dog as a person in our regular food preps" meaning when storing food, they have enough to feed the dog as if he were a member of the family. If that isn't what you were referring to, sorry... :)
 
#5 ·
Dry dog food usually has a pretty high fat and oil content. Because of that I would NOT mylar but simply pour into clean buckets/barrels and rotate every couple of years.

We are getting a 2-3 year rotation out of cheapie dog food put up by simply pouring into 60 gallon barrels. The top inch or so is WHITE from the oxidation of the fats and oils. Throw that top inch or so into the pond. Everything below that is fine and the dogs eat it with no side effects.

You could probably get at least 5 years out of canned dog food but the cost would get prohibitive to store a real quantity of it. We have quite a few dogs, mostly Shepherds, so this isn't an option for us.

Contrary to popular belief, dogs will eat just about anything, most folks are WAAY too concerned about what their animals eat and not enough concerned with what THEY eat!

Lowdown3
 
#6 ·
Dry dog food will stay good for a long time, I would just keep it in the bag and stick the bag in a barrel if I were you, should be fine for several years or more.

About the comment with the canned food, I buy the 24 packs of canned food for 12 bucks each at Sam's club... I feed my dog one a day mixed with dry food and it makes both go a lot further, plus the cans will good forever as long as they are kept in a cool, dry place.
 
#7 ·
The fat and oil content is exactly what I was concerned about. And you're right, too, about people worrying what they feed their pets but not worrying about what they feed themselves!

I was, however, thinking of using an ultra high protein dog food (something I don't normally feed my dogs as they're "city dogs") so that a little will go a long way in case of rationing. I currently feed Bil Jac. It's pretty dry and seems like it might do well for long-term storage as opposed to something more oily. At any rate, a back-up of canned food will help also. I'm stocking a pretty tiny place (586 sf) so storage is constantly an issue.
 
#16 ·
I came across this on another site earlier this week and it hadn't ever crossed my mind.

Why not can some food for pets? I was reading about meat scraps mixed with rice and some left over veggies, canned and put back for the pets. It sounded silly at first, but I have (on more then one occassion pre-Foodsaver days) thrown out freezer burnt meat and vegetables. It's a complete waste but even with chicken scraps or the fat from meat, the only other animals we have are chickens and they surely don't eat that.

I'm going to try it. I wouldn't rely solely on home canned pet food, but if I have scraps I'd rather they not go to waste. And surely freezer-bitten chicken livers and snow peas have to be better then some greasy, dried up kibbles, you know?
 
#18 ·
ages ago online i found a recipe to make your own dog or cat biscuits (dry food). i have no idea where/ what website it was on though. i suppose it might be worth looking up. At least that way you can store the dry ingrediants seperate from the oil, meaty type products. until your ready to make it. i suppose it would be a good back up, if you ran out of store bought dog biscuits.
 
#19 ·
Just keep one bottle of A1 Sauce in case you need to eat your pet.
 
#21 ·
pet food storage

a dessicant (moisture absorber) in addition to the O2 absorber has helped our cat food last longer, but we had a problem that after a year it went rancid and made her barf.

i think that cat owners should release their cats (if NOT DECLAWED) and let their natural instincts take over. if a cat is declawed, having food stored for it is as simple as store bought or home canned food, dry food that is rotated, and add enough stored water to last them as long as you want to last.

as for dogs, if they are not useful to the tribe, if they are yappy and give away our position, i would eat it. if they ARE working dogs and members of the family, do the same for them as for the cats, just with dog food.

HOWEVER and BTW, pound for pound cat food contains more protiens, nutrition, and minimum crude ingredients. dogs love cat food, and you would have to store less cat food to feed a nutritious meal to dogs. few people know that, but i did a comparison years ago on cat and dog foods, and that's probably also why my dog always loved to eat my cat's poop. it still had nutrients in it the dog could use.
 
#26 ·
a dessicant (moisture absorber) in addition to the O2 absorber has helped our cat food last longer, but we had a problem that after a year it went rancid and made her barf.

i think that cat owners should release their cats (if NOT DECLAWED) and let their natural instincts take over. if a cat is declawed, having food stored for it is as simple as store bought or home canned food, dry food that is rotated, and add enough stored water to last them as long as you want to last.

as for dogs, if they are not useful to the tribe, if they are yappy and give away our position, i would eat it. if they ARE working dogs and members of the family, do the same for them as for the cats, just with dog food.

HOWEVER and BTW, pound for pound cat food contains more protiens, nutrition, and minimum crude ingredients. dogs love cat food, and you would have to store less cat food to feed a nutritious meal to dogs. few people know that, but i did a comparison years ago on cat and dog foods, and that's probably also why my dog always loved to eat my cat's poop. it still had nutrients in it the dog could use.
I feed my dog a few small cans of cat food a week spread over dry food, and she loves it. I think it contains more fat than canned dog food, so that would make it better in SHTF and would provide more calories. She also knows when there is a new bag of dried dog food opened...so it does go stale, in her opinion. It takes her at least six months to eat a big bag of dog food, so I keep it in a metal trash can to keep the air away from it at least a little bit, but don't know how much that helps. She'll eat the same food as I do in SHTF as soon as she runs out of hers.
I think the mylar bags and also canning meat scraps both sound like excellent ideas.
 
#24 ·
I have been taking the dry cat food out of the large bag, once it's open, pouring it into gallon freezer bags, pushing the air out, then turning it upside down and putting that in another gallon freezer bag, and writing the date on it.

I store the gallon freezer bags in a "vittle vault," which is a glorified 5 gallon pail with a spinner lid. That way I only open one gallon bag at a time. I keep the one bag I'm working on right now in a separate container, and only open the big container when I need to start a new bag. I also keep it in the coolest room in the house, away from windows. This seems to keep it pretty fresh. If I was really trying to keep it longer term, I'd try Foodsaver bags. The method I use now works ok for about a six months supply with no problem.

I did try just pouring it all into the container, unbagged, for a while, but it seems to me the stuff on the bottom would get stale from all the opening and closing.
 
#28 ·
I keep a full freezer of raw frozen beef and poultry, venison, buffalo, elk, rabbit, lamb, quail, pheasant, fish, etc. for the pets. All the raw food is either raised here or by people I know. I feed it in chunks, and grind some up, too. Eggs and veggies, sometimes vitamins, also, depending. Raw bones get ground up for the cats.

I also keep a whole shelf packed with cases of canned meat, and about 250-300lbs. of bagged dry and freeze-dried food. I feed predominately raw meat to cats and dogs, but they get canned and dry/freeze-dry as a snack and to keep them used to it, incase I could not get raw for them. Many of the higher quality dry foods (not the grocery store/PetSmart brands) come vacum sealed in bags.

It is a pretty substantial $ investment, but any animal here eats very healthy, whether their final destination is a spot on my sofa or a spot on my plate:). I store two years of frozen and canned food, and about 6-9mos. of dry and freeze-dried food.

I also keep some newborn puppy/kitten supplies. Although everyone here is kept spayed/neutered, you never know what you'll run across out here.

I love my critters:)
 
#30 ·
Don't "release" your cats into the wild. They run amok on people's homesteads killing chickens, rabbits , etc.

If you knew how many wild cats I've had to kill because of people not taking care of them or "releasing" them into the country, or if you knew how they died, you would give up this idea.

Stray cats are a plague to homesteaders. Don't "release" them. If you can't take care of them, take care of them.
 
#31 ·
Dry pet foods are going to have the same long term storage issues that any other high fat food would. I've been able to get over a year when properly packed. But I don't see a realistic way to store a "lifetime" supply for them. So what I figured was store and rotate a years worth at a time. If we put things back together inside of a year, great. If not, they transition onto whole raw chickens (or whatever) and table scraps for nutritional variety.
 
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