The Bedlington Terrier Discussion Group

Copper Content of Dog Food (downloaded 2/22/05)

This list is for your information only. Bedlington-L does not vouch for the companies or any claims that they may make.

This is an analysis of copper contents in a number of foods. It was done more than a year ago, and things do change, but BilJac is the same. Frozen BilJac is one of the best dog foods on the market today and if your Bedlington is not affected it is an excellent food. Remember, if you know the status of your Bed you don't have to feed the lowest copper dog food (another reason to biopsy early).All dog foods contain copper, but there is a difference. We used the most popular or the adult maintenance formulas mostly in this paper. Although copper levels vary widely between manufacturers, there is only a small difference in formulas within each company's products. We did not inquire about any prescription products which may be very low in copper. Because of the various ways of measuring (wet, dry, dry food, etc) the actual amounts may differ as much as 2 mg, depending on the way the company presents the amounts. For instance, if you convert Pedigree Mealtime to the AAFCO Dry Food standard, it's actually 6.6mg/kg. - right on the nose for AAFCO's minimum copper recommendation. If you convert it to another standard for bulk food, it's slightly more. Not every company uses the same mg/kg standard, so this has been quite an odyssey as it is, converting grams, pounds etc. to kilograms. So, the actual amounts may vary slightly, but you can get an idea where each manufacturer is coming from.

Company	Brand Name	Copper
		mg/kg
Pedigree	Mealtime	6
Nutro Natural Choice	Adult Lamb & Rice	6
Pedigree	Lamb and Rice	8
Blue Seal	Lamb & Rice	8.5
Precise	Sensicare Formula	9
Flint River	Maintenance Adult	12
Purina	Dog Chow	13
Science Diet	Lamb and Rice	14
Biljac		14
Proplan	Adult Chicken and Rice	16
Bil-Jac	Frozen	17
Premium Edge	Adult	17
Science Diet	Maintenance	17
Blue Seal	Natural 26	24
Iams	Adult	29
Eukanuba	Lamb & Rice Adult	33 (note zinc levels)

Note: Three of the foods, Natural 26 among them, have been recently reformulated with higher levels of copper, zinc and magnesium than in the past. The other three, Lamb & Rice among them, are going to be reformulated in the near future, probably with higher copper content also. This food is offered in New England, East Coast &Middle Atlantic States.??