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.??