Digestibility of a home-made diet and two dog foods, standard and super-premium, for dogs

Abstract

They were compared the coefficients of apparent digestibility (CAD) and the fecal qualityof dogs fed a home-made diet and two dog foods, standard and super-premium. Six adultdogs were distributed in a double latin square desing (3 x 3), with three treatments andthree periods, in a total of six replications per treatment. Tukey’s test was used to comparethe means. The home-made diet presented the highest CAD, not differing only of the CADof acid ether extract of the super-premium food. The standard food was the lowestdigestive, producting more feces. Fecal dry matter of dogs fed home-made diet was lowerthan in the standard and super-premium foods, which did not differ among then. Fecalscore presented low variability among treatments, remaining in the considered ideal range.Home-made diet can be an alternative in the feeding of dogs.