Default Re: Grainless dod food



Highly Digestible, Minimum Bulk Diet with Adequate Nutrient Content

In addition to maintaining health and vitality common to all canine species, greyhounds are a specific athlete with

important performance related nutritional needs.

The diet must provide optimal and balanced proportions of carbohydrates, protein, fat and fibre to maximise energy

density, while minimising gut weight and feed volume compatible with efficient digestive function and power-toweight

ratio. Greyhounds have the highest power-to-weight ratio of any athlete. Gut fill and body weight has a large

influence on the speed and ultimate performance of a greyhound running over a range of distances between 300-700

metres. The traditional meat based diets with a total intake of 1000g daily (as fed) containing an average of 50-70%

fresh red meat by weight or 500-700g for an average 30 kg (66 lb) greyhound, combined with 30-50% of a low protein,

low fat dry food or kibble (300 g daily) are still popular. However, these feed combinations may be excessively bulky

for greyhounds to consume, especially as it is often fed as a single meal daily. The actual dry matter content of raw

meat in the fresh state is only 20% with water contributing the major portion of the weight and bulk. The advent of

low bulk, highly digestible extruded dry foods manufactured on a cereal and oil seed meal base, with high fat (20-30%)

and high crude protein (20-30%) as the major energy and protein sources, theoretically distends the gastrointestinal

tract to a lesser extent and are digested leaving a minimal bulk of stool.

Low bulk, complete feeds have not been well accepted in greyhound kennels because of a preference for traditional

meat-based feeding practices, as well as the perceived higher cost of these dry foods on a per kilogram basis (Table 1).

Dry foods processed by steam extrusion are designed to gelatinise starch to facilitate its digestion, enabling a reduced

feeding rate of 350-400g daily for a 30kg racing greyhound.

The negative aspect of a high protein, high fat, minimum bulk diet is that many trainers consider that the small bulk of

food leaves the greyhound appearing hungry, rather than full and content, when fed once daily compared to a more

bulky meat-based diet. The positive benefit of a low bulk, highly digestible diet is the lower stool bulk, which reduces

kennel and turn-out clean up time and less faecal odour in kennels when fresh meat is eliminated from the diet.

In countries with a warm climate, the amount of water consumed to maintain hydration can negate any weight

benefit obtained from feeding low bulk, high protein and high fat dry foods.

Various studies have found that high protein dry foods may be detrimental to speed and performance. On average, a

racing greyhound is able to run 0.1 metre/sec faster (about 2 lengths of the winning margin) over 500 metres when

fed a moderate protein diet (20-25% crude protein) as compared to a high protein diet containing in excess of 30%

crude protein.1.

These studies concluded that a dry food based diet, which contained 42% of the energy from carbohydrates, 33% from

fat and 24% from protein, provided the best dietary balance to optimise speed and performance over a standard 500

metre race distance. However, greyhounds on this diet were slightly heavier in body weight compared to greyhounds

fed a diet containing higher protein and fat, with a lower content of carbohydrate. This difference in body weight was

attributed to a greater muscle bulk in greyhounds fed on the medium protein diet.9.

How to Achieve the Optimum Carbohydrate, Fat and Protein Balance for Performance

A proportion of 50% of meat by weight in the total diet has been shown to be of benefit in helping to improve overall

speed in a racing greyhound. The ration ideally should contain a blend of meat and dry food to provide energy from

an optimum ratio of carbohydrate, fat and protein. This important balance must be provided in bulk that can be

consumed easily without adding excess gut weight.

Traditionally, Australian trainers feed a carbohydrate-based meal for breakfast in the form of cooked cereal biscuits.

The traditional evening meal is based on lean meat and dry food, with additional vegetables if required.

Feeding the Racing Greyhound for Performance Page 3

How to Achieve the Optimum Carbohydrate, Fat and Protein Balance for Performance (cont.)

A simple calculation (in the table below) based on the energy content of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats can be used

to determine the balance needed between these foods to meet the average daily energy requirement for a

greyhound in training under moderate conditions (15-25oc). Under cold conditions below 8oc, it is best to increase

the carbohydrate content of the diet by 10%. During hot weather above 30oc, an increase in the fat content by 5-7%

will help meet the elevated energy expended as a greyhound pants to cool.

A good quality dry food can be combined with a meat base to provide the energy intake in the optimum ratios

between carbohydrate (CHO), protein and fat.