Proper Pet Food Storage

Day 10 of our 30 Days to the Best Pet Home will be focused on proper pet food storage. Pet food storage may seem like a minor thing to consider. However, as a pet parent, it is vital to make sure that your pet’s food is stored appropriately to ensure quality AND is stored somewhere where they won’t overfeed themselves while you are away.

Why is proper pet food storage necessary?

• Dog food can lose nutritional value if it is stored inappropriately
• Moisture can cause your dog food to become moldy. Mold can cause stomach upset, or cause an allergic reaction if your dog is allergic to mold (WholeDogJournal)
• Proper food storage can keep vermin and bugs out of your pet’s food.

Proper pet food storage is also dependent on the kind of food you feed your dog; dry food or canned food.

Dry Food

1. Dry food should be stored in a cool and dry place off of the ground. This will prevent vermin, mold, or bugs from contaminating your pet’s food. According to Petcurean, avoid places like basements where temperature changes can create condensation.
2. Food should also be consumed by the “Best Before Date” which is typically located on the back of the food bag.
3. The storage container should be a food-grade storage container with an airtight seal. When using a storage container, you can do one of two things. You can leave the food in the bag and store the bag in the container, or you can pour the food directly into the container. However, if you pour the food into the container, you will need to wash the container between bags because the oils from the food can cause the plastic to become rancid.
4. Always keep your bag! The dates and codes on pet food bags have valuable tracking information that can help you in the event of a recall.
5. Dry food can be frozen in an airtight bag, but only for a limited time.

Canned Food

1. Food should also be consumed by the “Best Before Date” which is typically located on the bottom of the food can.
2. Once canned food is opened, it should be covered with the appropriate seal and placed in the refrigerator.
3. Do not serve your pet canned food that is more than 3-5 days old. When I worked at the veterinary hospital, we would write the open date on the can to ensure we never served old food.
4. If wet food is served (either canned or dry food with water), it should be eaten immediately or refrigerated.
5. Canned food can be frozen, but it needs to be stored in an appropriate freezer container, like an ice cube tray.

What container should I buy?

Well, the criteria for the container is stated above; food-grade, plastic airtight container. The size of the container should be large enough to store your entire bag of food. Therefore, you may need to buy a larger container if you have a larger pet.

Even when you think you buy the right container…

When you are considering your pet food storage, please make sure that the container is stored in a place where your pet cannot help themselves. I have seen a few pets visit the veterinary hospital due to food bloat. I even knew a dog and cat team that worked together to get the food container open! If you don’t believe me, watch this video of a Border Collie helping herself to seconds.

I want to thank Petcurean for providing us with excellent information and resources for proper pet food storage. In addition to their amazing resources, they are also providing one of my lucky readers with 2, 25lb bags of their Go or Now Fresh Dog food!

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Disclaimer: I am a Petcurean Blogger Advocate. I have been compensated in exchange for providing my opinion. However, My Kid Has Paws only discusses products I truly believe in. In fact, I feed Petcurean to Rooney every day.

Also, if you are participating in our home challenge, I want to apologize for falling behind on the blog post schedule. I am doing my best and I feel it is more important to provide you with quality posts rather than rush them. Thank you for your patience.