[Suitability test of various food mixtures for breeding and rearing of beagle dogs. 2nd Communication: Methods and results of feeding experiments of the Mannheim team (author's transl)].

A comparison of 3 commercially available dog foods (Ssniff C, Altromin H, Altromin HW) with 2 newly formulated dog food mixtures was carried out with regard to breeding, rearing and maintenance of Beagle dogs. No significant differences were found between the individual feeding groups with regard to the fertility and breeding ability of the bitches. All the foods supplied the requirements for energy, nutrients and feed additives in the rearing and maintenance of the dogs. The parameters used for the assessment, such as body weight, daily gain, daily food consumption and feed efficiency, were satisfactory for all food groups and were partially reproduceable. If the consumption of food, energy and nutrients per kg body weight are calculated and are related to the rearing results obtained then inconsistencies occur which can only be explained by differences in digestibility of the individual food components, and these underline the need for digestibility tests in dogs. The 2 newly formulated foods compared favourably with the other food stuffs and fulfilled the requirements for better standardised food mixtures. Further experiments will investigate the effects on the morphological, haematological and clinico-chemical characteristics. A comparison of different age groups confirmed the data in the literature which indicates that younger animals have a higher requirement for energy and nutrients per kg body weight than older animals. Results that have not yet been explained are the findings that the consumption of food, and thus of energy and nutrients, per kg body weight in younger male animals is lower than that of the female animals of the same age to a highly significant degree.