Grains are the small hard seeds, especially of grasses. Rice is a
grass:
http://www.gramene.org/species/oryza/rice_taxonomy.html

My own concerns with Wild Buffalo are that advertising on tv is
extremely costly so the difference in expenditures has to be made up
somewhere.

In the past (currently?) that was done by buying low cost ingredients
from Mainland China which is why it was one of the companies included
in the Melamine recall.
<http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/petfoodrecall/brand_list.cfm?brand=Blue%20Buffalo%20(RICE%20GLUTEN)&pet=Dog>
and then it originally recalled the food types one at a time -- like
pulling teeth.  Example of the one-at-a-time compliance:
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ArchiveRecalls/2007/ucm112171.htm

I do not know how much of the content is from where now, but my second
concern also involves a recall. Blue Buffalo fought tooth and nail when
vets on VIN found out that animals were getting kidney problems on
their foods from hypercalcemia due to too much Vitamin D3 (which can
cause calcium deposits on organs like the kidneys and heart that can be
fatal if not caught in time) which resolved in the animals caught early
enough when the Blue Mountain foods were no longer given. It turned out
that besides adding D3 they also were adding a second ingredient that
bodies alter into D3 and that can causing the problem. Ferrets, BTW,
share this vulnerability with dogs. (Ferrets are more prone to easily
getting too much D3 than people and less prone to getting too much A
than people. It makes sense if you think about it since their ancestors
were not diurnal but did regularly wind up eating livers.) Blue Buffalo
just kept denying that its foods were involved until the nutrition
branch of a vet school did an analysis of the foods. Then it did not
originally pull all of its involved foods though it finally did under
public pressure. Notice that in the original statement they actually
even said that high levels of D3 are not known to cause any serious
health problems in dogs, when actually that is well documented to
cause kidney failure if it goes on long enough:
http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food-recall/blue-buffalo-dog-food-recall/

So, each will make up his or her own mind, but we have chosen to avoid
that brand mostly because the ingredient source did not match the
advertised claims (high quality claim doesn't really mesh with a
melamine laced Mainland Chinese ingredient created to falsely up
nitrogen content and look like there is more protein than there really
is) and because the company repeatedly fought tooth and nail to not
recall foods that needed to be recalled and then then complied only
partially and grudgingly until pressed when one looks at their recall
timings and statements. Personally, those corporate choices combined w
expensive tv advertising remind me far more of the highly profitable
grocery store brands, not of high grade brands. The opinions for some
based upon the history will be the same as ours but of others will be
different. These just are the bases for our own choice.

Sukie (not a vet) Ferrets make the world a game.

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html

"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)

A nation is as free as the least within it.

[Posted in FML 7772]