Safety Tips on Storing Your Pet's Food.

I give multiple animal’s food every day, so it is important that I pay close attention to all details of their food. If the food is not stored properly, your pet can get very sick from it. Here are some tips that I have learned being a pet owner and a pet-sitter.

My best advice would be to treat your pet’s food the same way you would treat your own food. Think about it; once you open up an item that does not need refrigeration it immediately starts losing its nutritional value, and it goes bad quickly. Same goes for your pet’s food. Regardless of dates on a bag of dry food, if the bag has been open longer than 45 days the leftover food should be discarded. As for wet food, they should be used within 48 hours of being open. The date on the cat or dog food on applies when the food is NOT open. I would recommend putting your own expiration date on the bag as soon as you open it.

There are health risks when improperly storing your animal’s food. Here are some more of my tips that will help keep your dry food healthy!

Buy smaller bags of food or smaller cans with the most recent manufacturer date.
NEVER buy open or torn bags.
If you have multiple bags of food, freeze it until ready to use.
Once the food is open add your own expiration label.
If dry foods appears to be moist, throw it away.
Store left over can food with a sealed tight lid and place it in the fridge.
Do not force your pet to eat food, if they only take a few bites then refuse to eat it. Throw it away after a few hours.

Here are some great recommendations for air tight food containers. Please do not pour kibble directly into food containers. This is a very common, but dangerous food storage practice. The residual fats and oils that settle at the bottom and sides of the pet food storage bin can become rancid and contaminate fresh new food. Always store food in its original bag. Place the whole bag into airtight pet food storage containers.