Dog Food Review: Castor & Pollux Organix

This is the forth of the dog food review series I'm doing.

Castor and Pollux Organix Adult Dog Food
Dog Food Advisor rating: ★★★★★
This food is AAFCO approved for adult maintenance.

The bag

Ingredients: Organic Chicken, Chicken Meal, Organic Brown Rice, Organic Peas, Organic Millet, Organic Oats, Chicken Fat (Naturally Preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid), Salmon Meal, Natural Chicken Flavor, Organic Quinoa, Dried Egg Product, Organic Flaxseed, Minerals (Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), Organic Carrots, Organic Apples, Organic Broccoli, Organic Pumpkin, Organic Pears, Salt, Choline Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, L-Ascorbyl-2 Polyphosphate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Niacin, Riboflavin, Vitamin B12  Supplement, Biotin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Chondroitin Sulfate, Yeast Culture (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Aspergillus Niger Fermentation Extract, Dried Trichoderma longibrachiatum Fermentation Extract, Dried Bacillus subtilis, Fermentation Solubles, Rosemary Extract.

Items in italics will be discussed later. 

Bag's recommended daily feeding instructions for a dog 75-100 lbs:  2¾ – 3¼ cups
Crude Protein: minimum of 26.0%
Crude Fat: minimum of 14.0%
Crude Fiber: maximum of 4.5%
Moisture: maximum of 10.0%
Calorie content: 394 kcal/cup, 3,570 kcal/kg
Calculated amount to maintain Ebon's ideal weight (82.5 lbs): 4.23 cups or 0.47 kg (1.034 lbs)
Price per pound when buying the largest bag (25 lbs at $57.99): $2.3196
Estimated cost of feeding Ebon per year on this food: $875.44 (15.09 of the 25 lb bags)
Ebon receives slightly less than the calculated feeding amount to allow for his daily treats
Ebon's overall health on this food: Very good. Shiny coat, poop small and consistent, energy level moderate to high.

The kibble

I started transitioning from Ebon's old food on April 14th, and I started transitioning him off of this food yesterday. The kibble itself is rather small and smells wonderfully of roasted chicken. This is likely due to the large amount of chicken that's included in the product. Some nice things to see in this food: chelated minerals and probiotics. Chelated minerals are believed to be more easily absorbed and used by the body than non-chelated minerals, and probiotics/microorganisms help maintain good gut flora to provide for better digestion.

Ash did this

An interesting diversion happened before I even opened this bag of food. Ash, who is rather infamous for being a sneaky little cat, ripped open the bag. While I wasn't paying attention, he snuck into my closet, where I keep the spare food, and tore open a corner. He's well known for ripping open bags of food, but this is the first time he's ever done it to a plastic bag. He made quite a hole!


Ebon did quite well on this kibble. One slightly odd thing that happened to his stool while on this food was that is was rather soft in consistency,  but the quantity was greatly reduced. Usually, if it's soft, it's also copious. For example, he usually has two movements a day, but on this food there were days when he showed no indication that he wanted to go more than once. He did get stressed one day while on this food, when we were accidentally locked out of the condo for a couple of hours, and he did have the expected copious, loose poop that he almost always has when stressed. It wasn't any looser than normal, despite the starting consistency being different.

Ebon's coat has been quite shiny and soft while on this food, with his normal amount of dandruff. Though this food contains fish meal, there was no hint of the horrible fishy smell he developed while eating Wellness.

Overall, I was rather happy with how Ebon did on this kibble. My only wish was that his stool was a bit more firm, though the quantity was more than acceptable. Though he did quite well, I'm honestly probably not going to feed it to him on a regular basis since it would be even more expensive to feed on a yearly basis than Nature's Variety Instinct, which he did even better on. So far, it would be the most expensive food to feed.

Will I change foods? We'll see. Next up: Blue Buffalo Wilderness and my decision about whether or not to do more reviews.