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Read this if you’re new to Muenster!

   Welcome to the Muenster family. We’re so happy to have you as part of our pack, and want to give you a little insight to what makes our food the best & how to feed your dog!

  1. START SLOW: If you have been feeding another dog food for more than a month, your dog’s digestive system will need a tad bit of time to adjust. (the same way it would for a person if you went from eating pizza for a month to salad 🙂 😁
  2. FAST IF POSSIBLE: A 24 hour fast (no food) will do a wonder of good before transitioning a dog to a new diet. It lets the digestive system rest and helps the microbes in the gut to re-populate!
  3. INTRODUCE OVER 6 DAYS:
    1. Day 1: Fast (no food or treats 😬)
    2. Day 2: 25% Muenster, 75% old food
    3. Day 3: 50% Muenster, 50% old food
    4. Day 4: 75% Muenster, 25% old food
    5. Day 5: 75% Muenster, 25% old food
    6. Day 6: 100% Muenster 🐶
  4. FEED LESS: Did you know, Muenster contains appx 25-30% more calories per cup than most foods on the market? Due to our lower temperature cook process & higher meat inclusion recipes, we fit more calories in a cup than most! We ALWAYS recommend you feed your dog about 25-30% less than you were feeding on a prior diet. While it’s uncommon for a manufacturer to tell you to feed less of their product, we do! We want healthy trim dogs, not plump ones 😁!
  5. FEED ONCE PER DAY: While an unpopular choice, if you’re fighting digestive issues, allergies, obesity, this can be a game-changer for your dog. It allows the digestive tract to heal, rest & reduce inflammation with the body. It will take around 5-7 days to get your dog used to this, but you will see a difference in 30 days!
    1. If you have a highly active dog that has a hard time holding weight, continue feeding multiple times per day
    2. If you want to feed twice per day, we highly recommend feeding one of our many freeze-dried raw options in the morning as part of the meal plan. This will keep carbs low & provide you both with the happiness your dog wants!
  6. CONSIDER SWITCHING IT UP: Dog food can get a tad boring. I know this because I ate it for 30 days! Don’t believe me? Just google: man eats dog food for a month :) After this, we introduced the ability to customize a single bag with ingredients like salmon oil, coconut oil, bacon fat & other freeze-dried goodies. This allows you to keep the same base recipe to maintain a healthy digestive system, but also provide your dog with some of the variety it craves!
  7. REWARDS POINTS: Yep, that’s right, you just earned 100 rewards points just for ordering from us. Every time you purchase Muenster, you’re rewarded with 1 point for every dollar spent. 
  8. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Please let us know how your dog does on the food and if you need any help! As a small family owned company, we heavily rely on feedback from our customers. 5-star reviews on our products are always appreciated, as is some love on social media 🙂

Best Regards,

Mitch & Chad Felderhoff

4th Generation Owners


https://youtu.be/3Q_FPPslCWs


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What is Freeze-Dried dog food?

Muenster Milling’s Freeze-Dryer, located in Muenster, TX

By now, most of you have heard the term “freeze-dried,” and have probably seen it on the shelf at your local pet food retailer or online. It’s one of the fastest-growing segments of the pet food industry and for good reason. The process gently removes moisture from the food without cooking it, leaving you with a nutritious, shelf-stable, uncooked product to feed your dog. 

Why is freeze-drying a superior process for producing pet food?

It’s simple really, you get out of the freeze-dryer what you put into it without having to add extra fillers. The freeze-dried process was initially developed to maintain structural integrity and nutrient levels in foods for our astronauts. When cooking foods, vitamins & minerals are lost during the heating process. In freeze-dried, since everything happens in a frozen environment, the proteins aren’t denatured, so vitamin/mineral concentration isn’t lost. The freeze-dryer provided our astronauts with a complete and balanced diet that was light and could be reconstituted, while ensuring they had all the nutrients necessary for their travels. Another important application of freeze-dried products is in pharmaceuticals.  As expensive as prescription drugs are, the manufacturers can’t afford to lose half of the integrity of their product to the heating process – which is why, oftentimes, pharmaceuticals are freeze-dried.

Our goal for feeding your pets is to give them the nutrients they need without having to pack in an abundance of high-calorie carbohydrates to make it happen. Carbohydrates are sugars that have low nutritional value for carnivores – but do a great job of holding kibble together, making extra carbs a common ingredient in conventional pet food. Since freeze-drying removes water from foods while frozen, carbohydrates are no longer needed to hold the foods together. Freeze-drying also negates the need to add glycerin to foods (used many times in baked & cold extruded treats). When freeze-dried, a dog’s diet is more simple & pure without extra filler ingredients.

This image was taken shortly after opening our freeze-dryer in Muenster, TX. The ice you see on the condenser plates is the moisture we have removed from the meat via freeze-drying.

What exactly is the freeze-drying process?

  1. We put frozen, raw meat onto trays in our freeze-dryer.
  2. The temperature lowers to around -60°, turning the water content in the meat into ice.
  3. A vacuum seal lowers the pressure to less than .06 ATM (atmospheric pressure).
  4. The trays heat up gradually. Once above 32° and without pressure, the water in the meat moves directly from ice form to vapor form, skipping the liquid form entirely (like dry ice evaporating on a counter).
  5. The water vapor collects on condensing plates (similar to the way frost condenses to your car in the winter), effectively drawing the moisture out of the meat. This condensing process can take anywhere from 24-48 hours.
  6. After all moisture has been removed, the vacuum is released and we’re left with a shelf-stable, super-nutritious raw meat product you can feed your dog or cat without any fillers or added carbs!

This is what frozen chicken looks like prior to entering the freeze-dryer. The trays slide onto the shelves and the sublimation process begins, taking water directly from ice to vapor.

How to incorporate freeze-dried into your pet’s diet

  • Freeze-dried foods can be 100% of your dog’s diet by allowing them to transition to a full carnivore diet over the course of one week.
  • Incorporate freeze-dried as 25-50% of your dog’s diet by mixing it in with kibble or canned foods.
  • Feeding freeze-dried during the day and kibble at night is a popular method.
  • Gradually adding freeze-dried meal toppers to kibble can be used to slowly remove carbohydrates from the diet.
  • Use freeze-dried as a treat only. Personally, when feeding as a treat, I like to hide freeze-dried foods throughout the house and let my dogs “hunt” for it. 

Image of our Freeze-Dried Elk & Venison Meal Topper. All it takes is a little sprinkle over their regular food, and your dogs’ mealtime will never be the same!

However you choose to incorporate the freeze-dried product into your dogs’ diet, you’ll want to make sure you monitor how much food your pets are eating. Freeze-dried foods are more rich in protein and nutrients than conventional pet foods, so your pet will likely need a lower quantity of food in general. But every single dog is different and will have different needs. You are the best judge of your dog’s body condition, and you can easily help your dog by ensuring you adjust the feeding amounts as directed. If you need any help putting together a freeze-dried feeding program for your dog, please reach out to us and we can help set you up a program. Send us a note: info@muenstermilling.com

To save 50% on our Freeze-Dried Elk/Venison meal toppers, use coupon code 50offelk.

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Grain Free and Taurine

grain free

For the past decade, one of the fastest growing trends in the pet food industry has been the “grain-free” diet. These diets do not include corn, soy, and wheat, which are often seen as the “bad guys” by some pet parents.  However, recently some dogs fed “grain-free” diets containing mainly potatoes, peas, lentils, and other legume seeds as the main ingredients have been implicated in the development of a heart disease called dilated cardiomyopathy (DC). Continue reading “Grain Free and Taurine”