Hill’s Science Diet vs Orijen

Finding the right dog food can be time consuming and confusing for the amount of options in the market. Most of them are also similar to each other but there are also brands made with good quality ingredients and ideal for your canine friends such as Hill’s Science Diet Vs Orijen. These are popular options and many dog owners have been using them for their pets without any issues. If you wonder which of them will be the better option, do check our short comparison below.

In this article, we are going to give you information about:

How to Choose Best Dog Foods
What are Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen
What are the Food Variants in Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen
What are the Ingredients of Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen
How are the Quality of Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen
How are the Nutrient of Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen
Hill’s Science Diet Vs Orijen

Best Dog Foods

Having an animal pet in the house is great, they are loyal companions that will always be by your side and oftentimes being our mood booster to relax after a tired day or annoying events during the day. As their owners, we have responsibilities about their wellbeing and since there is only so much their small paws can do, we will have to decide many things for them, especially choosing the right food. Just like humans, food is the base for their body to strive.

It is easy to miss the point when selecting a food for them because of the abundant options in the market. Yes, commercial dog foods have been around for so long in order to give pet owners a more convenient method to feed their canine friends. Before that, we feed them with table waste so the type of food they eat will be the same to us. However, nowadays the amount of brands and variants are much more compared to how they used to be.

This makes everything more confusing and some owners may end up getting the food that doesn’t match their dog’s need which then may cause health problems in the future. In general, all dog foods are formulated closely to each other but they are also not exactly the same. For healthy dogs, most typical dry or wet foods are going to be sufficient but, for puppies, large breed, small breed, or senior dogs, we may have to consider more factors when buying the food.

Similar to when we buy packed foods such as fruit bars, cereal, snacks, etc. what we see first is their ingredients and see what the food is made of. This is what we need to do with dog foods as well because it is necessary to know what we give to them. In some cases there are strange names or terms we may not be familiar with so it is wise to learn a bit about what they are. One of the most important is making sure meat is placed as the top ingredients.

This is because a dog’s diet naturally consists of a lot of meat just like their ancestors but they can eat plant based ingredients as well so other carbs and fiber will be beneficial for them too. In addition, there is a guaranteed analysis as well in their package to let you know the rough numbers of macro and micronutrients in the food such as protein and fat amount in each serving. This can help us decide the food based on the dog’s lifestyle or health concern.

About Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen

Dog foods can be very cheap and expensive but in general they are safe to consume as long as the manufacturer has proper control over their production. There are however still cases when their products are contaminated or have an unbalanced nutrient resulting from various errors but usually they are fast to act and recall the said mistake. This is also why we have to be continuously informed about the brand we are using in case a similar case happens to our food of choice.

If you are not sure yet which food to give, we can see what other owners are using as it is quick and safer to follow what others have been using and liking. There are actually many reputable brands out there with good foods and still fairly affordable. Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen are two of them among what many owners are using. We are sure most people are familiar with these names because they are everywhere and well-known for the good dog foods.

Hill’s is a very popular option for pet foods both dogs and cats with the company name Hill’s Pet Nutrition and as you may already know, they do carry various brands in the catalog such as Hill’s Science Diet Vs Healthy Advantage with different focus in each line to match what pet owners are concerned about. Science Diet is a good choice for it is scientifically formulated to provide the proper nutrition for every dog in every life-stage, size, and need.

Orijen itself is a brand of Champion Petfoods, similar to Acana which is also another well-known brand for dog foods. As the name suggests, this brand is focusing on making pet foods based on what they are supposed to eat in nature or “origin” which makes their foods contain many animal based ingredients. However, this also makes their foods priced higher than many of its competitors including Science Diet from Hill’s thus, owners have to invest more on their pet’s feed.

Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen Food Variant

Since dog’s nutrients vary, Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen are also offered in various different recipes and types or formulations. This food line is separated based on the age from puppy to senior and available in both dry and wet foods. They are also separated for small, medium, and large breeds while if your dogs are suffering from a sensitive stomach, the brand does have the no-grain formulation. The protein source seems to be simpler with chicken or lamb along with varieties for some health concerns.

Similarly, there are also a lot to choose from Orijen and this food brand is not providing wet food in the catalog but dry and freeze-dried variants only. The dry dog foods are also available for puppy and adult dogs but instead of focusing on special health needs, there are plenty of protein source types in the line so the foods are not only relying on chicken which most dog foods are using. Here you can choose original, fish, red meat, and tundra variants.

Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen Ingredients

As it has been mentioned above, the most important point in dog foods is their ingredients and to know about what the food is made of, we also have to check their ingredient list. Do note that different recipes may have different formulations but today, we are going to talk about the adult food in dry form with chicken and barley from Science Diet. As the name suggests, this food is made with chicken as the first ingredient and followed by barley on the second.

It is then added with other grains such as wheat, corn, and sorghum while for fat source it is using chicken fat. It does have chicken meal and liver flavoring to improve the taste. On the other hand, Orijen in this example the Original variant, is mostly made from animal ingredients because its top ingredients are all animal based from fresh chicken meat, turkey meat, eggs, chicken liver, herring, flounder, turkey liver, chicken necks, chicken heart, turkey heart, and various dried form of these meats.

Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen Food Quality

Chicken and poultry are common ingredients in dog food and the reason is because they are both nutritional and easily available which makes the ingredient convenient for manufacturers. But, fresh meat contains lots of water so when they are processed which include drying, the volume will be reduced by a lot which is why meat should be at the top because even so, the end products may contain mostly other ingredients, especially grain. There is nothing wrong with grain because they are safe for healthy dogs.

Since they are cheap, grains like corn, wheat, barley or rice are often used in cheaper dry dog food as the top ingredients but, naturally dogs eat meat more. Food that uses more grains can be higher in carbs as well despite the grains also contain fiber and minerals that are good for their overall health.

Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen Nutrient

The last part we want to see about Hill’s Science Diet and Orijen foods is what these ingredients are offering in terms of nutrients because you can guess it just by the type of ingredients. For example, the adult dry food in chicken and barley contains 23.9% protein mostly from the chicken and corn gluten meal, 14.7% fat, and 2.1% fiber with over 50% of carbohydrate. On the other hand Orijen is higher in protein and fat at 38% and 18% respectively. It also has maximum fiber of 5% and an estimated carb of only 28%.