I think a lot of dogs that don't do well on the original Evo formula do well on the red meat version.  The price difference is significant.  In terms of the protein amount, this was especially a concern for me with feeding a giant breed.  There are more and more people with the belief that the protein quality is much more important than the quantity.  I think the quality of the protein in these grain free foods are of a quality that there is not as much concern.  I'm not a big fan of the free feeding in general, it just makes me feel more comfortable to know exactly when and how much my dogs (and cats) are eating.  I know right away if something is off, they aren't eating, etc.

That being said we aren't feeding Evo but we are feeding Orijen.  I absolutely love this food and so does Deuce.  He is eating the fish formula.  If you want an interesting read regarding the protein etc.  Read the white paper on Orijen's website

http://www.championpetfoods.com/orijen/documents/ORIJEN_White_paper.pdf

Thanks Tamara and Heather. 
Free feeding works best with my dogs so I'd like to continue doing that.  I'll definitely look into another brand.

Oh and thanks for the link Tamara.  I'll read it tomorrow when I'm not exhausted

I fail to see anywhere that I attacked you, chaa.

I was simply pointing out information that you did not take into consideration, and saying do your own research on food to be able to help educate others!

That way you can help educate people on *why* a diet like EVO is a far superior food to ones like Nutro, and why they should be purchasing it.

yer absolutely right, of course.   

Does Canidae make a grain free?

Have you looked into Nature's Variety Raw Instinct? That and Wellness Core are good ones if you don't want to try EVO. However I think you will run into the same problem with any grain free. They are made to be extremely palatable and dogs will overeat. Since the calories are so dense in a grain free food you see weight gain and diarrhea easily. You can put their daily ration in the bowl and try free feeding that way but really really watch for one getting too much/too little or any weight gain.

Hrm.

I was under the impression that beef is common allergen in dogs, too.  I thought even moreso than chicken.
*goes to google*

Bingo!
"In order of the most common offenders in dogs are beef, dairy products, chicken, wheat, chicken eggs, corn, and soy."
From here: http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1664&articleid=143

"The most common food allergies in dogs are dairy products, beef or gluten (from wheat)."
and here: http://www.vetontheweb.co.uk/pet-clinic-detail.asp?id=214

I'm getting a lot more hits saying beef is one of the worst allergens.
So, if you're really concerned about avoiding common allergens, I think the red meat option is not going to work.
Plus, the EVO has dairy, too, and that's another huge allergen.  Also I'm of the mindset that the lactate of a different species is just not appropriate food for anything but babies of that species.  Hence all the allergies to dairy in both people and other animals.  Your mileage may vary.

Melissa

As you have been feeding an organic diet you might try Karma also made by Natura (EVO). 95% Certified human grade organic. I've just switch all my dogs  to it from Innova and I'm also feeding it to my rats. When I open the bags it smells so good and looks incredible. The dogs are loving it as well as the rats.

I've never even heard of it but it looks like a great food!  Thank you so much- I'll have to check it out!

http://www.thewholedog.org/artcarnivores.html

Dogs are opportunistic. They eat animal poop but it doesn't mean that they've adapted to eating it and it's ok to feed it. It just means that if they have the chance to eat it and are hungry, they will eat it. Farm dogs were mostly fed scraps of butchered farm animals and they hunted their own small game like rabbits, squirrels, rats, mice, etc. A few thousand years of eating grain once in awhile doesn't change millions of years of evolution which designed dogs and their ancestors, wolves, to eat meat, bones, connective tissue and organs of prey animals.

If you are worried about your pet developing an allergy to Chicken the best way to avoid that is you dont ever want to make your pet reliant on one source of protein such as chicken/poultry but oyu want to feed them a variety of protein sources. Innova Evo is a perfectly fine dog food, and unfortunately most protein free Dog foods are going to be higher in protein unless you go with ones like Call of the Wild which is made by Diamond/Professional and then you are compromising on quality in my opinion because they have n oproblem with using Oceanfish meal which is known to commonly have Ethoxquin in it. Feed a grain free food as your base but then I would supplement it with Raw meat or at least canned such as Wysongs canned products or even Wellness and Solid Gold. Look into Nature's Variety raw diets they are pre-made, grain free and not protein loaded and they also have a variety of protein sources (Organic Chicken, Rabbit, Venison, Lamb, Beef, etc.).

Meal is also good for your dogs to have, yes it does contain organ meat and bone and meat. Your dog does need Organ Meat and Bone, but should never be on the trash sludge of By-Products. Just make sure that Meal is not the first ingredient, meat should always be the number one thing in a dogs diet.

Just remember - what dogs were raised on until the modern era. There wasn't  puppy food, there wasn't senior food, their wasn't large breed diet, small bites and sensitive skin formulas. And also remember how a dog's digestive tract is set up. Dogs have a much shorter digestive tract then humans (Omnivores - takes us 18-36 hours to digest a meal) and horses (herbivores - takes 48 hours+ to digest a meal). Dog's digest their food in 6-12 hours, they have a very short digestive tract which is not meant to break down the complexities of grains - if they were meant to have substanial amounts of grain their digestive tracts would be longer - like a humans or a horses. 

Meal is fine. "Chicken meal" is just chicken with the moisture removed. It's still the meat and skin, with or without the bones, but there's nothing icky about it like by-products.
It's actually preferable to have a meat "meal" as one of the main ingredients, because like you said, it's more concentrated. You can have chicken as the first ingredient but that only takes into account the amount of chicken there was before the moisture was removed, so realistically, even though it's listed as the first ingredient, it probably doesn't make up a large portion of the food.

My dogs were constantly getting ear infections and some skin problems and I figured it was from the dog food I had been using and thought EVO would help. I tried it for a while and it didn't seem to help much, if at all. My boss told me that she had been feeding all 10 of her dogs raw and hasn't had a single dog get an ear infection since then. Raw isn't an option for me though, so she told me to try Honest Kitchen (she uses it too, along with regular raw). I haven't been using Honest Kitchen long enough to notice much of a difference, but I already love the stuff.

Here's the site if you wanna take a look, I use Embark. And I will be getting Prowl for my cat soon.
http://www.thehonestkitchen.com/index.shtml