Has anyone heard of peas being used as a natural form of birth control? Not that I would trust it for myself but many dog foods are using peas now. Has anyone been feeding a food with peas as one of the first 3 or 4 ingredients and have had litters?

I had a bitch that had a silent heat while eating a food with pea protein. Progesterone test showed she did ovulate though didn't breed her.

We had a bitch of another breed also have silent heats while on food with pea high in list. We bred a couple times with no pups, but the timing may have been way off, as we did no progesterone, just ran to the stud dog when we realized she was in heat when she finally swelled a little and the girls started the conga line. She is the last bitch in that particular line, so it was particularly hard to bear.

We switched food totally after that. We bred her again to the same stud as last time, and she had some morning sickness this weekend. It is a week too early to tell, but maybe we are in luck. There are some peas in the grain-free that I mix for higher protein with the grain-filled regular (maintenance) kibble, but I am feeding a lot more fresh food: eggs, veggies, meat, a little yogurt,etc. in one meal of her rations. If anything, the extra fresh food might have made more of a difference than anything, or it could be just one of those things. She is getting much less of pea protein, and no shreds in a grain-filled food, now. We're back to our old ways, tried and true, and things are better. Their coats are better, too.

I've heard other folks mention peas before and conception problems.

All of a sudden we all want to feed GF food, but all we are doing is replacing the grain (carb source) with a different carb source. I don't think we know well enough about these alternative carb sources to know if they are going to produce a problem with our dogs or not.

I don't mind grains, and I do mix in GF from time to time as a variety, but not to bitches meant for breeding.

I have a girl who is fed food with peas in the first 3-4 ingredients. She was bred and had 10 puppies - all healthy and happy. Maybe we were lucky or maybe there really isn't a link.

Was it whole peas or pea protein? Whole peas wouldn't be as bad as pea protein because pea protein is a concentrated source of peas. Some foods have a few fractions of peas and when added up there is a whopping amount of peas in there. If your breeding I would stay away from peas all together until we know more about the consequences of feeding them daily.

Remember ethoxyquin? This preservative was found to be detrimental in larger amounts and now it's shown that a much lower lever is probably safe. Still, people don't want ANY ethoxyquin in their foods because of problems they had, probably a over reaction.

Purina now has a grain free with pea protein much further down the ingredient list. This food also contains cassava root flour as the second ingredient. Cassava is similar to a yam, it doesn't grow in the US and it's known to increase fertility, google it. I don't know if cassava root "flour" contains the compound responsible for increasing fertility or if they are banking on people thinking it does. I doubt that Purina has put enough research into these ingredients and I think it's wrong that our dogs are basically part of an experiment.

I read somewhere a while ago that the studies done on humans regardig peas and fertility was the unbelievable large amts of peas the people ate.

No one would eat that amt in a normal diet so most likely would not work as birth control/effect fertility.

The food I have been feeding has peas as the second ingredient and then pea protein further down the list. I have stopped using it until I learn more.

If peas are bad in large quantities....Is the 2nd most ingredient fed every single meal for every day a large quantity?

I have no idea how much is actually in your food just that the study done could not be conclusive because of the very large amts the people were fed.

I tried to search for the article again but can't find it , sorry.

I did however find other articles that (one says - for humans) don't eat too much meat protein but veggie protein instead and peas are listed as good.

Another article said to eat meat protein, but did not say peas are bad.

So who the heck knows? :-(

(: You are right. "Who the heck knows?"