Feed Question...

[TayloredEq]

Just a quickie!!

Bear is doing much better after his trip to the vets and is taking his antibiotic tablets really well.

Whilst we were at the vet the previous appointment was also a GSD. when the owner came out we were talking and she asked how old Bear was. When I said 13 weeks she nearly collapsed. Our puppies are the same age yet hers is at least 1/3 smaller.

Now I always knew Bear was going to be big but now I am getting worried that I need to make sure he gets all the correct vits and mins so that he hopefully doesn't have any probs from growing too quick.

He is currenly fed on JWB and has half a tin of puppy meat mixed in (only half a tin a day) to make it tastier!!. It is normally the winalot puppy but at the moment it is Butchers as my Mum got the last lot of meat.

So is this the best feed for him? I noticed at the vets that Royal Canin do a breed specific feed. Would this be better for his joints etc? Also what would be the cost of this?

Any ideas appreciated, plus an idea of cost per bag please!

Thanks

 

[MurphysMinder]

Is the JWB a specific puppy food, if not I would change to one of the complete feeds designed for large breed puppies. I have got Evie on Beta large breed pup, which she is doing really well on, but there are plenty of others. It costs around £26 a bag. I personally don't think you have to go for the mega expensive ones specifically for GSDs as long as it is a good quality feed. Imo there isn't a lot of good in tinned meat, even puppy stuff, but I see no problem in adding small amounts to his meal. Evie sometimes has ground pet mince added to her food.

I wouldn't worry about him being bigger than the other pup, there are a lot of puny Shepherds about. When I saw the litter they looked as if they were going to be a decent size. As long as he isn't too fat he should be fine, a pup needs to have a decent covering but not be roly poly fat.

 

[MarleyandDarcy]

We always used to put our puppies on Oscars large breed puppy complete food. Last puppy had JWB as she was a rescue and already on it. They get that until they are around 6 months old and then go onto RAW.
We also used to use Pedigree puppy meat to make the biscuits a bit more interesting or goats milk

 

[FinnishLapphund]

Though Royal Canin's veterinary diet Intestinal really has worked when mine sometimes have got diarrhea, I'm not an Royal Canin fan.

I'm also against using Puppy-foods. Out of seven puppies that I've had, the third got good special puppy-food, and one of her hind-legs grew to fast and became obliquely. So after that, I've kept to what I did before, they get a good adult food and gets a portion that is the same as what an adult dog of their expected adult weight would get.



There is a study, that I think was carried out in some university in the USA, were they did an experiment with puppy feeding. The experiment began when the puppies were around the age when they normally left the breeder, a number of puppies were divided into three groups and the perfect/adequate nutritional requirements were calculated.
Group 1 received 20% more to eat than group 2.
Group 2 got the exact ideal amount of food.
Group 3 received 20% less to eat than group 2.

They then controlled the puppies on various occasions, to see how well the puppies utilized their food and made other notes.
Group 1 took up 40% of the nutrition in the food, the puppies were overweight.
Group 2 took up 60% of the nutrition in the food, the puppies had about normal weight.
Group 3 took up 80% of the nutrition in the food, the puppies almost had normal weight, but none was considered underweight.
The study concluded that puppies bodies could, to some extent, adapt to the availability of the nutrition in their food. By which I conclude that the chances are great that if it is a little bit to little of something in the puppy's food, it can increase its absorption of that substance.

Of course, if the food you choose to give the puppy does not contain, for example any Vitamin A at all, it wont help/matter how much the puppy increases its absorption of the substance, but I believe the likelihood for that it would occur with a good complete dog-food purchased in Sweden, is so small that it's immeasurable.


This is not meant to be taken as an excuse to feed a dog with 20% less of what it needs, remember that none of the puppies in group 3 managed to reach a normal weight. I only use it to show why I don't think puppy owners should worry to much about their puppy's food, as long as they buy a good one.