New puppy feeding question

[RunToEarth]

Hello.

Picked our lovely new puppy up yesterday and she's settled in well.

She came with a box of Bakers puppy food, which she has been eating since weaning. I don't like Bakers at all and I'm looking to gradually introduce her to something else. My last dog was a pup from the litter we kept so I've never had to change her food - is it ok to do this, if I do it gradually?

She's a golden retriever and will be a working dog, my spaniels are on James Wellbeloved, the vet has recommended royal canine - could I have some thoughts/opinions, I want to get it right if I'm changing her food.

Thanks.

 

[abb123]

I'd stick to the James Wellbeloved. Very good food IMO.

I changed mine from the puppy food that she came with to a feed from my local mill. I just started mixing a little bit in and gradually swapped it over. She's still on puppy feed at the moment but am going to swap her onto something with a lower protein content soon.

 

[Teaselmeg]

Definitely ditch the Bakers, awful food and surprising that your breeder was feeding it. James Wellbeloved would be ok, Burns, Arden Grange are good too.

A good rule is to check the ingredients and if cereal/rice is the first ingredient then avoid it. Also, if it has a meat meal or derivative as the meat content then also avoid. Of course if it has loads of E numbers/colourings then it's really awful !!

 

[Merlin11]

My labrador puppy is on arden grange large breed puppy food and looks well on it. She is 6 months now. Enjoy your pup!

 

[Greybird]

Both Applaws and Lily's Kitchen are excellent but on the expensive side for a larger dog (Mine's a little thingy)

 

[twiggy2]

both royal canine and james wellbeloved are made by the same company so either would be fine-JW is a fair bit cheaper though.

you can change food over but I would not introduce anything different for 48hrs as her immune system will be working hard in a new environment and she may be a little stressed, gradually introduce the new food over 5-7 days adding a little more in each feed and reducing the bakers accordingly she should be fine.

personally I feed skinners lamb and rice or duck and rice and when they are pups they are fed the puppy food, I have also fed raw and it really suits my lurcher and we will be returning to that. if dry suits your lifestyle then they are plenty of good ones out there

 

[noodle_]

mines are on james wellbeloved... its a good food

 

[RunToEarth]

Thank you everyone, looks like I might go with JW then, I want to stick with dry if I can.

Wasn't going to start introducing it for another week or so - like you say lots of new things for her to adjust to as it is.

 

[Cinnamontoast]

JW is now owned by Purina who make......Bakers! Who the flip feeds that anymore?! The protein level dropped like a stone when they took over the company. Royal Canine is seriously poor quality, IMO, full of pointless fillers. Look at the Wet/dry food index in the stickies for good quality and price. If I fed dry, I'd fed Acana or Orijen. Expensive, but the amount you need to feed will be less than poor quality cheaper foods, so may work out well. Wainwright's Fishmongers dry is fab and contains more fish than Fish4dogs which is well thought of (although now contains too much filler for my liking) For wet, I'd do Wainwright's trays from Pets at Home.

I take it you wouldn't feed raw?

 

[RunToEarth]

JW is now owned by Purina who make......Bakers! Who the flip feeds that anymore?! The protein level dropped like a stone when they took over the company. Royal Canine is seriously poor quality, IMO, full of pointless fillers. Look at the Wet/dry food index in the stickies for good quality and price. If I fed dry, I'd fed Acana or Orijen. Expensive, but the amount you need to feed will be less than poor quality cheaper foods, so may work out well. Wainwright's Fishmongers dry is fab and contains more fish than Fish4dogs which is well thought of (although now contains too much filler for my liking) For wet, I'd do Wainwright's trays from Pets at Home.

I take it you wouldn't feed raw?

I know enough about raw to say no, We have two working springers on JW and they look super, so I suppose I never looked into raw - I'm open to suggestions though and I suppose I need to educate myself into exactly what it is, benefits/drawbacks.

 

[twiggy2]

JW is now owned by Purina who make......Bakers! Who the flip feeds that anymore?! The protein level dropped like a stone when they took over the company. Royal Canine is seriously poor quality, IMO, full of pointless fillers. Look at the Wet/dry food index in the stickies for good quality and price. If I fed dry, I'd fed Acana or Orijen. Expensive, but the amount you need to feed will be less than poor quality cheaper foods, so may work out well. Wainwright's Fishmongers dry is fab and contains more fish than Fish4dogs which is well thought of (although now contains too much filler for my liking) For wet, I'd do Wainwright's trays from Pets at Home.

I take it you wouldn't feed raw?

JW is owned by Mars who produce royal canine not Purina-not sure if this is a new thing but thought I must be going mad so have checked.
OP my dogs have always done well on skinners, I have never fed JW so cannot comment on that from a personal experience but other I know feed it and the dogs look good. I can say it is easier ti feed all the dogs the same food when age appropriate

 

[CorvusCorax]

I know a couple of dogs on JWB and they look great. Including one who is very hard to keep weight/condition on.
Also.. you don't want too much protein from a dry food...especially with a large breed puppy. It's a fallacy that they need rocket-fuel levels of protein to help them grow.
Arden Grange is also good but I've never really rated Royal Canin.
Skinners is a good mid-range food, would like to feed it but didn't really do much for my dog's condition.

Personally speaking I would bin the Bakers immediately but I know that's not the popular wisdom.
Feeding Barking Heads at the moment, with the odd day of raw chicken or whatever is in the bargain bin at Tesco!

 

[Molly'sMama]

our golden retriever pup did badly on JW, it caused a lot of colitis for us and we had real diarrhea problems with him whilst he was on it. now on arden grange and he's happy.

 

[Cinnamontoast]

JW is owned by Mars who produce royal canine not Purina-not sure if this is a new thing but thought I must be going mad so have checked.
OP my dogs have always done well on skinners, I have never fed JW so cannot comment on that from a personal experience but other I know feed it and the dogs look good. I can say it is easier ti feed all the dogs the same food when age appropriate

Duh, my bad, I knew it was a chocolate company!

I agree, it's easier to feed all the same, but one of mine didn't do well on raw and I was sick of clearing up sick, so he's gone onto Wainwrights trays with little bits of raw on top. Some of the ingredients in some varieties of JW aren't too stunning, although this one is ok, but the amount of rice-pure filler-is outrageous! JAMES WELLBELOVED (turkey & rice)

Price (15kg): £39.90
Price per kilo: £2.66
Suggested daily amount: 350g
Daily feeding cost: 95p

Ingredients: Rice (26%), turkey meat meal (26%), oats (19%) whole linseed, turkey gravy, turkey fat, sugar beet pulp, alfalfa, natural seaweed, chicory extract, sodium chloride, calcium carbonate, lysine, DL-methionine, yucca extract, threonine, JWB special ingredients.

The cereal free has huge amounts of potato, equally pointless filler.

I wouldn't touch a Royal Canin with a barge pole, seriously poor quality ingredients. ROYAL CANIN (medium breed)

Price (15kg): £39.99
Price per kilo: £2.66
Suggested daily amount: 320g
Daily feeding cost: 86p

Ingredients: Dehydrated poultry protein, maize flour, maize, wheat flour, animal fats, dehydrated pork protein, wheat, hydrolysed animal proteins, beet pulp, fish oil, soya oil, yeasts, minerals, hydrolysed yeast

Re protein and large breed pups, I've always understood that you don't give them high levels of protein so they don't grow too quickly, I've never seen anyone recommend lots of protein for a pup, although Orijen/Acana come highly recommended and they have high protein levels.

I'd go cold turkey on the Bakers, I wouldn't even put it in pigswill, it contains BHT/BHA, fake colouring and sugar, awful stuff for a baby.

 

[RunToEarth]

Thanks all - again really helpful.

For those who say ditch the bakers ASAP - I know it is really evil food and I would never choose to feed it, pup has only been with us since Tuesday and I wasn't sure whether just replacing it straight off would cause her an upset tummy?

I've got no problems feeding her differently to others as they are part time (between me and parents as shoot season) I want her to thrive, I think I'm going to look at Arden grange - not bothered about cost, if I totted up horse feed or our feed id be scared so feeding puppy properly will be done regardless of cost.

 

[twiggy2]

Thanks all - again really helpful.

For those who say ditch the bakers ASAP - I know it is really evil food and I would never choose to feed it, pup has only been with us since Tuesday and I wasn't sure whether just replacing it straight off would cause her an upset tummy?

It could and you would not know if it was the change of food or something more serious, in the grand scheme of things another 5 days of bakers whilst it is being fazed out is a very limited risk IMO

 

[Clodagh]

Best reply I ever saw to this query was feed the best you can afford and make sure it is only brown - dogs don't need coloured food. Some people cannot afford food at £40 a bag so they feed cheaper, it isn't the end of the world. Not aimed at you RTE, but everyone gets very excited about food. (Not just on here).

 

[RunToEarth]

Best reply I ever saw to this query was feed the best you can afford and make sure it is only brown - dogs don't need coloured food. Some people cannot afford food at £40 a bag so they feed cheaper, it isn't the end of the world. Not aimed at you RTE, but everyone gets very excited about food. (Not just on here).

I suppose the misleading thing is that some of the crap foods are expensive, which is why I wanted some opinions from people who have a bit more knowledge on the subject.

 

[Clodagh]

I feed skinners now, previoulsy Arden Grange but it was just too expensive for our gannets. Dogs look great on either.

OH used to have a lot of dogs and fed them on Valu Mix, I don't know if you can still get it, it was about £10 a bag. They all looked fine, worked hard and well and lived to old age. He thinks I am mad buying more expensive stuff. Ours get a lot of eggs and scraps as well.

 

[Maesfen]

It could and you would not know if it was the change of food or something more serious, in the grand scheme of things another 5 days of bakers whilst it is being fazed out is a very limited risk IMO

Very sensible answer IMHO. If pup was a lot older it probably wouldn't do much harm but a pup as young as this needs to be carefully changed over while it is still adapting to new owner, new home, new water, new routine and so on. The last thing it needs is an overload of something it's never eaten before, that's just asking for trouble which isn't fair on the pup.

 

[abb123]

Thanks all - again really helpful.

For those who say ditch the bakers ASAP - I know it is really evil food and I would never choose to feed it, pup has only been with us since Tuesday and I wasn't sure whether just replacing it straight off would cause her an upset tummy?

I've got no problems feeding her differently to others as they are part time (between me and parents as shoot season) I want her to thrive, I think I'm going to look at Arden grange - not bothered about cost, if I totted up horse feed or our feed id be scared so feeding puppy properly will be done regardless of cost.

Very sensible not to change straight away. Just do it gradually and she'll be fine.

Just a word of warning - in my experience golden retrievers tend to have sensitive tums. My older one can't have any raw meat or any rich foods. He is much better on just dry food. My puppy has a bit of an upset tum at the moment as she managed to eat some of my friends dog food that had been left down that I didn't know about. It's was just too rich for her.

 

[missmatch]

Have a look on here; http://www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk

Really helped us choose a feed.

We have a large breed puppy who had an awful start to life. We feed her applaws and she looks incredible now. Vet could not believe how different she was.

I buy it on zooplus and works out about £40 a month.