Puppy food?

I have wanted to feed my dog a BARF diet ever since I heard about it. I was planning to feed chicken necks, human mince, vegetables, fish, eggs etc. But I just got an email from my breeder regarding this:

Thepuppies
will need a puppy growth biscuit for at least six
months - DONT skimp on cheap foods at this stage - you
mentioned the BARF diet previously - many vets do not
recommend this for growing pups - how do you know what
vitamins are lacking n what you are feeding. Puppy
bikkies are formulated so pups dont lack anything. if
you want to had some homecooked food the recommended
mix is 3/4 dry formula and no more than 1/4
meat,chicken - scraps etc. NEVER feed only meat this
will encourage a picky eater.
My cavs are eating Purina small breed bikkies
currently. My advice to you is BARF diets require
careful planning every week, whilst you will rely on
your parents to help, feeding with a good quality
commerical food takes the worry out of this planning
and has all the nutritional needs of your growig pup.

Do you think it's ok to feed BARF to a puppy? And with the dry food I would prefer to feed Innova or supercoat, well really anything other than Purina. What do you think?

Thanks in advance :flwr:

Emily

Hi Emily ... I'm not sure what BARF diet is, but I agree with you about Purina. And I'm saying this depite the fact that I'm from St. Louis where I think their world headquarters are ...

My Lucky is on a prescription diet, but if your puppy doesn't have any tummy issues, then I think Innova is a very good food if you are going to feed kibble. If it were me, I'd probably start on the Innova and if he is doing well on that then may integrate other types of foods (the mince, etc.) into his diet as he gets older. That'll help too if you do end up with a pup with a sensitive tummy (fingers crossed you don't ...).

I'd ask your breeder to provide a few days supply of his current food so you can transition him gradually to his new kibble.

Good luck ... I'm sure someone on here will no more about the BARF diet than I do.

Thankyou for the reply Lani :flwr: My breeder will be supplying some of the food the puppies have been eating so hopefully no stomach upsets there

BARF: Biologically Appropriate Raw Food

It is basically feeding your dog raw food similar to what it what eat naturally. It is recommended for health, stamina etc.

my understanding is that your breeder is right, feeding raw takes good ongoing planning and making sure that all nutrients are supplied. From what you said, the breeder implies that if the BARF diet is doing properly it's fine, but that the big drawback of BARF is that people may not do a good job of making sure all the nutritional bases are covered. The meticulousness of it intimidates me, i'm not a whiz in the kitchen and think i would be too incompetant to do a good job of the BARF diet, but a lot of people who use it make glowing claims about how well their dogs are doing, and some changed from a normal dog diet to BARF and say that their dogs' health dramatically improved.

There are some internet discussion groups where you can ask questions and converse with people who are serious about BARF. One is called RawPup, here's the weblink, they tell you how to sign up for the email discussion list. This one is specifically about puppies.

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/RawPup/

Here's one for RawDogCanada

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/RawDogCanada/

Monica Segal, a cavalier owning dog nutritionist, has a discussion list called K9Kitchen, i can't find the link, they discuss raw and commercial diets, and mixtures of the two. Here's monica's website with a photo of her cute cavaliers:

http://www.monicasegal.com/aboutus/index.php

here's the link to the mail list
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/K9Kitchen/join/

I share your inclination away from feeding commercial foods like Purina, i've read too many things about them that i don't like, and am glad to have alternatives which are more wholesome.

I wonder what the basis is for the claim (e.g. by Laura Lang) that puppy food causes a growth imbalance that can cause skeletal disorders. Is there actual evidence for this?

Thanks for all the links Judy! I'll check them out straight away

One reason I've heard for no puppy food is it has too much protein causing puppys to grow to quickly. I'm not saying that myself, just quoting

cavalicious said:

...One reason I've heard for no puppy food is it has too much protein causing puppys to grow to quickly. I'm not saying that myself, just quoting

Click to expand...

thanks for that info. i'm just wondering, have there been any studies where dogs who were on puppy food did grow faster than dogs who were not raised on it, the bones in particular, or, is it that experienced dog breeders noticed this pattern, not that there's been formal research but that this has been noticed by experienced people. i wonder.

Evo is definitely high protein content compared to the more common foods containing grains, and i think BARF diets are high protein too, so that's something to look into.

I would not feed raw meat to a puppy; there is too much risk of bacterial infections.

(Someone told me BARF stands for bones and raw food?)

Feeding your puppy a high quality dog food like Innova is a good idea. People have different opinions about feeding adult food vs. puppy food, but what really matters is that the food is high quality.

When we got our puppies, the breeder told us to feed them adult food (she fed Royal Canin Adult 27), which we did for awhile, but then our vet and a friend who was a vet tech and kennel owner told us to feed them puppy food. We fed them Royal Canin puppy for a few months, then switched them to adult again. Basically I didn't see any difference, but I wanted to make sure they wouldn't become overweight. We also fed them Wellness. Since then we've had them on Innova Evo for at least a year, and this seems like the perfect food. :flwr:

Thanks for all the help everyone! Listening to everything being said, which can make things more ocnfusing! Taking it all in though and it helps with my decision so thanks :flwr: