How much adult food for a puppy?

[KC_Newf]

I decided when I get my puppies in a little over 2 weeks I am going to feed them Kirkland Adult Chicken and Rice.  The bag says they recommend free feeding for puppies which I'm not sure is a good idea.  Should I look at the feeding amounts on Kirklands puppy food and use that as a guideline?  I didn't buy the puppy food because I keep reading where people recommend going straight to adult food with large breeds.

[Newly Newfed]

What you need, is to speak with Holly.

HOLLY???!!

She'll guide you in the right direction regarding food.  She helped me a lot when I was agonizing over what type of food for Sierra.  In the meantime, I'll see if I can locate some food threads that may be of help.  I keep certain ones I want to refer back to in a file at home, but I'm at work right now.

I honestly don't know about the free feeding.  I got Sierra at 10 weeks and tried to get her on schedule, mostly to help with the housebreaking, but she always just kind of ate when she wanted to.  We ended up free feeding, and even now at 15 months, she only eats when she wants to.  There are some days when she won't touch her food and other days when she'll scarf down everything in site.  I keep an eye on her, but so far it seems to be working for her.  She's nice and lean, maybe only about 90 lbs or so.  I asked the vet about it and she said Sierra is in excellent shape and has a nice healthy waistline.  She said she wouldn't worry about it and to just keep an eye for a change in her eating habits.  I guess sometimes it just depends on the dog.

I know that probably doesn't really help you much, but just sharing my experience...
 

[AltDeutsche]

I really feel you should find a better food for your babies. Like Canidae Maintenance ALS as an example. quality food, not expensive and for all stages in one bag. No need to switch later.
We do feed raw though so I can't help with amounts.
Have you thought about a Raw diet? Sometimes it is cheaper. With Raw you feed 2% of adult weight. So for my shepherds it is 2 lbs a day for their whole life with little fluctuations depending on activity.
www,dogfoodanalysis.com is another good site to check on ingredients of dog foods and what is good and what isn't.

Be sure to post lots and lots of pictures when your puppies come home!

[KC_Newf]

I did ready Holly's ingredients thread (great information!) and checked the Kirkland ingredients and the only negatives I really saw were the multiple rice fillers and the Beat Pulp.  I came to the same conclusion as Holly that while not the best out there it does beat out a lot of other "premium" brands like Iams and Eukanuba that use corn as fillers.  I was looking at Innova also but for what seems to be a pretty good dog food the price on the Kirkland line is hard to beat and we do most of our shopping there also so there is a convinience factor.  If all they had was junk like Purina Dog Chow at a great price I wouldn't even consider it although it is amazing how many people I saw grabbing that over the Kirkland brand to save a couple of bucks.

Thanks Holly for confirming my thoughts that I shouldn't free feed and I hadn't even considered the issues I might have with there being two puppies.  I would also like to keep them on a feeding schedule to help with the potty training.

I have a 40lb bag of the Kirkland waiting at home so wether I stay with that brand or someone convinces me I should switch I still need to figure out how much they should be getting until this bag is gone...should I just look at the Kirkland puppy bag and use that as a guideline.  The protien, fat and fiber amounts are only slightly less on the adult.

[marypyrs]

What does your Breeder say?

I've always gone by feeding 3 to 4 times a day depending on their age at the time. (Still feed 3 times a day as adults - but I'm home all the time so I can do that.)

Guidelines have been to offer food and allow 20 minutes to eat what they want. While still a puppy, there should always be a bit left over which you then discard.

My Babes were on Solid Gold products for many years until a few months ago. They changed the ingredients without notification and as a result - well - it was not a good thing. I contacted them with no response so I read Holly's information again and went with Innova for Whisper and Innova EVO for Rainbow. They're thriving on it. (Plus a homemade recipe for toppers.)

I guess my thoughts are that even though the cost 'seems' high for the upper end foods, it's not. Figure what we people spend on nonsense for ourselves. A few more dollars paid for a great quality food for our four legged friends is just a drop in the bucket. And they deserve the best.

[KC_Newf]

What does your Breeder say?

While the breeder appears to do everything else correctly like the test for the parents, written guarantee, parents are on site....he is not feeding the puppies right so I wouldnt take his advice on that.  I about fell over when he told me he was feeding them Purina puppy chow.  I feel like taking my bag of Kirkland food I have out there for the next two weeks he has them.  I would have picked the puppies up last week but we are going on a vacation and thought it would be best if we picked them up afterwards since it wasn't going to be possible to take them with us.

As I said earlier I have been considering Innova and may end up switching over to it but I had already bought the bag of Kirkland so I am going to start them on it.  It seems to be a major step up from what they are getting now.

[marypyrs]

That's two 'Lucky Puppies" to have you as their family. Have a great vacation! Can't wait to see pictures of the wee ones in their new home with you.

Even though Purina is not the best - and you'll be feeding Kirkland for a while - be sure to start mixing slowly the Puppy Chow with the Kirkland over a period of at least ten days to two weeks. Then you will have to do the same thing with the new food you choose to use.

I'll be checking in often in the next two weeks to see those sweet Newfie faces.