Food for my pup.

[SwearyMary]

Puppy will be coming home in a few weeks and I was thinking of feeding her James Wellbeloved but then a friend, who is an avid dog lover, told me that JW isn't a great feed and NatureDiet is far better....
Puppy is a collie/lab cross.

What are all your thoughts on which feed is best?

JWB is fairly okay food as far as foods go. Skinners and Wainwrights are just as good, but a lot cheaper.

Nature diet is far better than any of the kibbles. Raw feeding is the best if you have the freezer space and time.

Doin me.... how does natures diet compare in cost to James wellbeloved?.Can you combine the two or is it best to stick to just one?.Sorry for hijack Swearymary!.And on no account never use Bakers as it had a really drastic effect on my puppy in 2 days.

You can combine the two, but you might end up with runny poos as the diet will be too dense in nutrients. Nature Diet and JWB are both complete foods and need nothing adding.

I buy Nature Diet for 79p per tray. Mine are smaller dogs so only need 1 tray each per day. I think it probably works out at roughly the same as JWB.

Where do you buy it from Dooin?.Can i replicate it myself at home if i have time?.I have been feeding my puppy home-made chicken and rice for the last 2 days.My other concern is measuring the amounts of food as our cavie got chubby on our home made food and vet told us to switch to vet-stocked kibble [but we subsequently found out she also had a thyroid deficiency]

What is the breeder feeding her atm? My only advice would be not to buy a huge quantity of any one feed. My puppy loved the Hills Science Plan kibble for the first couple of months then went off it. Currently have several 3kgs bags of various brands which she has turned her nose up at. Now she eats (when in the mood to) James Wellbeloved fish and rice kibble and Hills tinned puppy food. Seems to be working for her for the time being.

Having said that, I've yet to meet a fussy lab!!

She is just being weaned at the moment and they are feeding the pups on a mix of oats and James Wellbeloved puppy food, I think. I have never known a fussy collie or lab so we hope puppy won't be. I just want to feed her 'good stuff'. I don't want to mix feed, it will be one or the other. Thanks for all the advice!
Doin Where do you buy your Nature Diet from? This friend of mine tells me she is a supplier but isn't listed on the Nature Diet site as a supplier

I get mine from my local petshop as they seem to be the cheapest. they are listed as a supplier on Nature Diet's sites. Plenty of online places deliver it in bulk, for reasonable prices.

You probably could replicate it at home, but if you have that amount of time to spare, you'd be better off looking into raw feeding which is best for the dog.

You need to feed what the breeder is giving at first and slowly switch over to your chosen food. Gradually add more Nature Diet and less JWB and oats until you are feeding only Nature Diet. Or you could jsut stick with JWB if it suits you.

Bought some natures diet today.Puppy loves it ,woofed it down in 20 seconds [normally ignores his kibble].Also got him some fish-skin treats as he is not keen on standard dog-treats [but loves sausages].Lets see what effect this food will have on his behaviour.

I have done lots of research today and decide that I am definitely going to wean puppy off the JWB and onto Natures Diet. I will give pup a few days to settle into home before I make any changes though.
I can't wait to bring her home now.

Nex step, looking into vaccines and puppy classes

I've just started moving our pup from White's Premium dry food (with one meal of raw mince each day) to Nature's Menu frozen nuggets - I think they're similar to Nature Diet (meat, rice, veg?). He had his normal diet until dinner when I gave him 2 nuggets along with less of his mince than usual. Poo 2 hrs later was kinda sticky whereas they're normally rock hard. Dooin's comment about mixed feeding and runny poos makes me wonder is this what's happened and should I just move to 100% frozen tomorrow? Breeder was feeding raw and has just started her other dogs on Nature's Menu and the last pup in litter is doing great on it.

Sorry for hijack!

slight hijack, how do you go about raw feeding a puppy? I raw feed cherry, she has about 1/3 of a pack a day or a couple of chicken wings, doesnt really have any veg although does have green tripe a couple of times a week. I would really worry about raw feeding a pup as no guidelines exist as such. does a puppy need a slightly different mix of nutrients or something, I know they obviously need more per weight than an adult but trying to find out a bit more.

I don't really know the answer Dita but one interesting thing is that our pup's breeder is feeding her adults dogs 8 x frozen Nature's Menu nuggets a day. She is giving the pup 3 meals a day, 3 nuggets and a small amount of mince each time. She said the pup needs more than the adult dogs and she will reduce her quantity back as her weight approaches adult weight. Does that make any sense?

Puppies don't need more nutrients, they need more protien and calories, which raw feeding has anyway.

To be honest, we never really have puppies so I wouldn't know where to start. We've only had the Whippy one as a pup and I just switched her straight to Nature diet trays, with a few chicken wings and meaty bones. Vet says she is very healthy, so I am happy. I don't have enough freezer space to feed a full raw diet yet, but I'm looking out for a 2nd hand freezer for the dogs, so soon, hopefully.