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last updated 03/23/2005

Feeding Puppies 2003
Updated 11/2003

I'm by no means an expert on puppies.  I've bred 1 litter of kibble-fed Malamutes (1999), 1 litter of raw-fed Siberians (2002), and 1 litter of raw-fed Malamutes (2003).  

 I've raised 6 litters of kibble-fed rescues over the years and cold-turkey switch every new puppy (River is 18mo and Storm 12mo).  I've gotten a lot of help from the rawfeeding and barf email lists - barf-malamute, and rawdogcanada (formerly barf-canada) and rawfeeding (formerly barf).  And I've read all the raw books (Billinghurst, Schultz, Volhard, Johnson, Goldstien, Lonsdale, etc.)  This is what I've chosen to do and hopefully in 10-15 years I can tell you how they have turned out.

I can tell you already that these raw-fed puppies are heavier, leaner, and smaller than I expected.  They feel like rocks when you pick them up.  They don't have growth spurts at all, they are growing at a nice even pace.  And they have thick, adult coats and never go through the puppy fuzzies like the kibble puppies do/did.

SHS - 11/2003 
22 months feeding raw

Raw-fed Puppy (or Puppy BARF)

I'm feeding the adults on a simplified 7-day schedule (2003 Menus - Menu3).  Puppies need food more often and plenty of bone in their diet to build their own bones.  For the 2003 Malamute litter (featured on this page), this is what they were eating at 8 weeks:

*When/if we feed kibble it's Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach -- not because we love Purina, not because the puppies have a problem we're addressing, but because the first ingredient is (whole) salmon.  And our reality is that some buyers will be feeding kibble because our puppies are more than what they eat and our buyers are more than what they feed.

Weaning Diet

These are approximate dates.  I don't use a firm schedule.  I judge the puppies and figure out what is possible with the human schedule.  You should do the same.

Puppy Feeding Schedule

(Dashes indicate individual meals)

Goat's Milk Slurry

Goat's Milk Slurry is what mom gets from a week before whelp till weaning.  This brings in the milk and sustains it.  Also makes for a great weaning aid for puppies since they are already getting the flavor, scent, and taste of it from mom.

Puppy glop

Puppy glop is a simple version of adult GLOP. I try not to introduce them to everything all at once, but I also try not to be so over protective that they can't be exposed to new things.  They are only fed this 2 weeks before they go to the full blown adult version.

Puppy GLOP Made Simple

Each puppy glop serving gets 400 IU Vit E & 500 mg Vit C.

Vitamins

The only vitamin we supplement regularly is Vit C.  Puppies are growing rapidly, teething, and being exposed to new and wondrous things.  This stresses a system, especially a young one.  We start with orange-flavored 500mg chewable Vit C 3-4x/week.  Taper back to 1x/week by 6 months.  By 1 year, they get it only as a treat every week or so.  We focus a lot on Vit C rich veggies and fruits in the glop.

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