Give your puppy a Braw start in life!
Have you just welcomed a new puppy into your home? Well it's the perfect time to give them the best start in life with Fresh Food from The Braw Dog! It's imperative that puppies have a complete and balanced diet every single day for the first year, to ensure they get all the nutrients they need, in the right balance, for a long and healthy life. Our Meals are formulated to be appropriate for ALL LIFE STAGES so we have ensured they are perfectly balanced for your growing puppy! Read more about our formula HERE.
Feeding Puppies
First of all, it's important to know that puppies eat A LOT, and OFTEN! Up to the age of at least 6 months you need to be feeding your puppy 3-4 times per day! And you need to feed them the right amount, which is based on their ADULT weight. We know sometimes with cross breeds, particularly rescue puppies, it can be difficult to ascertain their breed and anticipated size, so guestimate as best you can, or feed your puppy 10% of his CURRENT weight in fresh food.
Here's an example - you have a puppy you know the breed of and know he will be approx 50lbs as an adult. So feed according to the feeding guidelines for a 50lb dog, and spread the total feed across 3 or 4 smaller meals per day, simple!
Let's say you have a rescue puppy and you have no idea what size he will be when fully grown... Start by weighing him, let's say he is 16 weeks and weighs 20lbs. You want to feed him 10% of his current body weight as follows:
Puppy's Weight = 15lbs = 240oz. So 10% of his body weight is 24oz. This means your puppy should eat 4 x Braw Burgers (6oz each) per day, yeah he's going to be a big boy!
Of course you can feed an exclusively fresh food diet like The Braw Dog, or feed half and half kibble and The Braw Dog. So long as everything you feed your puppy is balanced (This means it needs to state on the label that it is "AAFCO Approved for All Life Stages").
You can do this half an half for every meal or alternate meals. Treat 1 cup of Kibble (8oz cup) as the same calorie value as 1 Braw Burger. So for the above example of a 15lb puppy you would feed 2 patties and 2 cups kibble per day total, spread over 3 or 4 meals per day!
After 6 months you can choose to continue feeding your puppy 3 times a day, or cut down to 2 meals per day. After 1 year you can feed just once per day or twice per day, whatever suits your dog and your schedule best!
Any questions on feeding your puppy fresh food, or transitioning? Send a question to our pup team today - bark@thebrawdog.com and we'll get straight back to you!