 Barked: Thu Apr 29, '10 11:18am PST |
 | |  | | I, too, have researched and have found that the old wifes tale of feeding giant breed dogs adult or all life stage food, as puppies, has been debunked.
First and foremost, the caloric value and the amount calcium and phosphorus is whats most important. Adult and all-life-stages food has a higher caloric intake - which leads to beibng over-fed (obesity), which is hard on the puppies growing bones. They also have high calcium/phosphorus ratio, which can cause bones to grow too fast, ensuring joint issues in the future. Calcium to phosphorous ratios should be 1.2-1.4:1 and max calcium for giant breed pups under a year of age should be no more than 1.4 to 1.6%.
Check out the forum BigDogsPorch.com. Its a site dedicated to giant breeds and they have TONS of information around nutrition. The owner of the site is a canine nutritionist and has giants breeds herself, so I tend to believe what she says.
Either way, I'm glad to hear Nixon is growing healthily and wish you continued success  Edited by author Thu Apr 29, '10 11:25am PST
|  |  | |  |
|
| my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals | [notify] |
4
