Feeding Raw Food To A Puppy Slows Down Growth?
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Question & Answer on
Nov 16th, 2009 |
11 responses
I have been reading non stop about switching from kibble dry food to a much healthier raw diet for dogs and so far raw seems to be the way to go.
Just wondering i read on a site that feeding your puppy a raw diet meal does not make him grow as fast as kibble.
I wanna know if this is true so i can separate fact from lies
Thank you
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I have heard that. I dont know how true it is.
Processed food has synthetic vitamins and minerals added, this may have some effect on a puppies growth rate, and may have an unnatural accellerated effect on their growth.
I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. A pup will grow the way it is meant to by eating raw and mature the way it is meant to, and look fantastic for it.
Add; Just to clarify, I had heard kibble can unnaturally accellerate the growth rate of pups, NOT that raw food slows the growth rate down.
I just re-read the question and my answer!
My stafford was always a little chunkier than others his age.
Go figure!
I’ve been feeding both my dogs raw for 6 years. The 5.1/2 year old since I got her at 4 months and the 6.1/2 year old since he was 6 months old. I also read initially that raw fed pups grow slower and I can’t dispute or agree with that because both my adult dogs are sturdy, healthy and not runts. If you decide to commit to a raw diet I wouldn’t worry about it. If the pup grows slower on a raw diet that doesn’t mean it stunts its growth, it means you are feeding a species appropriate diet and your pup is growing at an appropriate rate.
I can see why you would think it slows down their growth.
Raw diets are more biologically appropriate… but to answer you question, I guess I’ll give you an example:
I have giant breed dogs… if I fed them puppy food, they probably would have grown faster than if I fed them raw… however, it would have been tougher on their joints. Rapid growth is NEVER a good thing. You’re setting your dog up for extremely painful joint problems later in life… not to mention your wallet will suffer from this.
What it all boils down to is this: Raw fed, or kibble fed, the dog is going to reach its full adult height and weight either way. It’s just a matter of picking a healthier way to do so.
And by the way, I feed raw. I got my Mastiff as a 12 week old pup.. he’s been raw fed since the day he came home. He’s now 250 pounds.
HAHAHAHAHA!
Where did you read that? can you put a link up please.
Our dogs are on the BARF diet and they have met all their mile stones in height and weight.
The only reason why I can think that they would say that is that in kibble there are preservatives etc so that might effect it. Maybe????
Good on you for going raw it takes time to do it properly but it’s worth it. When I changed my older dog onto it I noticed a difference in everything with in a week.
Not true! In fact if you feed too much red meat it can spurt growth on. But this is not good for joints etc,so do feed protein, but not too much red meat, more like chicken wings, sardines, yolks, cottage cheese, beans and don’t forget to give plenty of green leafy vegetables and fruit and oats. See http://www.pet-affair.com.au for more recipes.
It is not particularly advantageous for a dog to grow very fast, particularly big dogs. I have two Danes and feed raw and have from puppy-hood and wouldn’t do it any other way.
I’ve been feeding raw for nearly 30 yrs and what I have observed is that my puppies grow slower than pups fed on a commercial diet but they reach the same height eventually – that can only be a good thing!
you should go with the raw diet how could a natural diet be worse for an animal perhaps the website had an agenda like selling dog kibble
No never! is the best and more natural diet You can give you dogs!
really really stupid
I have a cat, not a dog, so I am not the best authority on this. But when I was researching about a raw food diet I remember reading somewhere that kibble had caused certain large breeds of dogs to grow too fast in the past and this caused a lot of problems for them. Nowadays there are some kinds of Kibble that have been formulated especially for big breeds to avoid this, but feeding raw is supposed to be even safer for this kind of problem. The argument was that commercial pet food is not as safe for pets as many people think and has caused many health problems for them in the past. With more knowledge the pet foods have been reformulated but there can still be other nutritional imbalances and resulting health problems that we’ll become more aware of in the future.
If you have a big breed of dog, growing too fast is a serious concern that can cause bone, joint, and tendon problems. So raw feeding IS supposed to make the larger breed dogs grow more slowly than an inappropriate commercial diet and this would actually be better for them.
Here is a link about puppies growing too fast that suggests that there can still be concerns about growth rate with a raw diet though if it is not balanced properly:http://community.dog.com/forums/t/84321.…
You have to know what you’re doing, I guess. But if you do decide to implement a raw diet, I assume that you would have done enough research about what to feed before jumping in anyway.