Today's video is very informational video
and it is on what i feed Buddy, How i feed him, How much i feed him
so it's about Buddy's diet
that i should cover all these topics in a video
ok first question
I don't feed Buddy home food
how many calories and nutrition it has
if it has omega 3 and 6 fatty acids which are important
you don't know if it has them or not
unless you balance the home food
then you don't know what nutritional value it has
so i feed him kibble for this reason
as you can see i have 2 kibble bags
kibble is a dry puppy/dog food
make sure it is a puppy food and not dog food
because puppy and dogs are different in life stages
and you won't get these brands in India
so you check the brands in your market
which brand suits you and your puppy
because it may not happen that all the brands will suit your puppy
may be only one brand suits while another may not
so i don't prefer any brand
but what you should look for in a brand will be discussed in this video
so answer to the first question is I feed kibble to Buddy
i got this confirmed by our vet
it can survive its entire life on a kibble
you don't need to feed home food apart from kibble
so as you can see i have 2 bags
and both are little different
Buddy is currently eating this blue bag
you can see it has clips on top and it is opened
I am feeding some veggies to Buddy simultaneously
he love to eat peas and carrots
so if you can see this bag is actually chicken and pea formula
I don't know if you can see this in the camera but it is grain free
it doesn't have rice
and i got to know this recently when i was researching for this video and talking to my vet
for both
you can see this yellow one is a chicken, rice and vegetable formula
so that one has rice and this one has pea as rice's replacement
this kind is also available in the market
this one is for nursing mother dogs
it's good for them and puppies as it says
because it can hurt if used for long term
it can cause heart problems to your puppy
there is no study like that
but it has been seen
that dogs that had heart problems were eating grain free
and also my vet told me that we should not feed grain free
i got to know about this when researching for this video
so this bag is going out
and we will be switching from this bag to yellow bag
and there is a rule to change food too
i will tell you that too in this video
but we got a new bag for Buddy
and why this bag? Because there are minimum requirements of nutrition for a puppy
Buddy needs more veggies so he is asking me for more
you ate everything in one go?
so i don't prefer any brand, you can get any brand from the Amazon link in the description
but what should you look for nutrients in a bag, i will tell you in this video
so the main nutrients to look for in a bag are
#1 ingredient in the kibble should be protein
because protein is very important for dogs especially puppies
because they are in growing stage in their early life
That is why if you look at the #1 ingredient on the bag
it should be Protein
This food can be Chicken, Salmon, beef etc
but we prefer Chicken and Buddy likes it too
Kibble is an advantage for the people who are vegetarian like me as i am vegetarian
It's best for me as you can just pour this to the bowl
I will also show you how to prepare the Kibble in this video as well
So the #1 ingredient you should have on the bag is Meat
It should be at least 27% minimum
This bag has 28% , which is good
it ranges from 27% to 32%
So make sure your Kibble has minimum of 27% protein
The 2nd main ingredient on the bag is DHA
DHA is very important for the brain development
Your bag should have at least about .05% of DHA
3rd ingredient should be Omega 3 and 4th should be Omega 6 fatty acids
These are very important as well for the eyes, brain development and heart
Its like the ingredient in the fish oil, and should be present in this bag as well
Omega 3 is about 0.5% and Omega 6 is about 3%
So if your bag has these nutrition then its a good brand, you can buy those
And do make sure it has Grain in it
We are also about to switch from grain free to grain
And there is another variant which is Corn based
Make sure its not grain free and its not corn based. It should have rice.
As grain is very important for puppy's growth.
So they don't have any problems in long term
So the next question is, How many times you feed Buddy?
So we feed Buddy 3 times a day
We have evenly spaced out as in the morning we feed him at 7:00 am
After 6 hrs, at 1:00 pm . Then after 6.5 hrs later at 7:30 pm
So that before his sleep time he gets about 3 hrs break and we go to bed by 10:30 pm
we feed him 3 times
There is a very easy solution for this as we feed Buddy kibble
so every bag has a feeding guide which shows
how much to feed according to the weight and age of your puppy
So this is very important as if you feed your puppy home food
then you don't know how many calories it has.
So if you feed him less, then he can loose weight and get skinny
And if you feed him more, he can be obese as you don't know how many calories it has.
and if he gets fat, your puppy can have many problems in life
So the answer for how much me feed is on the bag.
As you can see, it has weight in pound or kilogram (as in India)
and it has age in months or weeks
Buddy is now 4 months, so according to his age and his weight
We see how many cups of food to feed him.
So our next question is, How we feed Buddy?
So now i will show you the complete preparation of food.
Now we are ready to give Buddy his meal
and for that you need to know your puppy's weight and age
Buddy's weight is 40 lbs..actually little less than 40 lbs
and he is almost 4 months
we will give 4.5 cups
so for that you need measuring cups
check out the link in the description for this
this is one cup and this is a half cup
we divide 4.5 cups into 3 as we feed Buddy thrice a day
so we feed 1.5 cups each time
so it becomes very easy using this cup
and if you are buying a big bag like i have purchased
then get a food storage container which is air tight
this will keep food fresh and less chances of ants/insects
link for this is also in the description
I'm still using the blue bag because we haven't started switching the food yet
I will be switching very soon but for now i am gonna use the blue bag
this is his one time meal
you can see kibble is little too hard for a puppy
so he faces problem in chewing
so we will take some warm water
and we will soak kibble for 30 minutes
don't use lot of water
kibble will become soft and loose after 30 minutes
we will serve it to Buddy after 30 minutes
and we will place a cover on top of it
ok you can see how soft it became after 30 minutes
Buddy won't face any problems in eating
won't face any problem in chewing and will be easy to digest
ok next question is
this should be gradual
you should change the food in a week and not instantly
because ingredients in different brands are different
because since a puppy is young it won't be able to digest the change easily
this can cause loose motions and diarrhea
so change it in a week and this is how
so first 2 days
suppose your pup's meal is this much
give 75% of the old food
and 25% of the new food for 2 days
then next 2 days
50% old and 50% new
for 2 days
then next 2 days give 25% old and 75% new
then on the 7th day you can give 100% new food
and an important thing i forgot to mention that saw in one of my videos
that we fed Buddy chicken rice as a meal
we did that because Buddy was on diarrhea and loose motions that day
and boneless chicken boiled with rice and canned pumpkin
it is helpful in curing diarrhea
we gave it to Buddy for 2 days..don't feed it for more than 2 days as it very unbalanced food
as you don't know how many protein, carbs and calories it has
it is very unbalanced food for your puppy
we don't feed this to Buddy any more
he only eats kibble now
and the last question i have for you is
some of our viewers have asked this
when can we start giving treats to a puppy
treats doesn't have as such an age requirement
but treats bag have a feeding guide that says how many you can use in a day
treats also have some calories
so make sure that you only buy puppy treats for a puppy
because adult dog treats are different than a puppy treat
so get puppy treats for a puppy
Buddy fell from the couch
so only get puppy treats for a puppy
and give treats as per the label instructions (feeding guide) on the box
we started giving treats to Buddy after 2 months of age
and if you liked this video then hit the Like button
and Subscribe to the channel
because i will be sharing lot of puppy/dog tips on the channel as well
and if you would like to see Buddy's cute photos and video then you can follow him on FB and IG as well
links are in the description
he is little busy right now in eating