Hiya, thinking ahead now what weaning food to use. I last raised a litter in 2004 on Beta food (breeders club had good offers of free weaning food) but now wondering what complete puppy food other folks recomend as I'm sure there are better ones out there nutritionally. I would like to use a reputable food that the pups new owners can buy readily.
Can any of you recomend?
Would any of you PM phone no.s of the various breeders clubs?
Thanks

Royal Canin specific breed food (Not sure if I could say your breed)  is quite popular they also do a breeders scheme, quite a generous one. Just go on their site for the contact NO.

I use James Wellbeloved. Just mush it with warm water and feed it as a porridge with puppy powder milk then less mushed up as the puppies get older. The JW breeders scheme send you a 2kg sack of food for each puppy, JW food dish and lots of literature. Love the results of the puppies and never had any problems.

Anyone used the pedigree chum puppy ?

Probably the same Idea Alison as they are both now owned by same CO. I think RC do a lead, a bag of food a large plastic RC box to story food  and all the literature also.

Snap Alison, I do the exact same thing and it works a treat!

Once they get the hang of eating from a dish and theyre ready for the next stage I feed defrosted raw steak mince with mushy JW(decreasing the mushiness as they get older) with an additional meal or 'brunch' of scrambled eggs and grated chedder. Yum!

Makes for lovely chunky pups

What's RC ?
Thanks

Duh, Royal Cainin !!! sorry

Aimibobs
Last year we joined up to the Eukanuba, Hills and Royal Canin breeders schemes at Crufts, they all had introductory schemes at first order, all worked out cheaper than buying at Champ Shows. Eukanuba and Royal Canin both do great puppy packs.
We raise all our puppies on Eukanuba and make sure the new owners leave with a a 20kilo bag.
Owners of the one of puppies preferred us to use Hills Science Plan, they had a buy 2 get 1 free offer, so that puppy left with over 40kilos of food.
We did not notice any difference in how the puppies grew/developed between the different foods, the only difference was in the amount of poo, Eukanuba produces less.
Hills was a smaller kibble and seemed a little oilier in texture.

It isn't my favorite brand but I know several people who use the Puppy tins for weaning pups for a couple of weeks.

I have used the puppy porriage for all my pups also except my last one where I soaked the complete food and blended it with a hand blender. Was pleased with this method also.

I use nutro puppy soaked with lactol milk and blended until mushy , I also give sloppy  scrambled egg mixed with lactol, raw mince , chicken , fish,rusk  with lactol and baby porridge  know some people give weetabix and milk but mine wouldnt touch it.
Nutro also have puppy packs with a measuring cup and leaflets but no gifts although the food  is 50% of the retail price through the breeders club.

Hi Blue: RC dont do the lead and bowl any more just food, measure cup and booklet - tubs are still useful though.

I use RC starter mushed up but predominately meat. I'm afraid I'm from the school of thought that believes that we are trying to wean puppies OFF milk and onto solids so no milky foods for mine.

Pedigree puppy porridge - couple of scoops used then the rest refused so wasted. Luck it was free!

Eukanuba, Hills, Beta are all given to puppy owners and the pups have had access to all before they go but mine stay on RC and meat alternate meals. By the time they are 8 weeks they are eating  a large proportion of raw meat and they join the queue for the Morning Sausage- our daily ritual.

Hi Blue: RC dont do the lead and bowl any more just food, measure cup and booklet - tubs are still useful though.

I got leads just recently from them to.. is this a new thing Tooolz?   ... I have never had bowls. Just the tub, the cup, the food and the lead. 

Can anyone tell me where i can sign up to one of these breeders schemes to get special discounts etc on dog foods, i have not heard of them before, i will be going to crufts next month but i just wondered if you can sign up somewhere else before then.

royl canin every time for me.

Labbymad: Crufts will be the ideal oportunity to sign up with the main dog food manufacturers. Failing that, the weekly dog press carry adverts for most of them.Most give a breeder club dedicated number.

Blue: Yes I'm most dissapointed that I got no leads in my recent batch from RC. The last one I had finally got chucked away due to a rusty clip. (The sea ruins them.)  Perhaps the food bowls were from pedigree now I come to think of it. It's my age dear!!

I signed up to the Royal Canin breeders club at Cruft's last year.  I hadn't had much luck with the local representative I had, and found the chap on the RC stand very interested and knowledgeable.  So I was a bit later joining than I had expected.  I ordered at the stand, and it was delivered 48 hours later!  I did get a diary with my New Year order, and not a freebie junk one either, it is quite posh!  My current litter (toy breed) is already licking the RC mini junior in Mum's bowl, which is fed ad lib.  And that is dry.  She does get chicken, fish, scrambled egg etc and I noticed that pups were interested in her fish, at 3 weeks I think they are already telling me they are ready to start experimenting!

I've used Eukanuba puppy for years, swapping onto the mini vairiety when it became available.  I start off mixing it into pupp porridge with goats milk, and then progress to it pre-soaked into the soft little balls, before going onto dry at about 12-16 weeks, depending on the litter.    At the 2nd stage I often mix it with finely chopped chicken or slightlyl warmed tinned puppy chum to tempt them.  However, those who have followed my Pipsqueak dilemma may remember that for the first time this did not work, as he refused to eat.  He still won't even look at the Eukanuba, but will eat the Pro plan Sensitive (the salmon and rice kind) with chopped chicken.  It seems rather oily (in a nice way) and  every single one of my dogs love it, given the chance to get their paws on it.  However, nice as it seems to be, I have no plans to change over from Eukanuba, having had such excellent results with it over many years.
bye
Gwen
ps I use a little hand operated Moulinex food processor type thing to mix up the puppy porrided at first, it whizzes it inot a lovelly smooth paste in no time.

ive always used james wellbeloved and nature diet for the meaty part. as my adults are now on arden grange, the ingredients look good, so im going to give that a go this time round

Sam not sure if you feed RC all the time but a lot of the smaller bags are on special here when you multiply it up it is still quite cheap.

http://www.pet-supermarket.co.uk/erol.html#6358X0

if you mean tinned i hope you arent considering using it (dont know what the biscuit is like) its not good food in fact imo its terrible, we use arden grange weaning puppy (yellow bag) then move on to the junior (blue bag) at about 7 weeks so that they used to it when they leave as thats what i recommend to the buyers to use