Discussion
Hi everyone, I am proud to be owned by my 15 week old Akita pup Ben what I would like some advice on is feeding,despite having 2 Akitas before the feeding rules have been lost in the mists of time I am unsure how many meals per day to feed him,at present he is on 4 meals daily is this correct? I am at present unable to contact the breeder for advice so any help would be appreciated.
I own a breed that is similar(ish) in size to an Akita. He was on 4 meals a day until he was 4.5 months old. In the morning he would have goats milk and dry food (science plan). Mid morning he'd have 6 raw chicken wings. Mid afternoon was half a raw chicken carcass. Evening was table scraps or another bowl of dry food.
The breeder was keen for us to feed raw as it meant the dog would grow slower and put less stress on the joints. Allegedly this makes no difference to his overall fully grown size, he'll just get there slower than a dog that gets a high carb diet.
Obviously it's up to you as to whether or not you're happy to feed a raw diet. Did the breeder give you an indication as to what they've been feeding our dog prior to you taking it home?
Oh and get some photos up!
Edited to add: ours was always difficult to feed by mid morning so he naturally phased it out as he got older. He is currently on 3 meals a day at 6.5 months and isn't too fond of breakfast so by 7 months I should imagine he'll beating only lunch and dinner. He isn't motivated by food at all (will stop him getting fat but training isn't so easy) but lets us know when he needs to eat.
The breeder was keen for us to feed raw as it meant the dog would grow slower and put less stress on the joints. Allegedly this makes no difference to his overall fully grown size, he'll just get there slower than a dog that gets a high carb diet.
Obviously it's up to you as to whether or not you're happy to feed a raw diet. Did the breeder give you an indication as to what they've been feeding our dog prior to you taking it home?
Oh and get some photos up!
Edited to add: ours was always difficult to feed by mid morning so he naturally phased it out as he got older. He is currently on 3 meals a day at 6.5 months and isn't too fond of breakfast so by 7 months I should imagine he'll beating only lunch and dinner. He isn't motivated by food at all (will stop him getting fat but training isn't so easy) but lets us know when he needs to eat.
Edited by Robatr0n on Wednesday 14th August 23:47
Our vet was unhappy about the raw diet we were following on the advice of the breeder. He was concerned that we simply didn't know the nutrient composition of the pre-prepared minced raw food and couldn't vouch for the levels of calcium and phosphorus in it. He pointed out that getting this wrong could cause skeletal abnormalities. Fair point. We followed his advice and put him on Barking Heads Little Bigfoot. We do still give him the odd frozen raw chicken wing, because he loves them so much, but only as a complementary food, not as his core diet.
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