How much and how often to feed your puppy per day
Puppies are in a period of vigorous growth and development, and their protein, calorie, and calcium requirements are higher than those of adult dogs.
How much to feed your puppy per day?
Internationally, the recommended daily food intake for dogs is usually 2.5% to 4% of their body weight, which translates to 25-40g per day for every 1kg of body weight.
Let’s take a 10kg (20lb) dog as an example. For an adult dog, we generally recommend feeding them 4% of their body weight per day, which means 10,000g x 4% = 400g. Please note that this 400g is the total amount for the whole day, not for a single meal unless you only feed your dog once a day.
How often to feed your puppy per day?
However, puppies have small appetites, so in addition to following the principle of feeding small amounts frequently (3-4 times a day), we should primarily feed them high-quality animal protein and fat, while reducing the proportion of carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals.
While providing sufficient nutrition for our puppies, we should also be careful not to overfeed them with meat. Otherwise, they may easily develop obesity and abnormal bone development. It is best to regularly weigh the puppy and ensure that it is developing normally.
If the weight increases too slowly, it means that the amount of food being fed is too little. Conversely, if the weight increases too quickly, it means that the amount of food being fed should be reduced.
This stage is also the stage when puppies develop their eating habits. The more varieties of food that puppies are exposed to at this stage, the less picky they will be when they grow up.
It is recommended to feed the puppy specialised puppy food and homemade dog food at this stage. If the puppy has already eaten solid food in its previous home, it is best to keep the food consistent during the first three days at its new home, and then gradually add new food, transitioning to the new food over about a week.
Do not add meat or other homemade food to the puppy food to cultivate good eating habits. Otherwise, the puppy may become picky and only eat meat, not dog food. Instead, you can feed them a combination of 2 meals of dog food and 1-2 meals of homemade dog food.