just a quick question ...........

When chooseing your food on which to rear your puppies, how much concideration do you give to how easy it will be for puppy owners to buy this food elsewhere (obviously they will go to there new homes with a good supply of food)

I have a bitch that is a fussy eater anyway so its a pain to find something she likes grrr, currently on Skinners duck and rice - has anyone raised litters on skinners ?

i'm not a massive fan of JWB and would like to give arden grange a go, i'm just interested to see other peoples thoughts on this.

I have used pro plan and now using fish 4 dogs both of these are easily available online and deliver to your door... I am part of the fish 4 dogs breeders club so get free delivery and discounted food also. I have found this food very good and so far the pups enjoying it too, he is 4 weeks today and is always eager to eat :-)

many thanks - i'm guessing its the breed in your picture which being short coated and black is not very forgiving if the food isn't right is it ;) looking good in the picture - positivly gleeming :)

I've not had a litter but do know a friend who last year raised a litter on AG and they did very well. I personally love the food and my boys do well on it also - It helps that I can collect it direct from them too, but all the same very easy to get hold of these days..

I did put thought into how easy my puppy owners could buy MY choice of food.. I've put a lot of though/consideration into what I feed my pups so it is very important to me what they then go on to. I didn't want them then to go off and be fed any ol' junk (like Bakers ... yuk, yuk :-) ) I have flipped between CSJ and AG with my adults dogs (and very happy with both). When it came down to it, the CSJ I could only collect at competitions and obviously with pups on the ground I didn't go to any and I'd no experience of raising a pup on their food. AG is actually no easier, but the charge for postage is less, plus there's the benefit of very good rates through the breeder club.

As I've used AG for my adult dogs and also for one of them when I collected her as a pup I've got confidence in them. My litter have  thrived on the AG, none of the pups turned their noses up at it and now 6 months old 4 of the 6 owners are still feeding it - the other 2 are raw feeders.  To make it even easier for owners of my next lot of pups I've become an AG stockist. It does seem to depend on which part of the country you live as to whether there's a stockist, though they have got better. Certainly a year ago, there were no stockists in my neck of the woods ... now there are 6 of us!! Still, I'm mainly stocking it for me and for the local pup owners.

The good thing about AG is that their postage rates are only £3.99 no matter how many bags, they have very quick delivery - I've never waited more than 2 days, and there are usually good deals to be had if you search the internet. They do a puppy pack - no silly goodies, just a very nice puppy guide (it is well written) and a £10 voucher for owners to use.

I did look into Skinners, they sent a nice sample box for the dogs to try which they all liked, but when it came down to it there wasn't sufficient reason to change, given prices, etc. Hope this helps.

> how much concideration do you give to how easy it will be for puppy owners to buy this food elsewhere

These days it is possible to obtain practically any food online and have it delivered to your door, so for me that wouldn't even come into the equation. I'd want my pups to have the best start in life and would feed them whatever suited them best.

pedlee - that would be my thoughts but the average pet owner doesn't seem to think the way we do

trialist - many thanks for your input too , there is a stockist local to me and as with you i'd be more than willing to bulkl buy or stock for local puppy owners. i like the way they work with the puppy packs and very useful information although i'll be sennding the puppies off with some food as well obviously but its nice to know they can get a discount.

Suejaw - again thanks for input, very useful

My first litter my friend in America had booked one of the puppies pretty much from birth (or before!) so I asked him what foods their other dogs had and what they could obtain and picked a good quality food from them, I think we ended up with Purina but am not sure as it was 3 years ago. This time round I tried to wean my singleton onto JWB as that's what my other two eat but she refused, so she's currently on RC (with some casserole steak I found in the freezer that needs finishing up!).

Yes I do consider ease of buying for new owners which is why I feed a mix of my prefered food (Arden Grange) and one or two others like Autarky (for those likely to be able to get it at Country stores/Agri/animal feed places) and one easily found in Pet stores etc.  Using the Vitalin Puppy to cover that.

I had used Skinners in the past (before Arden Grange came along) but stopped when they made their puppy packs dependent on you feeding it exclusively.

All the Pets at Home and Jollyes near us stock Arden Grange, as well as many of the small Pet stores.

Hi claire_41

From an owners perspective I would have moved heaven and earth to get the same food my breeder recommended as I trust her judgement but I appreciate that not all owners may think the same way.  Also some may not know that you cannot get all dog foods from the supermarket  :)

My first puppy came on Nutro (no longer available) but my latest pup from the same breeder was raised on Fish 4 Dogs.  Watching their development from birth I was already impressed but the puppy packs, discounts and treats are a good convincer too!

The breeder offered her puppy people the chance to buy extra sacks of food, fish skins and other treats and arranged this bulk order to be delivered to her for maximum discount.  Owners collected their order with their puppy.  The discounts were excellent and it gave owners some breathing space before they needed to arrange their own orders (and join the puppy club). 

Edited to add: if you join the breeders club for your litter I think you get puppy packs for your owners and extra food (free) for mum too.

After the food we have used for over 10 years changed in quality I spent hours looking for a food to feed my litter!

3 puppies were going to leave UK so at first I did look for a food that would be available in different countries but pretty soon gave up on that as I was looking for three different parts of the world and only foods available every where were the big multinationals I did not want to feed...

Adults eat AG but after looking in to it I thought the cal/phos and energy levels in the large puppy/junior were a bit high so decided to find a different food.

I settled for F4D and in the end have ended up with just two pups which of one is staying home, another one going abroad and will be changed to different food (food I would have chosen but is not available in UK).
It seems the pups are constantly little loose on the F4D so I might need to change the food and I'm stuck on what to feed so hoping giving it little more time will settle their bellies.

My breed is a giant breed so food is an important factor and most food available here have levels of cal/phos, protein, fat, energy or ingredients I'm not happy with (not that I'm picky :) ). Looking at one of the AG adult foods as a possible option instead of the puppy/junior...

I've still not found a food I am 100 % happy rearing large pups on, even after all this time. The toydogs do fine on Nature Diet but I think I've reared each large litter on a different food and none have been perfect. This time I started weaning on CSJ as the adults eat that and it's cheap enough for me to buy a full sack for each pup as they don't do free puppy packs. Well that didn't work, pups got terrible diarrhea so I stopped the CSJ. Remembered previous pups had done okay on Pedigree AND anyone can get that, plus it's easy enough to buy smaller bags from supermarkets to give away with the pups, so this is what I did. It's been okay but not perfect. Poo not quite hard enough for my liking and very bulky.  I think every single one of the buyers will be changing the food anyway, at least this way I know they can easily get hold of what they were fed on if they change very slowly as instructed. I want to change over the pups I kept as well. It's ridiculous to not be able to use the same brand for puppies as I do for the mothers so I don't know what I'll do next time -not that I'll have another large litter for some time as I usually only have one every two years. I really don't want to have to change my adults' food as they all do fine.

Try CSJ, and at least have a look at their website in North Wales. Excellent quality food, at really good prices.