Not sure if this should be here or in the feeding section but it's about raising puppies so here is OK I suppose.

We currently feed raw and plan on raising our forthcoming planned litter (our first) on raw but, while we will be encouraging our new puppy owners to feed raw, and I know that some do, I accept that some may not wish to for a variety of reasons.

I had thought of perhaps introducing some dried complete food for some meals, say Fish 4 Dogs, into the puppies diet, while they are with us, just to get them used to it.  I don't want the concept of complete food to be completely alien to them if their new owners decide to go down that route, or if they need to feed complete foods occasionally for specific reasons.

Is this something that anyone else does?

I feed all my pups 50 % raw 50 % complete food from the start (when they are on 4 meals a day, 2 meals a day of each), to enable the owners to have a choice without upsetting the puppies' stomachs.

I weaned my pups on barf and also ziwipeak. Which is a fantastic alternative to raw with nearly all the benefits.

It's a fantastic food and readily available online.

Not heard of "ziwipeak" before so googled it, at £67.99 for 5kg I can't see many people being able to afford to feed their pup that,must be the dearest I have seen.

To have any hope of puppy buyers sticking to what the breeder is feeding the price has to be reasonable too as well as the quality.

Not heard of "ziwipeak" before so googled it, at £67.99 for 5kg

Goodness gracious! I wonder if they have actually SOLD any at that price.

i rear my pups on both too. they have kibble and raw, the diet is more heavy on the raw but there is always kibble available.

I explain the raw diet in full to new owners but appreciate its not everyones cup of tea so puppies leave me with a supply of both, then the pup will adapt either way to what their new mum and dad decides.

I wean onto raw and just start adding dried meals in the last 10 days, mainly only to the pups going to dry fed homes

> Is this something that anyone else does?

I do the reverse. 

These days I primarily feed complete, have fed raw in the past, so I make sure my pups have one meal out of 4 four of Rww/BARF foods.  I don't do tinned dog food, but before they leave they usually have had some butchers tripe mix or the Arden Grange Wet food.

My last litter were fed about 50/50 raw and complete with the occasional meal of tinned meat and biscuit. I hoped that it would mean that whatever regime the new owners wanted to follow, it would not be completely alien to the puppies and their digestive systems although I must admit that I did try to steer the new owners towards raw feeding as mine do so well on it :)

Thanks all for your replies.  I do intend to mainly feed the raw but perhaps with one meal of complete every couple of days.  I like, or should I say they like Fish 4 dogs treats and I like the sound of their puppy packs and salmon mousse.  Two of my lot are not overly keen on raw fish so some of their products might be good sourse of the fish oils etc for them.

> Is this something that anyone else does?

I know what you mean. We try to keep in mind that the new owners might want to feed kibble for convenience. We decided to feed a bit of Burns as well as raw for our large breed puppies. The Burns mashes down easily, probably because it isn't sprayed with additives including oil (probably recycled) afterwards. We give a small bag away with each pup too, last time was getting on for two years ago and at that time, Burns sent us some small bags of Mini-Bites, enough for each puppy.

Our latest litter has only two pups in it and we are raising them on raw only. As they are a Toy breed this time, they will be staying with us until they are about 12 weeks. So I'll worry about the new owner (we'll be keeping one), a bit later.

I fed fish 4 dogs, tripe and natural instinct to my lot. Natural Instinct are also doing a new weaning food you may want to have a look at.