I have 2 litters of pups  4 weeks and 5 weeks. I have been feeding them Hilife tinned meat. The older ones are also having a bit of dried Bakers complete puppy mixed with it. Just today a few of the eldest have had the runs.
Can anyone suggest the best thing to feed them.
They are all thriving very well and drinking water. They are all still with mothers plenty enough.

Bakers is erm, rather too high in additives shall we say, (IMO) and could well be causing the looseness.  Perhaps try any of JWB, Arden Grange or Wafcol dry puppy foods as an alternative :)

That aside, be very careful of such young pups having the runs - they could very quickly dehydrate.  If it's still the same in the morning I'd suggest you get the vet to check them over.

regards, Teri

I agree with Teri, wouldn't personally touch Bakers or a tinned meat with a barge pole.  Good quality soaked complete dry puppy food, chicken or minced beef with rice blended, all much better for weaning pups on with water and mum's milk and your pups will no longer have the runs.

Put them all on JWB as of yesterday as they are all still feeding from mums I used water to soak it in. Some of them still have runs. Early days yet.

mine are 4 weeks now, and are haveing 5 -6 meals a day.  one soaked biscuit ( csj) then a meat meal ( naturediet puppy) then same again for the next 2 meals, so they are alternate) then they have a milky biscuit meal before bed ,made up with whelpi and their biscuit soaked in it, aswell of course having  the odd bits from mum, so far poos are nice and solid, maybe you are feeding too much? i have been changing these over very gradually, started with just one meal, and have built it up

hope that makes sense!

why not try semi soaked Beta puppy complete. be careful the meat doesn't
give them the runs, to rich. I personally, while on moms milk would just give
them semi soaked complete. add a little cooked mince. A lot of meats still give
my twelve month old the runs, to rich!

Pups still only having JWB and (scrammbled eggs for 1 meal a day). Some of the pups motions a still lose. Is it wise trying another food.

Really you shouldn't chop and change the food too much as that in itself can make the pups loose.  Once the pups are okay, don't change.  I always send a sack of food out with the new owners so that they don't change the diet for several weeks. I always tell them that if they want to change that is okay as long as they change the diet gradually.  A recipe for disaster is changing puppies over too quickly.

I agree - it also depends on how long you've got before they go to their new homes - the last thing you want to do is to change their food, then their poo gets even worse as they adjust to the new food, and you send them off to their new homes like that.... When you say "some" of the pups' are loose - how many, and how loose??  I would try cutting out the scrambled egg - it doesn't suit some pups and could be that which is upsetting them....

My GR pup has been on JWB from day 1 and coming up to 6 months old now getting her onto adult, cant grumble no runnys, or anything like, and her coat is like silk, and shiny...

"My GR pup has been on JWB from day 1 and coming up to 6 months old now getting her onto adult"

At 6 months old JWB recommend going onto Junior not adult

At 6 months old JWB recommend going onto Junior not adult

I think different rules apply for the larger breeds,i would think it would be ok to put a golden retriever onto adult food at 6months :)

"I think different rules apply for the larger breeds"

I have heard that before.  However, I don't really understand it when the people who make the food recommend one thing and then some breeders/showers/other people say another thing

mine are a small breed & i wean the pups on JWB puppy & many of them stay on this food for years, the JWB puppy kibble i mean ! i know of 4 owners who have dogs aged 5- 2 who have never had anything else !! :)

Didnt know JWB did a junior food,:rolleyes: change her off puppy food as the protein content of  the puppy food is 30%, she is a lot less hyper now...

when the people who make the food recommend one thing and then some breeders/showers/other people say another thing

The people who make the food do so for profit,more variations of foods mean more sales which equals bigger profit and they count on pet owners to believe that every dog needs a puppy food,then a junior food etc etc ;) Breeders/showers and even the average half knowledgable pet owner know their dogs best and IMO the former two know the needs of dogs much better than pet food manufactures. Dogs did just fine before the advent of all these niche market size and age variation foods :)

"The people who make the food do so for profit,more variations of foods mean more sales which equals bigger profit and they count on pet owners to believe that every dog needs a puppy food,then a junior food etc etc"

So why does the much-talked-about-as-a-really-good-food manufacturer of Burns do Puppy food then, and JWB (again much talked about) do Puppy and Junior if its not as essential as people are led to believe?  Burns was afterall devised by a vet and I'm pretty sure JWB has had much vetinarian input too

It'd be a foolish businessman who didn't try to supply what people want and think they need ... ;)

So, do puppies actually need puppy food then or not?

Puppies ideally need a higher level of protein and other nutrients than adults, so special puppy food is probably a good idea (although wolf cubs seem to thrive on exactly the same diet as adult wolves! ;)). 'Junior' food are probably a waste of money, when you could get the same result by mixing puppy food with adult food ... But if it makes owners feel they're doing the right thing, and isn't actually doing any damage to the dog, then where's the harm?

"if it makes owners feel they're doing the right thing, and isn't actually doing any damage to the dog, then where's the harm?"

Surely is beneficial not damaging   I mix Burns Mini Bites with JWB Junior as it suits our girl and I'm happy with the food she's on.  The ingredients in the JWB Junior have different levels (%'s) to both the Adult & Puppy foods so it must be suitable for the age its aimed at?  It suits our pup and you're right - I do feel happy doing it :D  It just seems a bit odd to me that such a 'reputable' manufacturer would do a Junior food if there wasn't really a need for it! *hmmmmm*  But the price is only about 50p more than the adult food so its good value :)

"'Junior' food are probably a waste of money, when you could get the same result by mixing puppy food with adult food"

But then you'd have to buy 2 foods wouldn't you (Puppy AND Adult) which would end up costing a lot more than if you just bought the Junior in the first place ;)

>it suits our girl and I'm happy with the food she's on

No problem then! :)

>But then you'd have to buy 2 foods wouldn't you (Puppy AND Adult) which would end up costing a lot more than if you just bought the Junior in the first place

But it would last twice as long ;), and you'd gradually phase out the puppy food until the dog was completely on the adult. :)

"But it would last twice as long"

Our mix of puppy and junior lasts twice as long too but still costs the same amount as if I gave her one or the other ;)

You've lost me.
You said:

>But then you'd have to buy 2 foods wouldn't you (Puppy AND Adult) which would end up costing a lot more than if you just bought the Junior in the first place

No, it wouldn't! Yes, two bags would cost twice as much as one bag, but would also last twice as long as one bag, so the cost would be the same.

"You've lost me. confused
You said:

    >But then you'd have to buy 2 foods wouldn't you (Puppy AND Adult) which would end up costing a lot more than if you just bought the Junior in the first place

No, it wouldn't! Yes, two bags would cost twice as much as one bag, but would also last twice as long as one bag, so the cost would be the same."

I know what you're saying JG.  The point was that if you took a 'high end' food and bought a bag of puppy and a bag of adult food to mix (as you said becoming effectively like a Junior food) this would cost twice as much as buying 1 bag of Junior food.  Yes it would last twice as long but then 2 bags of Junior food would last twice as long as 1 bag wouldn't it ;)  Junior food tends to be nearer to cost of the Adult food (in the shops I buy from anyway!) whereas the Puppy food is a canny bit more expensive.  So, for me buying the food I get from around my local area, if I bought 1 bag of puppy and 1 bag of adult then it would cost a little bit more than if I just buy 2 bags of Junior   Also, you have to look at the Best Before End Dates.   Mixing two bags together sometimes means that the food reaches the end of its shelf life before consumption.  My advice to that?  Buy the smaller bags however, this means you pay more per kilogram :rolleyes:

>Best Before End Dates

You mean you actually read those? You must be very young ... ;) :D

:D

Well 24 ain't that young ;)  I thought it was like with most things - the vitamin/mineral content diminishes the longer it is left 'open' hence the BBED.  I don't rigidly stick to them I just use them as a guide but generally speaking if somethings been open and reaches the BBED then I chuck it out - better to be safe than sorry IMO

I never read them - not when they put a Best Before date on bottles of water!

In that instance its not about the water its about the bottle which its in (plastic).  The bottle erodes and effectively 'poisons' the water with the chemicals its made of making it unsafe to drink

Most of the stuff seems to be from France anyway ;)

I drink bottled water from the exotic climes of Wales I'll have thee know! ;)  I did go through a faze of favouring the Norweigan stuff and have dabbled in Austrian but you can't beat good 'ol Blighty's finest can ya hehe

:D
Eau de tap for me

I drink tap water at home but I don't trust the tap water in the town I go to uni ;)

Not the water that is sold in glass bottles! ;) The Welsh stuff in red or blue bottles (Ty Nant?), Perrier, for example.

Breccon Beacon me dear - cheap and cheerful all the way! ;)

Of course the food sold in paper sacks isn't hermetically sealed from environmental factors anyway - air and liquid can permeate paper. ;) And, of course, Best Before Dates don't mean that one day food is perfectly safe and the next it needs to be thrown away! All it means is that the contents might start to deteriorate then - but might not. :)

"All it means is that the contents might start to deteriorate then - but might not."

I know   I give dog foods about a month after the BBED before chucking it but mostly its eaten well before then ;)

"Our mix of puppy and junior lasts twice as long too but still costs the same amount as if I gave her one or the other"

I meant by that - if I chose to give our girl either puppy food entirely or junior food entirely it would work out about the same.  However I was wrong cos the puppy food I feed costs £7.25 a bag whereas the Junior costs a pound less for the same amount

Is that not becasue we actually feed our dogs a lower protein diet thatn they woudl have in the wild, which is fine for adults,b ut pusp really benefit from a higher protein intake because of growth, and wild adults woudl be workign much harder at survival, and have less foofd than our domestic dogs????

I think the majority of breeds do benefit from getting puppy and junior foods as they are growing.  The large food companies all use professional nutritionists who will be conducting research all the time into new possibilities of improving diets they certainly seem to be getting it right in general terms with dogs living extremely good long lives. 
I'm not so sure wolves do all thrive as cubs, there must be a reason why a pair of wolves have several litters in their life time rather than just the two individuals needed to replace themselves in the world :)  I remember on the wildlife park programme with Ben Fogle ;) where the policy was to just let the wolves get on with rearing......or not.  A litter of cubs all died and the autopsies showed malnutrition.  It  would appear only the strong survive the early transition to adult diet. 
I do think, though, that large breeds appear to present an anomaly in this.  I feel, perhaps, that the food companies have gone for general research into what is beneficial perhaps discarding the large breeds as a minority market or possibly its a case of, with that particular market, the exploitation of the niche of puppy foods was not to be missed even though they do not seem to benefit from it ;)

>there must be a reason why a pair of wolves have several litters in their life time rather than just the two individuals needed to replace themselves in the world

Erm ... accidents? Death in fights? Disease? ;) The same reasons that all animals are designed to produce multiple offspring in their lives.

True, but I think nutrition is another one :)

So, is there evidence to show that wolfcubs who survive are fed a different diet to the adult wolves? That they go and catch different prey to feed the cubs than they would eat themselves?

I think Isabel means that some of them can stomach it better than others ;)

Of course not :)  What I'm suggesting is that the strong survive despite any inadequacies of the diet, which is no bad thing as far as Mother Nature is concerned. 

Yeah exactly - they can stomach to food i.e. are able to digest the nutrients from it which they need to develop and survive whereas others can't.  Its the same with people - give everybody exactly the same diet and some will develop nutrient deficiencies purely because they are unable to absorb what they need from the food.

"Erm ... accidents? Death in fights? Disease? ;-) The same reasons that all animals are designed to produce multiple offspring in their lives."

Yep they are all major factors but malnutrition/lack of food/lack of water are also major factors in wild animals deaths too poor little luvs...

I remember on the wildlife park programme with Ben Fogle ;-) where the policy was to just let the wolves get on with rearing......or not.  A litter of cubs all died and the autopsies showed malnutrition.  It  would appear only the strong survive the early transition to adult diet.

Er since when is the  Longleat Wolf pack a "wild"pack. They do not hunt but are supplied food by the Safari Park staff Which is 100 raw meat carcasses with the intestines etc removed. This is not what the wolves would eat in the wild & from Canadian & Russian research(not all on the net BTW)into real "wild"wolf packs the mortality rate is far less are the wolf packs are from many generations(100's)of pure surival of the fittest, whereas the wolves at Longleat have been captive bred for many years reducing the"fittest"factor many times

When the real wild packs have young they bring back partly digested meat(including intestines etc) for the nanny wolves & puppies & like the wild dogs in Africa the young grow up quickly being totally weaned quite young(three weeks of age in wild dogs not too sure whether it is the same or 4/5 weeks in wolves) & the puppies are part of the hunt from around 5/6 months of age(mainly as followers but they do take part in the hunt)so it is not the same as these"wild"safari park packs

I think that clearly demonstrates the difference in diet that an adult will thrive on compared to the young then.