Having opened a sack of Arden Grange fog food today to find lumps the size of my hand of mouldy green food I am changing dog food in a hurry!!! Customer service also poor but that's a different story.....

I am thinking of trying Simpsons but breeding a large breed I want to make sure the pups are on the best diet to prevent rapid growth and normally I feed a food designed for large breed puppies but Simpsons puppy food is for all size pups ,they don't do a large breed formula,

Has anyone reared a large breed pup on Simpsons or know any breeders that use it? I'm looking for feedback mainly on hip score results on pups reared on it,

Thanks all.

I use the adult mixed half and half with the puppy.

Thankyou Brainless,

Is that because you think the 30 per cent protein is too high for pups as they grow?

Have you had any hip score results ( sorry ,don't know if your breed need scoring) back after rearing on it to compare to other litters?

Appreciate your experience.

This time I decided to go for lower protein levels as the last few litters I have reared have been large and heavy pups for their ages, and I have always fed to appetite.

The litter brother to the bitch who most recently had a litter was a fat puppy, and the owners allowed him to get to 30kg by 6 months, when a mature adult male should only be 23kg, which normally takes several years.  My bitch his sister was 17kg at a year, and he should certainly not have been more than that at 6 months.

Of course he went lame and they did expensive tests for Elbow dysplasia and in the end removed a small piece of cartilage.

ED is not an issue in our breed based on hundreds of dogs scored in Scandinavia and over 150 in USA, all but less than 6 scoring 0.  just a handful 0/1.

So I decided to score from now on (the sister is 0/0, but one of only two scored in UK).

It's more about the fact that vets are keen to insinuate, oh must be ED and start expensive investigations needlessly.

As for this recent litter, even on half adult they were big pups with good appetites, so I think I need to stress keeping puppy weight at a sensible level. 

The one I have kept is now 14kg at just shy of 4 months, well covered but not fat, about 3/4 height. Mum is around 19kg.