Changing From Puppy To Adult Dry Food

[teekay]

Although Jenna is only 4 months old our vet has advised us to change to Adult dry food as we are trying to not let her grow too quickly because of her potential hip problems. My question is, will she be missing out on any nutrients with the adult food. She has chicken necks most days (although after reading on here about the potential danger of those I am a little paranoid about them) but I am very unsure about what else to give her. Also if i give her veggies, should they be cooked or raw?

Now this is probably an impossible question to answer but if her projected adult weight is approx 25kg (ok, I'm guessing here- she is a Golden Retriever x Samoyed) is there a 'good' amount of weight gain per week or month. At the moment she is just over 10kg and is 19 weeks old. The feeding guidelines on the adult food will obviously be targeted at adult dogs so how much should I give Jenna each day? I know we have to be careful not to over feed her but I don't want to starve her either. I'm probably over thinking all this but I want to give her the best chance at avoiding hip problems.

Thanks everyone and sorry if these questions have been asked before.

[SmoothieGirl]

Hi Teekay

I'm not going to recommend one or the other as I have heard many 'for' and 'against' arguments. But I was trawling around the Eagle Pack website a little earlier and there was a small amount of literature on this very question. http://www.eaglepack.com.au/Learn/FAQs/tabid/61/Default.aspx

Personally I have kept my girl on puppy dry food, she is a Collie, so medium sized dog, maturing at around 20 - 25kg. I'm not such a cynic that I think the premium dog food have got it so wrong that it will do damage to my dog, but if I owned a large/giant breed I would probably be a little more cautious.

Sorry, no help to you at all really, but have a little look at that website.