Feeding advice

Feeding advice in the absence of mother's milk
It is very important for young animals to be fed at regular intervals. Farm Food Nr.1 complete puppymelk Puppies that are younger than a week old must be fed every other hour, i.e. ten times per day. After 7 days they are to be fed every two and a half hours, after the age of 2 weeks, every three hours. You may be able to skip feeding during the night, depending on the puppy's condition. In any case, always feed with your eyes, because each puppy is unique.

IMPORTANT: Massage the puppies' stomachs well after each feeding to keep their digestive systems working properly!

Feeding advice when there is not enough mother's milk
It is important for the puppies to drink as much mother's milk as possible, especially during their first week due to the necessary antibodies mother's milk contains. Therefore, it is important to keep stimulating the puppies to drink from their mother. You can reduce the number of daily feedings to reach that goal. The best way to do this is to only use half the prescribed amount of powder per litre of water. In this way, the puppies' need for fluids is being met, but a part of their need for food still exists. If necessary, you can change over to the standard dosage in the second week.

Directions
Always use clean materials! Mix the powder with warm water (40-50 °C) while stirring. Allow the milk to cool to 38 °C. The daily quantity of milk that a puppy needs depends on the puppy's weight. The standard quantity you can use is 15 ml per 100 grams of body weight per day. Use the following ratio to create the correct blend: 1 measuring spoon (± 7.5 gr.) of Farm Food No.1 with 25 ml of water, i.e. 300 grams of powder per litre.

For example, a puppy weighing 300 grams needs about 3 x 15 = 45 ml of milk each day.

Changing over from puppy milk to solid foods
"Poor intestinal flora result in poor health" is a slogan that is becoming increasingly more important in our experience. We are seeing more and more diarrhoea and intestinal problems (not only with puppies) due to a lack of intestinal flora. Lack of intestinal flora refers to having an insufficient number of bacteria colonies in the intestines. Whenever this is the case, food is not broken down enough, resulting in decay and fermentation of the food in the large intestine, in turn, causing diarrhoea. Thus, the first requirement is to help establish stable intestinal flora at a very early stage.

There are 3 facts that deserve extra attention!

Puppies are born without any intestinal flora!
These intestinal flora must form during puppyhood by ingesting (harmless) bacteria through food!
All dry feed (also Farm Food HE) is sterile by definition and, therefore, does not contribute towards building intestinal flora!

Changing over to solid foods: the method
Begin feeding your puppies solid foods starting at 4 weeks of age. Give the puppies completely fresh meat (freezer) that contains raw dirty tripe together with Farm Food HE (dry feed), so that the puppies can choose. You will then slowly start to give less milk and more fresh meat and Farm Food HE. Maintain the number of feedings per day, just give less milk each time. In the period of 6 to 8 weeks, you will slowly change over to Farm Food HE. During these two weeks, start giving less fresh meat and more Farm Food HE (still divided over at least 5 meals a day). The quality of the stools determined the ratio between the fresh meat and Farm Food HE. From 8 weeks until approx 6 months, replace Farm Food HE 1 day in the week with the completely fresh meat (from the freezer with raw dirty tripe).

Taking the above mentioned facts into consideration, we have been advising people for many years now that, in addition to providing nutrients, puppy food must be aimed towards building stable intestinal flora. Increasingly more breeders have started following our advice and can no longer be convinced otherwise. Experience shows that a combination of Farm Food Fresh: Tripe & Heart Complete and Farm Food HE provides the best result.

Note: Farm Food Fresh is not yet available in the UK. Where Farm Food Fresh Complete is mentioned you can change 20% of Farm Food HE with the double amount of raw unwashed tripe.

Since Farm Food Fresh Complete has all the nutrients for a complete and healthy meal the raw unwashed tripe is not complete. Therefore Farm Food HE can be used as a basis to create a 'do it yourself' Farm Food Fresh Complete substitute.

50 grams of Farm Food HE compares to 100 grams Farm Food Fresh. A dog needs at least 75% of the nutrients from Farm Food HE to get a complete meal, the rest of the meal should be substituted with raw unwashed tripe to stimulate the intestinal flora.

So if you would give a dog 100 grams (example!) Farm Food HE per meal (but wanted to feed your dog FF Fresh Complete instead) you can give 80 grams Farm Food HE and 40 grams raw unwashed tripe (you doubled the 20%).