How Many Cups Of Kibble Should A 13 Week Old Puppy Eat

Thanks!! He is currently a little over 16 weeks right now. When we took him to the vet last week they said he was 25 pounds. So I am assuming he has gained a few pounds since then.

 

Our puppy is on the exact food. He is now 7 months and is 47 pounds, we feed him 3 cups per day. He also gets a kong mid day.

 

I had a chance to revisit some of the websites I came across last week regarding this topic and thought I'd share for anyone who is interested. A lot of it gets very complicated. And of course they all stress any guidelines they come up with through their calculations just be a starting point of general reference. There are too many variables involved to view them as anything rigid. And assessing the body weight composition of the individual dog is more important than all the rest.

I sort of mentioned this page before, from the Veterinary Medical Center at The Ohio State University:

https://vet.osu.edu/vmc/companion/our-services/nutrition-support-service/basic-calorie-calculator​

The nutrition calculation on that page looks fairly consistent with this publication from the FEDIAF (2011)

http://www.nutricao.vet.br/pdfs/FEDIAF_Nutritional_Guidelines_-_final_version_6-09-11.pdf​

(I was looking at page 51 in the above.)​

The most remarkable thing I found about the formula was that as soon as a puppy turns 4 months, the recommended calorie total drops off sharply by 1/3. I can't imagine that a more gradual decrease from about 13-19 weeks or so would be preferable, but of course I'm by no means an expert. There are a number of other interesting coefficients suggested to adjust the total given your dog's weight.

Interestingly the FEDIAF incorporates the same decline according to what percent of estimated adult body the dog has achieved, e.g. over/under 50%, not necessarily age. Interestingly if you look at the 200-sample chart from the labrador site that's often linked to around here, there does seem to be a little bit of a plateau starting around 16 weeks where the median looks like a rough 30 lbs., about half the average weight of an adult lab, give or take. None of this is science but I find it interesting. Additionally, most puppies complete their first full round of vaccinations at about 16 weeks as well.

And then naturally if you're thinking in terms of calories as the researchers do, you just have to look at the labels on whatever food or treats you give to figure out how many cups, etc.

Anyway, these seem to be good resources for anyone super interested in the science behind nutrition.

Here are some more I found:

https://www.waltham.com/dyn/_assets...atanddognutritionbookletelectronicversion.pdf
(p. 61)

https://www.aaha.org/public_documents/professional/guidelines/nutritionalassessmentguidelines.pdf
(Lots of links on p. 8)

http://www.acvn.org/frequently-asked-questions/#feed

https://www.nap.edu/read/10668/chapter/2
(This book you have to buy but the intro is available for free at least)​

​

 

We feed Alfie chudleys puppy and junior and started off with the middle amount of recommendation from the pack and increased this to the top amount (weighed out) and now feed the top amount plus treats. Alfie is still a very tall slim dog and vets keep telling us to increase his food amount. (so we do).
id suggest using the pack as a guide and then adjust over time so your pup looks healthy.
If your pup is anything like Alfie he will eat all you give him and still want more.

 

Another little something I came across when reading was that the dog’s stool can be another thing to look at for feeding amount. If the stool is consistently too loose, the dog may require less food.