Lincoln

Meet my new Australian shepherd puppy, Lincoln.  Linc (for short) is currently 3 months old.  I picked him up on June 28th from his breeder south of Decatur, IL. He is a calm little guy, but has his spunky moments where he's a bullet.

Linc was originally weaned onto Royal Canin.  He has been on a raw diet since he came home.  He has definitely taken to his new diet with vigor. He is fed twice a day, about 1lb per meal.  He is estimated to be between 55-70lbs when full grown (yes a huge range).  His current diet consists of about 15-20% fat, 40-50% bone (for the calcium) and 20-25% organ meat.  The rest is red muscle meat.  The only time he gets poultry meat is with his bone (he eats chicken drumsticks and duck wings mainly). He is fed between 2.5-3% of his estimated adult body weight.

In this post I will explain his diet and why I feed him the way I do.  Puppies need a much higher calcium content than adults, they need meaty bones to be almost 1/2 of their overall diet so they absorb enough calcium for growth.  Excess calcium is excreted in urine very easily, so it's not a concern.  I did not start with one protein source and then slowly add in new ones.  Linc is a puppy and they can bounce back easily.  Adults tend to have more issues with change.

What meats do I feed?

Beef heart
Ground beef
Beef tripe
Duck wings
Sardines
Anchovies
Lamb
Turkey
Chicken

I started him off on Blue Ridge Beef's Puppy Mix.  This mix has almost everything he needs for growth (except other offal). He has also had some of Northwest Naturals ground mixes.

Here are the ingredient lists and analyses of these two ground mixes:
Puppy Mix:
Ground Beef, Ground Chicken, Ground Green Tripe, Ground Beef Heart, Ground Beef Liver, Ground Chicken bone

Guaranteed Analysis:

Crude Protein (min) - 16%

Crude Fat (min) - 12%

Crude Fiber (max) - 1%

Moisture (max) - 72%

Lamb, Lamb Heart, Lamb Liver, Ground Lamb Bone, Broccoli, Apples, Carrots, Cantaloupe, Egg, Ground Flaxseed, Fish Oil*, Apple Cider Vinegar, Blueberry, Cranberry, Inulin, Dried Kelp, Potassium Chloride, Sodium Chloride, Ginger, Parsley, Garlic, Zinc Proteinate, Iron Proteinate, Vitamin E Supplement, Copper Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Mixed Tocopherols (as preservative), Vitamin D Supplement

GA Lamb.png

The northwest naturals is to help supplement his diet until my next co op purchase comes.

Working on dinner in the laundry room.

Eating some puppy mix.

Linc trying to master eating meaty bones. He is working on a chicken drumstick here.

The ground in this meal is ground beef scraps from my local processing plant.  This is one way I increase his fat intake.