[RescueDaneMom]

crazy mom-

The general consensus is that puppies can start regulating calcium uptake at 10 months. Your Danes are both over 10 months so you don’t have to feed one of the foods on HDM’s list. The most important thing is that it is “All Life Stages”. Most of the “large breed,” “giant breed,” “senior” labels are just marketing and there is no real benefit to feeding those foods over a regular ALS food.

Victor is a good food. Most of their varieties are 4 and 5 stars. /dog-food-reviews/victor-dog-food/
The Victor Select Professional formula looks good, it’s rated 4 stars. The Hi Pro Plus is 5 stars. You would be ok feeding any of their varieties but I’d stay away from the Multi-Pro Maintenance and the Beef Meal and Brown Rice, both are 3.5 stars.

If you can, it is better to rotate different brands of foods rather than different formulas within the same brand. Any deficiencies or abundances in certain vitamins or minerals will likely be present in all formulas within a brand. If you can rotate different brands, you are more likely to cover all your bases because different brands have different vitamin/mineral profiles. Do you know what other brands your feed store carries? I could help you sort out some of the better ones to choose from if you like.

Edit- regarding transitioning, you may have to do it slowly at first. The more you change the food the easier transition will become. I changed foods after every bag and my Dane could switch cold turkey from bag to bag after awhile. That’s something you’ll need to watch your dogs for. If their stools start becoming loose then you might be transitioning too fast and need to slow it back down.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by RescueDaneMom.