Whippets - food

[HUnter_zero 58]

Hi, can anyone please tell me how much food a 9 month old whippet should need to eat? I know it's an ambiguous question but, one rabbit? Two? My bitch had best part of 1kg of venison cubes, and is still hungry... (?)

 

John

[scalesntails 118]

I could feed my dogs 10+ rabbits a day each. They would eat until they puked then go and eat again and repeat it. it wouldn't be good for them though. Most dogs would do this as they are greedy beggers.

 

Start off with about 3% of body weight and reduce/increase depending on weight gain/loss.

[MissRhianL 70]

Hiya i know everyone is different on here with their dogs food intake. At the moment im feeding my dogs on meat slabs like one person said if u keep puttin a certain meat down for the dog no matter how full he is hel still eat it, end of. Normally i have a bowl full of dry biscuits down for them and they pick at it as and when theyr peckish. It all depends what food ur giving them and if its anythin to do with meat its gone as soon as u put it down. try puttin some biscuits down incase they feel hungry every dog is different )

[Moll. 1,769]

Normally i have a bowl full of dry biscuits down for them and they pick at it as and when theyr peckish.

 

Never a good idea to promote this type of trickle feeding for running/deep chested dogs.

 

http://www.eclipse.net/~bobaloo/bloat.htm

 

Hunter my adult whippet dog gets about 1lb of meat per day, but it all depends upon the dog, how much exercise it gets, it's metabolism etc. She will still be growing at 9mth so i would give her about 1.5lb and adjust it from there, if you see her gaining weight either up her exercise or reduce her food by about a 1/4 lb....and so on. If she loses weight increase the food. It is hard to give advice as i feed from eye.

[gnipper 5,945]

If your feeding raw then I think they say something the size of the dogs head as a rough guide to its daily intake, like someone else said if they get heavier or lighter adjust it accordingly but i'd rather give a pup too much and have it a bit chunky personally.

[skycat 6,172]

Venison cubes on their own are an unbalanced diet: all protein and no fat or roughage. A lot of people who start feeding raw mistakenly believe that feeding raw is just about feeding meat. A dog needs fat, bone, roughage (which the bones help to provide), and all the vitamins and minerals you don't find in just muscle meat.

 

Here's a sad tale: knew someone who fed a litter on virtually nothing but beef heart and tongue. At around 15 months 3 of the pups broke their legs: blood tests revealed there was hardly any calcium in their bodies: the result of an unbalanced diet.

 

Feed a variety of foods: chicken wings, carcases, red meat, lamb breast which is good and fatty as well as containing bone and meat. Minced raw veg: carrots, greens, etc. Get a good quality vitamin and mineral supplement as well, couple of tins of sardines in oil a week. Cooked eggs are good too.

 

Don't forget that at 9 months the pup is still growing and should have 2 meals a day. Also, that when people say 'raw is best' we are trying to mimic, to a certain extent, the diet a wild canine would eat. They don't just eat the muscle meat, they eat the whole animal, getting protein, fat and a few carbohydrates from the stomach contents of their kill. They also have constant access to all manner of other wild life: foxes in Australia apparently do very well partly due to the fact that they are stuffing themselves with crickets, locusts and all sorts of other things. Foxes over here eat worms when the weather is right, blackberries in the autumn and I've even found fox scats full of the stones from ripe wild damsons.

 

Hope this sheds some light on the subject!

[sandymere 8,260]

You don’t post their diet you feed only mentioning the meat so if you feed a variety of things all well and good but if not I’d agree with S/kat, meat alone isn’t a balanced diet. I would include a little more variety plus a carbohydrate source such as plain biscuit, rice or a complete etc. Amount varies from dog to dog and is best gauged on condition rather than amounts. You want a slightly plump, not fat, pup so increase/decrease as condition warrants. I feed a 9 month old whippet, small meals, twice a day, maybe three if not doing as well as expected until 12 months.

 

Miss Rhianls’ mention of ad lib feeding is interesting, many greyhounds are reared on this method and do very well, they are admittedly paddock reared and so have a different exercise style than home reared pups. The incidence of torsion would seem low with this method and the link that Moll kindly posted, and I quote

“In some large populations of dogs, such as those in the armed forces, a high incidence of torsion of the stomach has been seen with certain feeding regimens. In many cases, the condition disappears when these dogs are given food ad lib., that is, the dogs have access to a large amount of food so that the dog may eat a small amount of food on many occasions during the day. Obviously, with this management system, the dog has no incentive to eat one large meal at any given time and he does not eat hurriedly.â€

 

Suggest that ad lib feeding actually reduces the risk. So for a pup it may well have its merits but an adult it would be a little more difficult, I prefer not to work them until around 8 hours after the last meal.

[Moll. 1,769]

The thing with lurchers/whippets etc Sandy is...when you take them out for a walk, they tend to do the 'wall of death' at some stage, playing and running as hard as they do when chasing, this is enough to cause torsion with food in the gut. I have heard it happen so many times with pet lurchers.

[sandymere 8,260]

The thing with lurchers/whippets etc Sandy is...when you take them out for a walk, they tend to do the 'wall of death' at some stage, playing and running as hard as they do when chasing, this is enough to cause torsion with food in the gut. I have heard it happen so many times with pet lurchers.

Thankfully, I've never had it happen and not really come across it after 40 years in greyhounds and lurchers, none of my friends have either, I’ve seen a couple of suspected cases but they turned out to be gastritis type problems rather than torsion. I've walked a few in that time

 

In general if there is only a small amount in the gut it will be less likely to cause a problem, as backed up with your link ie a reduction is observed when ad lib feeding is used. Greyhound’s pups have mad periods in their paddock; just imagine 8 or 9 month old pups together racing up and down against each other and the litter in the next pen. Finally as all pup are fed a multiple meals, I feed youngsters 4 meals a day, and this is a very similar regime to add lib yet we don’t commonly see pups getting gastric torsions.

As I say I wouldn’t feed an adult worker that way but the idea that it will cause torsion seems unfounded by your link and my experience. There may be a link to large dry meals and torsions but that is another story.

[Moll. 1,769]

It does happen, perhaps due to the food or where the food is in the gut at the time.

Not worth the risk imo, just feed your dog after all exercised is finished for the day, then there will be no risk at all

[scalesntails 118]

It does happen, perhaps due to the food or where the food is in the gut at the time.

Not worth the risk imo, just feed your dog after all exercised is finished for the day, then there will be no risk at all

 

I never really worry too much about exercising a dog after eating but I never feed until all work exercise is finished as they seem to perform and behave better when out on an empty stomach. My current dogs are still young so tend to get a bit excited when they see a strange dog. It's easy to control them and not allow them to bother other dog owners if they are hungry as I know a bit of liver cake will always keep them near me.

 

When they work I usually give them a tin of sardines or tuna at lunchtime so they have a bit of energy to work with.