Hello!
New member and first time Sibe owner! I get to bring my pup home tomorrow, 8/13/14 (8 weeks old). And the wife and I are SUPER EXCITED!

Background:

My breeder keeps her dogs on a Raw diet and here is a summary she provided.
"We feed all of our puppies and adults a raw diet (raw chicken, pork, beef, lamb, fish, etc). Puppies should eat at least twice a day until they are a year old. As puppies, they need to eat about 8-10% of their body weight in food a day, but as they grow they eat a lower percentage of their body weight in food, so by the time he/she is a year old, he/she will only need 2% of his/her body weight per day in food. This sounds complicated, but it's not and there is no need to weigh the food to make sure it is exactly the same per day. The bottom line is that the puppy will eat 1 lb to 1.5 lbs per day their entire life (puppy through adult hood). At 8 weeks they will weigh around 12-15 lbs, so 8-10% of that is 1-1.5 lbs per day of food. As an adult, huskies will weigh about 40-55 lbs for females and 50-65 lbs for males, so 2% of that for a 50 lb dog is 1 lb of food per day. You can feed this in a single meal as an adult, but as a puppy, you will want to divide this up into 2-3 meals per day.

We start our puppies on ground meat (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish, etc) around 4 weeks of age and they move to raw meaty bones as they get a little bit older. Here is an example of a typical week of food for our puppies at 8 weeks of age:

Monday AM: 1 chicken quarter
Monday PM: Ground Pork
Tuesday AM: 5-8 Chicken necks with Chix Livers or Hearts
Tuesday PM: 2 Turkey Tails
Wednesday AM: 3-4 Pork Tails
Wednesday PM: Ground Turkey
Thursday AM: 5-8 Chicken Necks with Chix Livers or Hearts
Thursday PM: Cubed Pork Butt or Shoulder
Friday AM: 1 whole tiliapia (head and all), sometimes I chop it for them
Friday PM: 1 Chicken quarter
Saturday AM: Pork Neckbone
Saturday PM: 1-2 Chicken Backs
Sunday AM: Ground Beef
Sunday PM: 1 Pork Tongue

The key is variety and making sure to mix in an organ meat at least one time per week (liver, kidney, etc). Heart is actually a muscle meat, but it's really good for them. You can also mix in raw egg as well 1-2 times per week if you want to. Make sure to feed meat with bone at least a few times per week as well. It cleans their teeth and put them on a multivitamin (we use NuVet)."

This sounds great and I have done some research and it definitely sounds like there are some great benefits to feeding RAW but I just feel a little intimidated by this and plan to transition to a Pre-made dog food for my Sibe.

I plan to do a month long transition to a dry pre-made dog food (Taste of the Wild).

Week 1: 75% raw, 25% pre-made
Week 2: 50/50
Week 3: 74% pre-made. 25% raw
Week 4: 100% pre-made

TLDR: Breeder keeps her Sibes/Pups on RAW diet (Details above) I plan to transition to pre-made dog food over 4 weeks. Taste of the Wild. Interested if anyone had a similar experience? What would your advice be? I am interested to here what people have to say.

Thanks so much for your time and I look forward to contributing to this community! I will update my experiences!

Henry, Welcome to the forum, great people here and lots of info.

Your breeder gave you excellent advice and did a great job at feeding raw, they kept it simplistic. I personally never transitioned that way. Went from kibble to partial raw. Husky tummies are ultra sensitive and feeding raw does not have to be so daunting. Your choice of TOTW for kibble, imo, is a good one, a lot of us feed that. I think though your transition time line may be more trouble on pups belly. Will they be giving you a little starter package for the pup? I would seriously keep pup on raw for at least a week, the transition to a new home will be upsetting and this almost always affects the tummy. Perhaps using the kibble for treats/rewards that first week just to see how he(I'm guessing he with his name picked out as Hunter), does with kibble. Then I would slowly transition per two weeks minimal. You may find like some of us here, that you are comfortable feeding raw part of the day and kibble the other part of the day. There are many threads in the raw feed forum, and a lot of us here to help with your transition.

Good luck, and we love pics so please show us your new bundle of joy as soon as you can.
Renee

Thanks for the fast response Renee!

Yes is name is Hunter! and the breeder will be providing a starter package so perhaps you are correct and I should wait at least a week before I give him too much change. I will do more research on the Raw feeding and I might get more comfortable with it. I have some pictures and I will be sure to upload and start a scrapbook asap!

Thanks!

Have you considered a dehydrated or freeze-dried raw food to make the transition a little easier on your pup's tummy? Some complete, prepared foods like Ziwipeak, Stella & Chewy's, Addiction, Grandma Lucy's, The Honest Kitchen, Sojos and NRG offer an easier alternative to help bridge the transition from raw to kibble or the other way around. These foods are great to mix with either raw or kibble so they can make the switch easier, whereas mixing kibble and raw is generally not advised due to their different digestion rates.

You certainly don't have to do a "bridge" food like I call it but it can make transitioning easier, especially when in a high stress situation like coming into a new home. If it were me wanting to transition a new pup, I would mix the breeders food with a dehydrated or freeze-dried food over the course of the first week or two. Then once transitioned to the freeze-dried/dehydrated then I would slowly mix in the kibble of choice over the course of another week or two until completely on kibble. Well, that's just what I personally would do, to each their own.

Excellent advice Val I was hoping you'd see this and give more options to Henry, I do homemade, where as you know the names of the freeze-dried/dehydrated options. I'm just not as familiar, know they exist, didn't know the names. I'd rather be able to offer as many options available to someone new.