Feeding intact males question

My intact male eats all day long and is still lean.  He is 11 months, 67lbs.  I'd say he gets like 6 cups a day (my adults, who weigh less, get 2 each total).  However he is still filling out and has endless energy.  He is more energetic than the other two combined, probably why he eats more than they do combined!!

You can see how lean he is (and being totally out of coat doesn't help)

Mine all eat California Natural, usually Lamb and Rice, but right now I'm trying the chicken since it's cheaper.  Because of his breed and the slow rate of growth he has never been on a puppy food (was weaned to Nature's Variety Prairie canned and kibble, then I switched over to Cal Nat).  I could get a higher quality food, but then the kcals would be more and he'd eat less.  I kinda like have less kcals so I can feed him more, then he feels more full.  I feed him about a cup at a time, 5-6 times a day.  He is so active I hate feeding him "meals", I'm afraid he will bloat.

OK, thanks. That makes me feel better. I may break this out to 4 meals a day.

Honestly since Nikon is my first puppy, first intact dog, I've just been going by what seems right.  I've never had to feed an adolescent male before.  Some days he might eat 3 cups, some days it might be closer to 7.  I do know that his poops get runny if he's being overfed, even if he is whining for more food.  That is another reason why I try to give a cup at a time rather than 3 cups.  When he was 7 months old, he was eating less than he is now and was actually a tad fat.  He must be having a major growth spurt or something.

 Pay attention to zinc, copper, and potassium levels in the young active males. Particularly if you are adding in raw/fresh food. Zinpro has a natural, safe zinc supplement you can try if you want to experiment. It's organic so it's safely absorbed and processed unlike oxides and sulfates.

 Thanks BC, will do!

Rivers is the same way; but he was neutered at 4mnths old. He requires a lot of calories moreso then my 75# malamute did at 2yrs old. And Rivers is only 53#....energy level of the two were about the same at this age....so I think it's his breed type.

The puppy version of Cal natural does have more calories, but it also has a lot less carb's then the adult version; thus I feed the puppy lamb version at nearly 4 cups a day depending on his activity level for that day.

Liesje....if you switched to the puppy version, you may not have too feed as much.

I too break Rivers's meals down to 3 a day, he's so active I too worry about bloat.

 Lies probably doesn't want to feed her large breed puppy a "normal" puppy food, especially as he's hit the stage where his joints are "filling out" and building soft tissue. Offering too much calcium to a still-growing dog may cause the skeletal structure's growth to outpace soft tissue development.

My Sam is a medium-breed dog, but I'm still switching him to an adult formula on the next bag. Border Collies' joints are best grown very slowly, as they undergo a lot of stress as adults.

GSD people told me to never use a puppy food on a GSD, it has too much of certain things b/c GSDs develop veeeery slowly, takes over 2 years to reach physical maturity.  Most of the really good, reputable GSD breeders I know wean directly to an "ALS" kibble or to raw diets.  I also see a lot of puppy formulas just as money-makers anyway.  Dogs in the wild go from milk to scavenging and hunting, the mom doesn't feed the puppies the "puppy" food from the carcas.

I actually like having less calories so I can feed the dog more.  Otherwise he is just so energetic and plays/works so hard for hours, a cup of kibble here and there does nothing to satiate his hunger.  If I fed a higer Kcal I'd have to feed less and then pack him with beans and rice or something.

The cal natural adult lamb/rice has 2.14% calcium; the puppy version is 2.2% not too much different honestly.

For what it's worth though, I didn't start Rivers on the puppy version until just barely over a month ago, he was already 2 when I started it. I didn't really have any options, the adult version didn't supply him with enough energy, everything else gave him the pooies.

He was raised however, on Orijen large breed puppy food and Innova large breed puppy food; both having around 1.4% calcium or something similar.

I thought once a dog passed 6mnths of age though, that they're bodies would regulate the calcium on it's own?? Is that not true?

I completely understand the slow growth, thus the reason I had Rivers on large breed formulas, but only 2 out there are truly large breed formulas, Orijen and Innova from my opinion anyways.

Cal natural adult is good food, but it contains a lot of grain, that's the only reason I wouldn't care for it. But the ingredient quality is great.

The price of the cal natural adult versus the puppy version is the same around here; they're both ALS formula's though; only the puppy version has higher protein levels and is less grainy.

Feed what works for you though....I only fed the Orijen large breed puppy version versus the adult version cause it had less calcium when Rivers was under 2yrs. ...he did grow very slowly and in fact, he turned 2 in April, but I'm still seeing him growing a bit. He's not filling out though; but he's grown another inch since April. He's just as tall as most GSD's, but weighs half as much.

Thought to also mention too; the adult version may contain less calcium but with having to feed more of it, may actually end up being more calcium intake then a food with higher kcals and only very slightly more calcium percent.

I.e. the puppy version has 2.2%, adult has 2.14% calcium (lamb based formulas); if one is feeding the puppy version at 535kcal per cup the total intake of calcium would be less with the lessor food content taken in by the dog; versus the lower kcal per cup with higher intake amount....right??

Or am I thinking about this wrong?? Curious really.

When I got Rivers 2yrs ago, everyone advised me that he could eat a food with right around 2% calcium level as long as he wasn't eating an enormous amount of food; i.e. one with higher kcal versus feeding an excessive amount of a lower kcal food with slightly less calcium.

 What I'm saying is Rivers would have to eat around 6-7 cups a day too, of the adult version versus only 3-4 cups a day of the puppy version....so calcium intake percentage is pretty close to the same, if not less?

 With regard to calcium intake, Rivers would be considered an adult dog. My comment was directed at anyone who might have a large breed dog the same age as Nikon.

Calcium intake starts getting regulated around six months, but it's an individual thing and it's not a valve that cuts on all of a sudden. It seems to happen about the time the "growth plates" start calcifying. So in a larger dog, I wouldn't count on six months being in any way a magic date.

Don't forget that ALS foods are formulated for puppies, with larger amounts of nutrients suitable for active growth. They tend to fudge a bit on the calcium (compare an ALS to a small breed growth formula), but otherwise everything is balanced with the pups in mind. This means that the bigger the dog, the closer the food is to being at the upward tolerance level with regard to minerals in particular (there's no real upward safe limit for any other micronutrients).