Starting new food tonight

[Jane Smith]

After plenty of research and picking the brains of everyone here, I decided to switch my girls to Taste of the Wild (Lamb) starting tonight.  They were on Avoderm lamb and brown rice, but I would really like to go grain free.  Plus the new one requires a less amount of food per day then the one they are on now.  

 

I know you are to start switching slowly, but how much do you recommend adding at a time?  I want to do this really slowly, because both my girls get diarrhea very easily and I want to stick with this.

 

Right now they get 3 cups of Avoderm a day.  Shall I knock that back to 2 1/2 cups and add 1/2 cup of TOTW for the next several days?  Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

 

[Katie, John & Parker pup]

That's a good amount...that's about what I did for Parker as well because he also has a sensitive tummy...after 5 days I increased it to 50/50 and then like 80/20 until the old food was gone. Slow but I had no tummy issues during the transition and he does MUCH better on the grain free now!

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

It's going to be tricky, because the TOTW contains more calories than the Avoderm, so if you feed the same amt (three cups) but part of it is TOTW, they're going to be getting more calories than before. What is the recommended amt of TOTW per day for them if that's what they were eating by itself?

 

[Jane Smith]

Good call Karen,  The new food is 2 to 2 3/4 cups per day for 40 to 60 lbs. 

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I would give them 2 cups of the Avoderm and one-half cup of the TOTW as your starting point. You can do the whole transition in a week. Each day, give slightly less Avoderm and slightly more TOTW, keeping the total amount of kibble at 2.5 cups.

If they like the TOTW and try picking it out, you can just go cold turkey. You're probably going to have some loose stools for a few days either way.

[Jane Smith]

Thanks for the help.  I really hope they like this food, because they seem to only eat the Avoderm when they are really hungry.   Here's hoping for no loose stools.  

[Jane Smith]

So far, so good.  No loose stools and we started the food on Friday.  By yesterday they were half and half and are still doing fine.  I want to use up the Avoderm I have left, so I will just keep adding a little more of the TOTW each couple days.  They really seem to like it, which is a huge step in the right direction.