Husky diet

Feeding your husky

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You might wonder how you should be feeding your husky or what is the best husky food. If you got a little husky puppy then you will see that he doesn’t eat anything or he doesn’t eat that much. Especially at this young age. The best thing to do is to give your husky the appropriate food for his age. Feed you husky puppy food that is for puppies, not food for an adult dog or food branded such as “food for all life stages”. Your little puppy needs age-appropriate food. Read this article before getting a husky.

What is the best food for your husky puppy?

Even the smart owners who want to feed their huskies the best food possible will get pretty confused. With the assortment of dog foods available nowadays, it’s difficult to figure out what is best for the husky and what you should feed your husky. Adding to these the fact that they will not eat anything. You should read the ingredients from the label of the dog foods, even if it’s marketed such as “husky food”.

Are Siberian huskies carnivores?

Huskies are not carnivores. They need meat for protein, but that’s not enough. You must feed your dog a balanced diet. Even their ancestors, the wolves, eat both meat and plants in the wild. A balanced diet can make sure that your dog can properly develop his immune system.

Feeding your husky. What should you give your husky to eat?

Veterinarians recommend feeding your husky a combination of 80% dry kibble and 20% wet food.

You can feed your husky dog foods in various types: dry, wet, semi-moist, and even frozen. If you like to spoil your husky with treats, think about vegetables or fruits also. Besides those tasty treats that you can find in stores. During summer, you could peel and cut some apples or even watermelon and place them in the fridge. Warning! Remove all the seeds from apples or watermelons.

Siberian huskies will love to chew on some ice cubes or on some frozen baby carrots – or some frozen yogurt in a Kong. They also love some small banana slices from time to time. Tasty!

Don’t feed your dog only dry food every day and at every meal. At least, you could put some water on the dry kibble and mix it up until it gets moist.

How much does a husky eat?

Siberian huskies don’t eat that much. The amount of food that your Siberian husky requires depends on many factors, such as the quality of food, age, size, and activity level. Follow the manufacturer’s recommended amount and adjust it from there.

What to look for in husky food?

Siberian Huskies are very active, so they need plenty of protein. You need to keep the right balance of protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals.

Proteins will help a husky to grow and repair muscles, bones, and tissues. Husky puppies need dog food high in protein because they grow so fast. Delicious foods that are high in protein are made of various types of meat. Higher-quality commercial dog foods have more protein sources. Fish, eggs, or plant-based proteins are a part of a husky diet.

Only a certain amount of protein is digested and absorbed at once to repair and maintain muscles or joints. If you give your dog too many proteins, the excess will be stored as fat or used for energy. This excess will be excreted in the urine. The same way happens with the human body. To check if you are feeding too much protein to your husky, you should look at his urine. Yellow spots on the grass in your garden from his urine it’s a result of too much protein in your dog’s diet. Another obvious sign is the excess of fat. Excess is never good for your dog’s health and neither for us – humans. Proteins are good for your dog, but you should keep a balanced diet. Proteins will not provide everything that’s needed for your husky to stay healthy and fit.

Your husky needs carbohydrates. Good carbohydrates for your dogs are found in starches and fiber. You will find those in the dog food. Peas, corn, carrots, potatoes, beans, rice, pasta, and grains are starchy food that your husky can eat.

Fats are good for your husky. Fats are essential. They maintain your husky’s skin and coat health, nervous system function, vitamin transport, hormone production, and energy. Still, be careful about the number of calories. You don’t want to give your dog serious health problems that will result from an excess of fats. Good food high in fats for dogs includes fish oil, vegetable oils, poultry fat, and tallow.

I also wrote about yogurt for dogs and honey for dogs. You might find them interesting when thinking about what you can feed your dog.

Feeding schedule for your Husky Puppy

If you recently brought home a little puppy husky, you should feed him the same type of food that was given before. At least for a few days. After that, you can put him on another type of food or diet. The excitement of a new home, new people, and new places is already a lot to handle.  When it comes to the husky puppy’s schedule, it should contain 3 meals per day at the age of 12 weeks. Until 6 months you should stick with these 3 meals per day. After that, you can feed your husky twice a day.

How to feed your Siberian husky puppy

Why it’s important to know the process of feeding your Siberian husky, you might ask. Well, the feeding process will help you with his training but will also keep your puppy healthy.

As a puppy, Siberian husky should be fed 3 times a day. Get his bowl, fill it with the proper amount of food and give it to eat. He should eat the food when it’s given if he likes it – of course. We are talking here about Siberian huskies. Siberian huskies tend to be pretty picky when it comes to food. After he’s finished eating, pick up the bowl and place it somewhere he can’t reach. He will try to reach it, even if it’s empty. Repeat these 3 times per day.

Training while you’re feeding your husky

When you start training your dog, the feeding time will be a great way to establish even more control over the husky. Place the bowl on the floor and command him to wait for your signal. After your signal, he can approach the bowl and eat. It takes a lot of patience, but huskies learn very fast. Their stubbornness will be a challenge because they will test you, and they will test the limits. Especially when they are puppies because they tend to get away with many things.

Did you see my liver dog treats recipes? Your puppy will love them!

How can you know if you are not giving the proper food to your dog?

If your dog is on a bad diet, you will see effects. Effects such as loose stool, dandruff problems, excessive shedding, dull coat, obesity, skin disorders, and others. It depends a lot from case to case, but these are the most frequent signs.

Talk with the vet if you aren’t sure what type of food you should be feeding him or if the husky it’s not adjusting well to the given diet. And don’t forget to give your dog plenty of fresh and clean water all day long.

Read the label on your chosen brand of dog food carefully. Don’t just look at the picture or at the marketing title. Read the ingredients and see if it’s the perfect food for your husky. Your dog can’t read, so you will have to make good decisions for him – he trusts you to make the right choice.

Dog and Siberian husky lover. I love training, exercising and playing around with my two huskies. Always trying new foods, recipes and striving to give them the best possible dog life.

8 Comments

  1. Elisabeth Johnson Reply

    We adopted two husky brothers 6 months ago. Their eating habits have been the hardest part to figure out.

    Their previous owners told us that Smokey often didn’t eat all his food, and Bear would finish it. I noticed Smokey felt threatened by Bear, and was also not a morning person, not really ready to eat first thing. So we first established the rule that no one eats the other dogs food. We protected Smokey from Bear while he ate, and eventually Bear stopped eating Smokey’s food and Smokey ate more, but not consistently.

    We tried switching up the brands of kibble at canned food – with success at first , but then not for Smokey – he’s consistent. (I changed foods slowly as instructed.)

    I gave them cooked chicken breast and pumpkin for dinner with kibble and they gobble it up! And then – Smokey stopped gobbling it up.

    I tried setting their kibble out in the morning and letting them graze all day – then feed them chicken and pumpkin or sweet potatoes at night with some kibble.

    But Smokey is not consistent about eating, and now Bear, who used to eat everything, is less interested too, especially in their kibble. I read somewhere not to mix the kibble with cooked foods – tried that – but kibble doesn’t get eaten sometimes.

    Suggestions??

    • Alexandra Reply

      Hi! So happy to hear how much you care for your huskies! How old are they? I can understand why you fed them at night some chicken and pumpkin after they didn’t eat kibbles. But keep in mind, huskies are smart, so if there is a better and a tastier food option, they will wait for it. If you want to give a better taste or a different taste to the kibbles, put some broth or stock on the kibble (without salt or spices). If you make soup for yourself, put some stock away before adding salt or spices. Or warm the wet food a bit to have a strong smell. Are you giving them treats? If you do, try not to give them treats for a few weeks or replace the store-bought treats with some vegetables or fruits. By adding fruits or vegetables to their diet, you will add fiber to their diet. Keep your boys on a schedule and feed them two times per day. If they refuse to eat in the morning, they will eat in the evening. If they refuse to eat in the evening, they will eat the next morning if they get enough exercise. Take them for longer walks or jogging. Usually, exercising them will fix the bad eating habits. Let me know how it goes with Smokey and Bear.

  2. Hi Alexandra, I have a husky puppy for 2 weeks and his now 8 weeks old. He always have loose stool if he take kibbles. His stool was pretty solid when i gave him bananas and chicken breast. When i changed back to kibbles, he will have loose stool again and the frequency of passing stool increases.

    I first feeding him with Blackwood kibbles, I thought he does not adapt well with this brand. Now Im feeding him NuturePro kibbles and yet the outcome still remain the same – loose stool. I went to Vet and he was prescribed with diarrhea medication, 10 days has passed with medication yet he still having loose stool when I feed him kibbles.

    May I ask if this is normal scenario for husky to adapt his food? Some animal food store keepers told me is normal that puppy will have loose stool until they adapt with his food. I am a bit worried. He still having good appetite and being a very active boy. Hope to hear some sharing from you. Thanks.

    • Alexandra Reply

      Hi! You have a really young puppy. I need more information before giving you a precise answer, but I can go through some usual situations.
      Did the previous owner went to the veterinarian and gave the puppy anti-parasite medication? I must ask that. If not, talk with your veterinarian about that.
      You can keep your puppy on puppy kibble. Pick a kibble that has more protein, and don’t change it too fast. You have your puppy for only two weeks, so he or she might have diarrhea caused by stress (due to the new environment) or from the dietary transition.
      Another cause of diarrhea is that young puppies tend to eat too much at once. How much and how often do you feed your puppy? Normally, a young puppy should eat 3 times per day. But if you already feed him 3 times per day, try to give him smaller amounts of food more often. For example, feed your puppy the right amount of kibbles per day but feed him or her small portions more often. Feed him or her 5-9 times per day. Just spread it throughout the day. This way, your puppy’s digestive system has time to process it. After 4-5 days by doing so, your puppy shouldn’t have any diarrhea problems. You can give him or her some natural probiotics such as Greek yogurt or kefir. One teaspoon per day is more than enough at his or her age. Probiotics will help your dog’s intestinal flora.
      Don’t forget to vaccinate your puppy at the appropriate ages. I don’t have all the details, so these are only wild guesses based on the most common problems that puppies at his or her age might have. Let me know if I can help you more.

  3. Hi there!
    I have two 6 year old female siberian huskies and have been trying to figure out what’s the best diet for them even after all these years. First, we’ve tried to give them the different kinds of dog food that Costco has to offers and they liked it in the beginning, but after some time they stopped eating it so we’d try one of the other dog foods that Costco has, but I would notice that their stool wouldn’t always be solid. However, both huskies were spayed and soon after their recovery they started gaining a lot of weight so we decided to switch them over to Hill’s Perfect Weight which is what actually helped regulate their stool. Recently, they stopped eating this food or only eat it when they’re really hungry. I read that huskies tend to not eat as much as other dogs, but I’m still concerned. We used to take them on hikes everyday until one of my dogs had to have a THR because of her hip dysplasia, so we only take one of the huskies out on walks around the neighborhood. I was just wondering what you thought of Hill’s dog food? It’s a little pricey for us, but we do want our dogs to be healthy and also like to eat their food. I’ve been trying to do some research on what’s best for them, but different people say so many different things and I’m getting confused on what’s best for my dogs.

    • Alexandra Reply

      Hi! I feed my huskies Hill’s Healthy Mobility Medium Chicken and other types from Hills. All my huskies love it and they don’t get bored of it so easily. Other dog foods that my huskies enjoy are Royal Canin and Purina. I must mention my huskies have no allergies to foods. When you are buying kibble for your girls, check the protein intake and the date when it’s made. The closer it was produced to the time you bought it, the fresher it is. When you want to change their kibble buy a small package first and see if they approve it. Always check the feeding recommendation. Hill’s Perfect Weight medium is 295 g or 1 can of wet dog food (363 g) + 195 g dry food per day for a dog weighing 20 kg or 44 pounds.
      It is normal for your huskies to eat less if they are not active or even if it is too warm. When did your girl had the THR? Don’t forget to follow the recovery plan from your dog’s specialist. From stretches and passive range of motion to ensure mobility, controlled harness walk to exercises and fun activities that will help her gain stability and build muscles.
      How many treats do you feed your girls during the day? As dog parents, we want the best for our girls and boys, and we tend to give them more treats, especially when they are going through something rough as your sweet girl went. Limit the treats or don’t give them any for a few days and you’ll see they are going to eat all the food. If they are just fussy, you can warm a bit of wet food and put it on the kibbles. The smell will attract them. I made liver paste from fresh liver for my boy when he didn’t want to eat food. Plain boiled liver, without any salt, piper, or other spices.
      There are plenty of reasons why your girls will not eat as much as they did. I don’t think you should worry, but if you do you can go for a checkup. If you find that none of the above helps or you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me as I’m only guessing here as I don’t know all the facts and your girl’s routine.

  4. Hi,
    I recently got a husky puppy about a month old. It was really out of nowhere, but I want to make sure I am giving her the right food specially as a puppy. I do find it a bit intimidating as I have never had a big breed and there are so many options. I am in the process of making an appointment for her shots. But are there any recommendations you can give me on what to start her off with? I would really appreciate it.

    Thank you

    • Alexandra Reply

      Hi! You don’t have to be intimidated, even if it’s a medium-sized breed. Look for foods that are rich in protein for your husky puppy. Most puppy foods are rich in protein. Try adding a little water to the kibble if you don’t mix the kibble with wet food.
      Feeding schedule: you can feed her 3 times a day if time allows, or twice.
      Read the feeding table that you can find on the dog food bag. Depending on your puppy’s weight, you will see how many grams of kibble it needs per day. Divide that amount into the number of meals per day.
      Your veterinarian will prescribe a special food if your husky needs a special diet.
      Look after dog food that was more recently made. Look at the production date on the package.
      Your husky will grow and she will have a lot of energy to burn. A husky needs to exercise a lot.
      Sorry for the delay, due to spam I just saw the message. Don’t hesitate to ask me if you have other questions.

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