Almost every puppy feeding chart in circulation is a marketing document. It is printed on the back of a food bag by the company selling the food, and it is generous in the direction you would expect.
This one is built from the formula veterinary nutritionists actually use, so you can apply it to whatever you are feeding, kibble, home-cooked, or the mixed reality most Indian households run on.
And it opens with the thing that matters most, because in India it is the single most common way a well-meaning owner damages a puppy.
Should you give your puppy calcium?
No. And if you have a large-breed puppy, the calcium syrup on your shelf is doing harm.
This needs saying plainly because calcium supplements are handed out routinely here, by breeders, by pet shops, sometimes by clinics, for Labradors, German Shepherds, Great Danes, Retrievers and indies alike.
Here is the physiology. Puppies from weaning to about six months absorb calcium passively through the intestine and have a limited ability to down-regulate that absorption when intake is high. An adult dog fed too much calcium simply absorbs less of it. A puppy cannot do that. Whatever you give, it largely takes in.
Excess calcium during growth is associated with developmental orthopedic disease, osteochondrosis, wobbler syndrome, radius curvus. The recommended dietary calcium range for large-breed puppies is roughly 0.8% to 1.2% on a dry-matter basis, and any complete commercial puppy food already sits inside it. Adding calcium to a balanced diet during early growth is contraindicated.
The intuition, bigger bones need more calcium, is exactly backwards. You are not building a stronger skeleton. You are disrupting the signalling that tells it how to form.
Stop the syrup. If you are home-cooking and worried about the balance, that is a conversation with a vet about the whole diet, not a bottle to add on top.
The chart: how much to feed, by weight
Start with resting energy requirement:
RER (kcal/day) = 70 × (body weight in kg)0.75
Then multiply by a growth factor that falls as the puppy approaches adult size, roughly 3.0 early in growth, 2.5 through the middle, 2.0 as it nears full size.
| Current weight | RER | Early growth (×3.0) | Mid growth (×2.5) | Nearing adult (×2.0) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 kg | 118 | 353 kcal | 294 kcal | 235 kcal |
| 5 kg | 234 | 702 kcal | 585 kcal | 468 kcal |
| 10 kg | 394 | 1,181 kcal | 984 kcal | 787 kcal |
| 15 kg | 534 | 1,601 kcal | 1,334 kcal | 1,067 kcal |
| 20 kg | 662 | 1,986 kcal | 1,655 kcal | 1,324 kcal |
| 25 kg | 783 | 2,348 kcal | 1,957 kcal | 1,565 kcal |
| 30 kg | 897 | 2,692 kcal | 2,243 kcal | 1,795 kcal |
Bold marks the column most puppies at that weight will sit in, but use the one that matches where your puppy is in its own growth curve, not its absolute weight. A 10 kg Labrador puppy is early in growth; a 10 kg indie may be nearly done.
Converting calories to a portion: check the kcal per 100 g on your food's label. It varies from roughly 330 to 420 kcal per 100 g across brands, which is a big enough spread that ignoring it makes the whole calculation pointless. Divide the daily calorie target by the food's kcal per gram.
This is a starting point, not a prescription. Feed it for four weeks and let the puppy's body correct you.
How many meals, at what age?
| Age | Meals per day | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Weaning to 12 weeks | 4 | Small stomachs; small breeds especially need the frequency to avoid low blood sugar |
| 3 to 6 months | 3 | Large breeds can usually drop to three by 12-14 weeks |
| 6 months onward | 2 | Two meals a day for life; free-feeding is a bad habit to start |
Split the daily total across those meals evenly. The frequency is about stomach capacity and blood sugar stability, not about the total.
How do you know you have it right?
Ignore the scale and use your hands, weekly.
Run both hands along the ribcage. You want to feel the ribs easily under a thin layer of covering, not see them from across the room, not have to press to find them. Then look down at the puppy from above: there should be a visible waist behind the ribs.
For large-breed puppies specifically, lean is the target. Not thin, lean. This is the one place where the instinct to feed a bit more is the instinct to resist.
Overfeeding a large-breed puppy does not usually produce a fat puppy. It produces a puppy that grows too fast, where the body outpaces the skeleton meant to carry it. Rapid growth, excess energy and excess calcium together are the main drivers of developmental orthopedic disease. A Labrador puppy that grows slower and leaner ends up the same adult size, just with better joints at eight.
Adjust by 10% at a time, then wait two weeks. Puppy weight is noisy week to week; reacting to every wobble means constantly over-correcting.
When to switch to adult food
| Size | Switch at |
|---|---|
| Small (under 10 kg adult) | 10-12 months |
| Medium (10-25 kg adult) | ~12 months |
| Large / giant (25 kg+ adult) | 18-24 months |
The common mistake is switching a large-breed puppy at a year because it looks grown. It is not. Large and giant breeds are still laying down skeleton well past the point they stop looking like puppies, and puppy formulations are built for that.
What about indie puppies?
Same formula, same meal frequency, one adjustment: most indies are medium-sized adults, so they finish growing earlier, plan for around 12 months.
The bigger practical difference is what goes in the bowl. If you are feeding fresh rather than commercial, build it around animal protein, eggs, chicken, fish, curd, and treat rice or roti as the carrier. AAFCO's minimum for growth is 22% crude protein on a dry-matter basis, meaningfully above the 18% adult floor, and a growing puppy on a starch-heavy bowl will show it in coat and muscle within a couple of months.
And the same rule applies with more force: no calcium supplements. Indie puppies get this handed to them constantly on the assumption that a street-born puppy must be deficient. A well-fed puppy is not.
The bottom line
Calculate from the formula, not the bag. Four meals, then three, then two. Check the ribs weekly and let the puppy correct your arithmetic.
And if there is a bottle of calcium syrup in your house for a puppy on a complete diet, that is the one thing to change today.
A puppy that is not gaining weight, or is gaining while looking unwell, is a vet question rather than a portion question, persistent worms, giardia and coccidia all present exactly this way.