Raw food - What and how much to feed your dog

Once you've decided to feed your dog raw food, there are a number of questions you are likely to run into. How much raw food should I feed my dog? What should I feed him exactly? How do I change from commercial dog food to raw food? How do I start feeding my puppy raw food and many more. Stay cool and don't panic, help is at hand.

With raw feeding there are no hard and fast rules. As you get used to feeding your dog a raw food diet, you’ll see how your dog reacts and you can adjust your feeding plan accordingly. You will notice that the dog’s circumstances including her age, amount of exercise, whether she is pregnant, and the temperature where you live. Growing puppies under 12 months of age need extra food. Generally speaking, the ‘rib test’ is the best test to see if you’re feeding your dog too much or little. Their ribs should be felt with a light touch, but not visible when resting.

For a dog over 10kg feed roughly 2% of her body weight every day – including edible bones.

So, for example a 20kg dog should be eating roughly 400g of raw food. You can serve it in one meal, or several smaller ones at whatever times suit you and your dog.

For dogs under 11kg:

• 1kg-2kg: 10% of body weight
• 3kg-4kg: 7% of body weight
• 5kg-8kg: 5% of body weight
• 9kg-10kg: 3% of body weight
• 11kg and over: 2% of body weight

To visualise what the correct balance of a raw dog meal should look like, imagine the ’contents’ of a whole rabbit:

Correct balance

• 2 parts bone
• 2 parts muscle, tendons, sinews
• 1 part offal
• 1 part guts and partially digested greenery

Interestingly dogs don’t need a lot of carbohydrates or sugars for energy as they can’t digest it. They need fat, essential fatty acids (Omega 6 and Omega 3) and protein (containing amino acids).

Unlike us, dogs don’t need every meal to be balanced but are perfectly happy to achieve balance over time. This means you can choose to either feed a combination of these parts every day or feed one part each day over 6 days.

When you're feeding your dog raw food, there are no real recipes to follow. Its more about getting the raw ingredients and proportions right. here is a list of suitable bones, green meals and offal to serve your dog as part of his raw food diet.

Bones

• Lamb: Any bones, sheep heads, neck, ribs, spines
• Chicken: Carcasses, wings and necks. Chicken wings are a perfect combination of bone and musle/tendons and are ideal for old and young dogs alike.
• Rabbit: Carcasses, fur and guts
• Pork: Any bones, pigs trotters, pig’s head, tail
• Beef: The smaller bones, calf carcass, oxtails, ribs, NOT the postman’s leg, cheek. Calf bones or bones from young animals under a year old are best as they are soft.
• Pheasant, duck pigeon quail, day old chicks, goat carcass, deer carcass
• Venison: Rib cages and pelvis are OK but avoid leg bones as they can be brittle
• Goose and turkey – Edible but some dogs don’t like these as much

Remember the bones need to be RAW as cooked bones can splinter

Others/extras

• Offal: Heart, liver (don’t over do the liver), brain, tripe, hearts, tongues, spleen, pancreas
• Fish: Tinned fish, whole fish
• Raw eggs

• Table spoon of cottage cheese
• Mushed up fruit (should be ripe but not over ripe. Dogs love bananas/apples/pears but avoid grapes and avocados)
• Small quantity of molasses.
• Small quantity of kelp.
• Small quantity of brewers yeast.

Green Meals:

This part of the dogs dinner imitates the partially digested gut matter of the prey animal the dog would normally enjoy. As dogs can’t digest plant matter you must first grate it. Include Vegetables and fruit, one from above and one from below ground. For example spinach and parsnips or apples and carrots. An idea could be to run the green meal in a food mixer with some of the offal for example the raw liver or eggs.

Minced meat

There are several companies specialising in raw/barf food who are offering pet mince containing a mix of flesh, muscle, tendon, cartilage, bones, offal, grated vegetables and so on. It can make your food planning a whole lot easier as it essentially includes all the ingredients your dog needs. This can work as a stand alone food or can be fed in combination with a traditional raw food plan. Just make sure you also feed your dog some bones for chewing as this will help keep his teeth clean and jaws exercised.

This article was written by Linda Bliss. I am earning money online by writing here at HubPages.com. Would you like to earn money online too? Read the success stories and sign up today to get started!

• How to change your dog's food to RAW food
• Noticeable advantages of feeding your dog RAW food
• RAW food - what and how much to feed your dog
• Why RAW food and meaty bones are good for your dog

Here is a list of some books, articles and websites I've found useful in my research.

• Work Wonders-Feed your dog raw meaty bones by Tom Lonsdale
• Natural Nutrition for Dogs & Cats: The ultimate diet by Kymythy Schultze
• Come Dine with us by Kay Laurence
• Jonathan and Nat Self, Darlings Dog Food - free articles online about raw food (no I'm not promoting this company especially but they do offer really good information online)