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Raw Diet Basics
Raw Meaty Bones
Muscle Meat
Organ Meat
Veggie Mush
Benefits
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How Much to Feed
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Helpful Tips
Figuring Out How Much to Feed Your Dog & Our New Spreadsheet
First thing is to figure out how much food I’ll need to purchase.
We make monthly runs to our supplier so first I have to figure out how much each dog needs per day,
then total that by week. Multiply that by four (4 weeks per month), add it all up and
that's how much we need to order! If you have the freezer space you
can do the same too! Otherwise you can figure your weekly totals.
I figure out their daily amounts because I have dogs that are very different in size. At first, I tried to feed them by sight. If they looked skinny, I gave them more the next meal. If they looked fat, I gave them less. But what happened was I ended up with a VERY fat Cocker Spaniel! I would put his food in his bowl and then put one of the German Shepherds food in their bowl and compare the two bowls (I know, I know – not the right way to do it). I’d say “The Cocker’s bowl looks so empty compared to the other one” and give him more! Now I weigh everything. Makes it easier to know how much to order each month, keeps the Cocker and the Corgi mix the right weight (although he was happier BEFORE I started weighing the food <g>) and only takes an extra few minutes each meal.
Here's 4 bowls of muscle meat ready to serve. The one in the bottom right corner is the Cocker's bowl. Notice the great difference in the amount he gets compared to the other dogs:
If you only have one or two dogs you could probably go just by sight. Although it is helpful – in the beginning – to figure out exactly what they need. Once you have a baseline you can wing it from there.
A dog on the raw diet consumes between 2-4% of their body weight in food each day. You'll have to pick a starting point and watch your dog to see how they do. This will determine if you need to increase, decrease or keep their amounts where they are.
I’ll use Riggs as my example dog to show you how I figure out how much to feed. Riggs is an adult male German Shepherd. When we switched to the raw diet Riggs weighed about 65 lbs and was at a good weight. He is of average activity level. So I decided to use 2.5% as the starting point for him.
Doing the calculations I found that 2.5% of 65 pounds was 1.625 pounds. I rounded that up to 1.7 pounds. So Riggs started the raw diet getting 1.7 lbs of food each day.
Here is how that 1.7 lbs of food broke down:
1.7 lbs * 60% (for the RMBs) = 1.02 lbs or 17 oz (I round up in the beginning)To convert pounds to ounces multiply the pounds by 16 (the number of ounces in a pound)
1.7 lbs * 35% (for the Muscle meat) = .595 lbs or 9.5 oz
1.3 lbs * 5% (for the Organ meat) = .085 lbs or 1.5 ounces
Back when I first started I fed veggie mush every day. Now I don't feed it at all. I do feed raw green tripe once a week. The big dogs get 3.5 ounces and the two little dogs get 2 ounces.
Riggs started out with those amounts and immediately started putting on weight he didn't need. So I cut him back to 2.25% and he leveled off nicely.
When I started our dog Remi I started him at 2.5% as well. He lost weight quickly and he was already skinny to begin with. So I increased him to 3%. And then to 3.5%. That worked for a bit ... until we moved to our 3 acre farm. All that room to run had Remi burning alot more calories for awhile. I had to move him all the way up to 4%! Now he's back between 3% and 3.5%. The change in seasons has much to do with my dogs weight (and thus daily food amount) changes. During the summer we're outside more, in the field, playing and working. During the winter we tend to stay indoors where it's warm!
This is why I weigh the dogs monthly to see how things are going. That way I can make changes in their amounts before they get too fat or too skinny.
Back to the calculating! I
had now figured out how much Riggs ate per day:
17 oz of RMBs
9.5 oz of Muscle Meat
1.5 oz of Organ Meat
From there I multiplied those amounts by 7 to figure out how much he ate each week:
17 oz * 7 = 119 oz or 7.5 lbs of RMBs (rounding up again)
9.5 oz * 7 = 66.5 oz or 4.2 lbs of Muscle Meat
1.5 oz * 7 = 10.5 oz or .65 lbs of Organ meat
Then I multiplied by 4 (the number of weeks per month) to get the amount I would need to order for the month:
7.5 lbs * 4 = 30 lbs of RMBs per month
4.2 lbs * 4 = 16.8 lbs of Muscle Meat per month
.65 lbs * 4 = 2.6 lbs of Organ Meat per month
I did that for each dog and added everything up to get my grand total for the month.
The most important thing is to remember that you are either looking at
POUNDS or OUNCES. .9 lbs is
NOT the same as 9 ounces. .9
pounds is actually 14.4 ounces. Many
people have fallen into that mistake and find their dogs losing weight
rapidly. Check your
calculations!
My dogs range from 2% to 4%. I picked a percentage to start at based on their current body structure (too fat, too skinny or just right) and their current activity level (very active, active or Couch Potato). I weighed them all monthly and adjusted their amounts based on how they were doing.
It
is not an exact science. Sometimes
Riggs gets 17 oz of RMBs, sometimes he gets 16, sometimes 18.
I sometimes forget to thaw stuff and they get little to nothing.
Balance and variety over time is the key.
Our Spreadsheet - Updated 12/2003:
As I've said above I like to weigh everything so I'm sure I'm not over feeding and to help me figure monthly totals for ordering. When I first started this diet I created a spreadsheet to track everything.
My wonderful husband Mike created a spreadsheet for that will do all these calculations for you! Anyone can use it. All you need to do is enter the dog's name, ideal/goal weight, the percentage for the daily amount fed and the percentages for each food type (RMBs, Muscle Meat, etc.) The spreadsheet has instructions on how to do everything. Once you have those figures entered you can see daily, weekly and monthly totals.
And the spreadsheet has the ability to track up to twelve dogs! I guess that means we can get six more? (Just kidding, honey!)
You will need Microsoft Excel (version 97 or greater) in order to run this spreadsheet.
To download the spreadsheet to your computer simply follow these directions:
- Use your mouse and right click on this spreadsheet link
- A message box will appear asking what you want to do. You want to SAVE the file so select the SAVE option.
- Another message box appears that asks you where - on your computer - do you want to save this file. Select a directory on your computer and you are set!
That's all there is to it! You would then start up Excel and open the spreadsheet.
If you get a warning message saying something about Macros - you DO want the macros enabled (turned on) as they do the calculations in the spreadsheet. Be sure to indicated that when if the message appears.
The first page is instructions on how to use the spreadsheet.
If you have any problems or questions - or suggestions for enhancements - on the spreadsheet - email us and we'll see what we can do to help you!
Feel free to email me at info@rawdogranch.com if you have any questions!