Raw Diet Foundation: Minerals
To keep your dogs bone content in the 12% to 15% range, you need some of his meats to have the bone in them. Start with the meaty bones you can find at your butcher or local pet store.
Its important to make sure the bone matches the size of your dog. A 10 pound Chihuahua wont be able to chew through a beef rib bone, but a 100 pound Rottweiler certainly can.
If your dog cant eat all of the bone, then its not a good source of minerals. Make sure your dog can completely eat the bone.
Youll also want to stay away from pieces your dog can swallow whole. If your butcher cuts up his ox tails into 2 inch pieces, your dog will swallow them whole and might not be able to digest them. And they might cause an intestinal blockage.
Try to choose bones that have a lot of joints, like necks, tails and feet and bones that arent weight bearing. Weight bearing bones can break teeth or get stuck in the digestive tract. Meaty bones with a lot of small bones and joints are the safest choice for your dog.
PRO TIP
Dogs have a built-in mechanism for bone safety. If your dog swallows a piece of bone thats too large to digest, hell often just throw it up for a second pass!
You Will Be Able To Feed Your Pet Less Food Daily As Compared To A Commercial Pet Food Diet
The best formula for calculating daily servings of food is to base food volume off of your pets body weight. We recommend serving 2 -3 % of your pets body weight , split into two daily mealsmorning and evening. Puppies and kittens should be fed twice the amount of food as compared to an adult dog or cat. The daily food intake level should be measured in ounces to ensure the most precise method of feeding raw food. You also can incorporate raw meaty bones into your pets diet, but never feed cooked bones to your pets.
Do The Math Yourself With A Raw Feeding Formula: 2
Seasoned raw feeders use a specific formula to calculate their adult dogs daily raw dog food allowance.
They feed 2-4% of the adult dogs ideal body weight in raw dog food per day.
How much exactly depends on the individual dogs age, activity, and metabolism.
For example, a couch potato Bulldog is going to eat closer to 2% of her ideal body weight, while an active Dalmatian or Boxer who goes for daily walks would probably eat 2.5-3%.
Likewise, a working German or Australian Shepherd would eat closer to 3.5-4%. By working dog, I mean a dog whos extremely active and has an actual job. For example, herding sheep or patrolling a building.
Heres how to do the math:
Divide your dogs target body weight by 100. Multiply the result with your feeding percentage . That gives you your daily feeding amount in pounds, which you can then convert into ounces.
Heres the example of a 50 lb, active Boxer: 50/100 = 0.5 x 3% = 1.5lbs = 24oz.
Of those 2-4%, you need to feed specific amounts of different cuts of raw meat and/or veggies:
Muscle meat
Raw meaty bone
Secreting organs
Plant matter
Tip: You can now hire me to do the feeding math for you!
How Much Raw Dog Food Do My Boxer Mixes Eat Per Day?
My pups are both adult dogs, and Buzzs ideal body weight is 70 lb, 2% of which are 1.4 lb, and 3% are 2.1 lb.
Throughout summer time Ive been giving her around 8 ounces per meal as the high temperatures just dont allow for a lot of activity.
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Myths About Barf Diet And Raw Meat For Dogs
Despite all these misconceptions, wise dog owners still have a strong notion for raw feeding to their canine fellows. Because they know very well how raw feeding is beneficial for the digestive system of dogs.
Reasons Why You Should Feed Your Dog Raw
Allergies, obesity, diabetes, and cancer are more common than ever, and your pets diet may have a lot to do with that. The rise in these life-threatening diseases has pushed us to dig deeper and find ways to prevent and treat our dogs naturally.
Feeding your dog a raw diet will positively affect many aspects of their health, but before you get started, it’s important to understand how and why a raw food diet might be right for your dog.
Here are 6 reasons you should trust raw diets to reliably and effectively improve your dog’s health:
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Supplements That You Can Use With Raw Diets
All Bully Max supplements are compatible with raw and kibble dog foods. You can mix them directly into a large batch, or add them to an individual raw meal.
For underweight, skinny, and growing dogs: Add 1 serving of Gorilla Max or Bully Max to their first meal of the day
For dogs having trouble with digestion, poor skin, poor coats, or weak immune systems: Add 1 serving of Bully Max total health to their first meal of the day
For high energy breeds and working dogs: Add 1 serving of Gorilla Max, or 1 serving of Bully Max Performance Chews to their meal 30 minutes after a workout.
Benefit Of Raw Feeding Dogs
For years, many pet owners have turned to raw diets as a solution food, and the results have been amazing. Feeding your dog as nature intended means that they will get nutrients from sources that their bodies are designed to digest, leading to improved overall health.
If you are looking for honest answers to your burning raw food questions, then this guide is for you. You will be able to understand why everyone is so obsessed with raw feeding and be able to confidently decide if feeding raw dog food is right for your pet.
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How Much Raw Food Should I Feed My Puppy
If youve ever owned a puppy before, you know how fast they grow. It seems like every time you turn around they get bigger and bigger, no matter how badly you wish theyd stay little. As a result of this growth, puppies need the right portion of raw food to provide them with the nutrients to keep them going.
Youve come to the right place! Were proud to announce our Puppylicious: Complete and Balanced raw puppy food. Puppylicious has been carefully formulated to ensure all nutritional requirements for puppies are met. Balanced to meet AAFCO Nutrient Profile for Growth and Development . Puppylicious is the perfect choice for your puppy and will allow you to love them right from the start.
Visit our newly added Puppy pages to learn more on why Puppylicious, How to transition, How to feed, and frequently asked questions to help guide you through the transition. Click here!
How Much It Costs To Feed My Dogs Raw
So, now let’s get to the reality of the situation. As I stated earlier, when I see people asking this question, it’s to determine their monthly budget. I’m raising four dogs that weigh between 60-73 pounds and I pay, on average, between $200-$250 per month on food, treats, and supplements.
I order everything in bulk, which allows me to get better prices. My dogs do have two dedicated freezers and a dedicated fridge in our garage. If it weren’t for the local raw food co-op, I probably wouldn’t be feeding raw because I would have stopped educating myself about the diet. Today, I have many sources including our co-op, discount grocery stories, ethnic grocery stores, local farms, and Walmart.
As long as I stick within a budget, it’s easy to feed my dogs a raw food diet within my budget, while leaving room for additional expenses as my dogs age, e.g. Rodrigo’s digestive enzymes .
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Raw Feeding Safety Tips
There is much debate over the safety of feeding your dog raw meat. We’ve long been taught that the bacteria in raw meat can be harmful to us, so it’s easy to assume the same for your dogs. Knowing the right way to feed raw will ensure that you and your dog will stay safe. It is additionally helpful to know raw dog food diet how much to feed.
There are bacteria present in raw meat. Scary bacteria like salmonella, E. coli, and listeria can be found in different types of raw meat. Its important to keep this in mind when handling any raw meat.
All raw meat prepared for our pets should be handled with the same caution we use with our own raw meat preparation. Safe food handling practices are a necessity. Wash your hands, utensils, and any surfaces that the meat is prepared with or on. This will prevent the spread of any harmful pathogens to you or anyone else in your home.
A common misconception is that this bacteria will harm our pets when it is ingested. The fact is that your dogs digestive system is designed to handle this level of bacteria. They have an extremely acidic stomach environment that can kill many bacteria and prevent the rest from colonizing their digestive system.
How To Switch From Kibble To A Raw Food Diet
When switching between different types of kibble, its widely known that you should slowly mix the new food with the older food and gradually increase the amount of the new food. This helps to avoid any digestion problems like vomiting or diarrhea. However, when switching to a raw food diet, it needs to be done cold turkey. Reason being, cooked food and raw food is digested quite differently. By feeding both, it will force your dogs body to digest two completely different types of foods in two completely different ways. So when switching to raw food for dogs, you want to make the switch a quick one.
Be aware that there is a break-in period. Some dogs will adapt to the raw diet immediately while others will take several weeks to adjust. Typically, the longer the dog has been on kibble the longer the adjustment period will be. During this adjustment period, you can expect some diarrhea, constipation, and sometimes occasional vomiting. While a bit unpleasant, this is nothing of serious concern and the symptoms will eventually subside. Once the symptoms do subside, you and your dog can enjoy benefits to a raw diet for the rest of your dogs life. When making the switch its important that you feed your dog a relatively bland diet at first. Feed raw meaty bones and some bland vegetables such as chicken wings and squash or pureed carrots, for example. Dont start feeding richer raw foods, such as organ meats or eggs until your dog has begun to adjust to eating raw foods.
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Big Food Fed Less Often
Some raw feeders practice a feeding style called self-regulation.Its a term for dogs that eat an appropriate amount of food and stop all on their own. These dogs are able to tell when their body needs food and when it doesnt. In other words, they self-regulate their meals instead of gorging all the time.Many consider self-regulation to be so close in comparison to Gorge and Fast that its hardly distinguishable.How are they similar?With both, the portions are still controlled. With raw diets, food is never available 24/7. Both of these options involve providing your dog either whole prey items or a large cut of meat.How do they differ?With Gorge and Fast, youre controlling how much your dog gorges and how long they fast.With self-regulation, your dog makes those decisions. From what youve provided, your dog will eat until he or she is full, then walk away. Youll pack up whats remaining and refrigerate until their next meal.
What Bones And Treats Should I Feed
For most dogs, a good bone will help clean their teeth and give an essential calcium boost. Make sure you supervise your dog while chewing bones and feed an appropriate bone size. A good rule is a bone at least the size of their head. Greedy chewers need extra attention to prevent a choking hazard.
We have plenty of raw meaty bones to browse in our bones and treats section.
Where can I find your catalogue?
You can browse our entire raw dog food catalogue here and by using the main menu at the top of this page.
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What We Put In To Our Wolf Tucker Puppy Meals
Your puppy has been fed a combination of chicken/bone, beef and tripe based meals. Both have added vegetables, fruit and parsley, plus some other natural additives, flax oil and organic sea kelp. We have a specially designed variety pack for puppies. The Elka pack contains a variety of our puppy meals plus our special Chicken Primal and Lamb Primal meals. It is important to provide a variety of the meals/proteins to ensure you are achieving a balanced diet. As your puppy has grown, the size of the mince meal provided has increased, starting off first as a blended consistency and now ground to a manageable consistency for their age. All Wolf Tucker food is hand made by us to ensure everything that we do is correct. We make the food in batches and, unlike other manufacturers, we do not mass produce. Because we are using raw meat, it is especially important that correct preparation is used to minimise the risk of harmful bacteria, for this reason our meals are frozen at an extremely low temperature, something that can only be carried out in commercial freezers, making correctly prepared raw feeding much safer than homemade diets. We are DEFRA approved and follow their strict guidelines with regards to raw food.
What Does Barf Mean
The term barf is not as nasty as it looks. Previously, they named it to barf from the raw diet for dogs which means
- Bone
Recently, they came up with a new concept which stands for
- Biologically
- Raw
- Food
The major mindset behind this terminology is to ensure dogs with natural raw food that their ancestors used to feed.
Barf diet for dogs is something that provides safe and natural feeding without any processed ingredients. The concept of barf diet was given by Ian Billinghurst, an Australian veterinarian, in 1933.
Thats why Im here with a top-class pro-barf diet for your dog. Moreover, I believe that homemade food is better than buying kibbles at the supermarket.
Fortunately, this natural and raw diet for dogs has progressed under the supervision of canine nutritionists and veterinarians.
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What Factors Affect How Much Raw Food To Feed Your Dog
There are certain factors to determine the amount of raw food to feed your dog. They include the following:
- Bodyweight weigh your dog to know their current weight then calculate the amount of food they need by multiplying by 2-5%.
- Activity level take into consideration the level of activity your dog is getting daily to determine the amount of food they need. Is your dog working, active, inactive, or is their activity level is average? Adjust the amount basing on these elements.
- Adjust for weight gain or loss if your dogs current weight is not ideal for their age, you can adjust the amount of their food to ensure that they get to their ideal weight. Use your dogs body condition score to determine whether they are emaciated, thin, heavy, or obese.
- Life stages puppies need more food than adult dogs because they need more fuel for their rapidly growing bodies. But you also need to consider their body condition to calculate the food they need. Pregnant dogs need 4-5% of their body weight and senior dogs who are less active need less food.
- Consider the size toy and small breeds need more of their body weight and larger breeds.
Why Other Feeding Strategies Can Work With Raw Diets
Sure, youre right.Dogs that eat processed pet food behave in the most unnatural ways. Thats because theyre eating the most unnatural foods. But dogs are provided a diet of fresh, REAL, raw foods and eat the way nature intended many behave differently. Because raw diets are packed full of nutrient dense foods, many dog owners report that erratic, binging behaviors disappear.Were no different.If you put a bag of cookies and potato chips in front of me, I would have no problem plowing through the entire bag. And Id still want more. But if you put two chicken breasts and 4 cups of broccoli in front of me, Id be lucky if I could finish half.Real food provides the nutrition your dog needs and keeps them satiated.While other feeding strategies are not necessary and they dont work for all dogs, they can:
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Step : Determine Activity Level
Its important we take activity level into the equation. How much exercise does your dog get?
Be honest here.
The vast majority of dogs today fall into an inactive activity level. Most are cooped up at home all day while their caregivers are at work. And few are lucky to get dedicated walks, play sessions and exercise every day.The reality:Many dog owners assume their dogs are more active than they truly are and in turn feed more than they need to.Use the following as a guide:
Most companion canines fall into this category. These are the dogs that spend most of their days lying around the house. They venture outside to potty or for short walks and play sessions.If you have an inactive dog, you may need to feed 2% or less to maintain a healthy weight.
Inactive
A dog with an average activity level may receive anywhere from an hour to several hours of exercise a day. In this case, feeding between 2-3% of body weight is appropriate, but 2-2.5% might be more ideal.
Average
An active dog is one that gets plenty of exercise.These dogs get out of the house more often. And they tend to exert themselves far beyond routine walks or average play sessions. Active dogs generally participate in more adventures or activities with their caregivers. This could include hiking, running, biking, hunting, and so forth.If you feel your dog is more active, than you may need to feed 2.5% or more to maintain a healthy weight.
Active
Canine Athletes & Working Dogs