50/45/5 vs 80/10/10

[Rott-n-GSDs]

Originally Posted by Lauri & The Gang

50% Muscle Meat
45% Raw Meaty Bones
5% Organ Meat

Sorry for the thread hijack but it sort of fits in... as it's a question about a properly fed raw diet.

I have seen this formula a few times for rawfeeding and it confuses me, mostly because there are so many different interpretations of what a "raw meaty bone" is. To some, it's an almost bare bone with bits of meat clinging to it. To others, it's ANY meat with bone in it... you can see how it would be varied.

I have always fed (and recommended feeding) the following formula:

80% muscle meat
10% bone
10% organ

This is the formula I've seen posted on the very large and often visited Yahoo Rawfeeding list, and the formula my canine nutritionist uses. The thought is that it mimics whole prey. If you took a deer, for example, and stuck all the meat in one pile, the bare bones in another, and the organ in another, you apparently would come up with the above percentages.

So why the 50/45/5?

Obviously it's not an exact science, and there's guesstimating with either formula, but it's something I've always been curious about.

[ETA: Thanks to whatever mod split this off into its own topic]

[Lauri & The Gang]

I moved this to it's own thread so it wouldn't get lost - it is a very common question.

Originally Posted by Rott-n-GSDs

I have seen this formula a few times for rawfeeding and it confuses me, mostly because there are so many different interpretations of what a "raw meaty bone" is. To some, it's an almost bare bone with bits of meat clinging to it. To others, it's ANY meat with bone in it... you can see how it would be varied.

On my website I define a RMB as:

... any item that has both meat and EDIBLE bone

I stress the EDIBLE part and go on to state that ...

... Leg bones of large animals - like deer or cows - are NOT RMBs. These are recreational bones. Most dogs cannot actually consume the bone in a leg bone of a cow. The bone is much too hard (it was meant to carry the weight of the cow). Even beef knuckle bones - a softer bone - are recreational. They take too long to consume to be considered part of a meal.

I point out that the size of the dog can also determine if something is EDIBLE bone or not:

For my German Shepherds, a pork neck bone is easily edible. For my Chinese Crested it's a recreational bone to be chewed on for days!

I also address the 'some RMBs are bonier than others' issue:

Another consideration is that some RMBs are bonier than others. For example - a chicken neck has much more bone than a chicken leg. If the only RMB I could feed were chicken necks, I would lower the percentage of RMBs and increase the percentage of Muscle Meat.

My final answer (so to speak) is ...

Your goal is to have no more than 20-25% actual bone in the diet.

That percentage varies alot depending on the dog. My previous GSD Remi could not handle any more than 15% bone in his diet. Most of my other dogs are good within a 15 - 30% range.

It's about balance over time so they don't have to get an EXACT amount of bone each and every day - it can vary from 10% one day to 30% the next (with the exception of growing puppies).


If you look at your deer example - very few of the bones of a deer are actually edible by most canids. Necks and ribs are about it. The legs and skull are much too hard to really be edible and most canids will leave those unless they are starving.

Also - the average weight of a white tailed deer is 200 lbs (male). Organs would be the eyes, brain, liver, lungs, pancreas. Eyes, brain and lungs are very light tissues. That leaves the pancreas and liver. while the liver is the largest organ there's no way it can weighs more than 10 pounds! At least not the ones I've purchased.

If you check out the RMB page on my website you;ll see that I took a basic chicken thigh and measured bone vs meat. It came out to about 17% bone.

[ChancetheGSD]

The legs and skull are much too hard to really be edible and most canids will leave those unless they are starving.

We feed our dogs anything off the deer that we don't eat. They tend to leave the heads (But the antlers make good chews!) but they've always consumed the legs and they're far from starved! xD

Even the little ones like a good deer leg. LOL!



Not that I'd consider it a RMB though...

[Jax08]

In my opinion, both formula's are giving the same thing.

50/45/5 = 50% raw MEATY bone, 45% meat, 5% organ meat

80/10/10 = 80% meat, 10% bone, 10% organ meat

If you scraped all the meat off the raw meaty bone then you would have 10% bone.

I had to greatly adjust the percentages with Jax because I feed poultry necks primarily and it was to much bone. She gets 6 oz meat/4oz RBM/1 oz OM.

[onyx'girl]

For a 90# GSD~ a one pound chicken leg quarter with back attached is a perfect meal, IMO. The back usually has kidney and a bit of liver attached. Though this shouldn't be fed exclusively just an example of portions/balance.

[BlackGSD]

In response to what was written in the first post: Anyone that had ever butched a deer or cow, knows that they are a lot more than 10% bone.

[Rott-n-GSDs]

My apologies...10% edible bone. I grew up in a deer hunting family and we raised beef cattle!

Perhaps a better example would be smaller prey that can be entirely consumed... like a rabbit.

It does seem like both formulas are similar in the end... I just find the 80/10/10 easier to understand/explain. My dogs generally get bone in meat in the morning and boneless meet in the afternoon, though sometimes (a few times per week) they also get bone in meat at the afternoon meal.