[bosco146]

Our 4 year old is about 25lbs over weight. This was due to almost a year of prednisone and an on going battle with poly mytosis. We are trying to get him onto raw and he is doing great right now with half kibble and half raw, morning night feeding. The vet said to put him on one cup of food in the morning and one cup at night. Right now we are doing chicken wings/thighs and will progress more later on. Is a cup of kibble and a wing an thigh about the same as two total cups. I didnt mention we were doing raw with the vet because I dont think she is for it. Previously he was getting around 4 cups of food so we need to back it down. Our kibble right now is eagle pack holistic chicken.

 

[Annikas Mom]

I am sure others with more experience will respond but for now I will give you my thoughts, I have been feeding raw for 3 years now...

What is the ideal weight for your dog? I will guess that he should weigh around 70-75lbs and should be eating no more than a lb of raw food a day to lose the excess weight. If I was you I would quit feeding kibble and feed raw exclusively . Chicken leg quarters are the least expensive to feed and weigh about a lb each... I am not familiar with Poly Mytosis so I am not sure if there are things you should or should not be feeding... Some raw feeders include pureed fruits and veggies in their diets, I do. I feed a pre-mixed ground diet that is balanced with raw meaty bones, organ meat and vegetables. I add different fruits through out the week along with yogurt at their PM feeding. I also add Salmon Oil, Olive Oil, Vitamin C and E and an enzyme multiple to their PM feeding. A key to feeding a balanced raw diet is to feed a variety of proteins.

Hope this helps get you started...As I said, there are a number of folks on this site with lots of experience that will be able to offer their knowledge as well.

Best wishes,

 

[BrennasMom]

This may be a no brainer but when you prepare the food, be sure to remove as much skin and fat as possible. When mine were on raw, my beagle would often 'accidently' end up with a much larger piece than she really needed, but she remained very trim because I always pulled all the skin/fat off.

 

[natalie559]

Originally Posted By: bosco146The vet said to put him on one cup of food in the morning and one cup at night.

Is a cup of kibble and a wing an thigh about the same as two total cups.

Our kibble right now is eagle pack holistic chicken.

Is this your kibble: http://www.eaglepack.com/Pages/HS_Chicken.html

If so it has 386 kcal/cup.

I don't have the values of chicken wing/thigh calculated, but for a chicken quarter there are 33 calories per ounce.

So if your caloric goal is the equivalent of two cup kibble, which in your case would equal 772 calories, I would take the 386 calories you want to get from raw / 33 calories per ounce of chicken = and feed 12 ounces chicken a day.

 

[DanL]

I wouldn't pull off the skin and fat. There are good things in there your dog needs. It's not like a person eating. Dogs use the fat for energy.

 

[tracyc]

I agree with Natalie's way of thinking. Chicken pieces vary tremendously in size, so just saying "a wing and a thigh" (for example) is not an accurate way to determine how much you're feeding. Weighing the food will let you monitor accurately when you are reducing, or increasing the amount of food---because then you can do it in small increments.

For people who have raw fed for a long time, or dogs that don't have any weight issues, then "eyeballing" the amount of food may work. But for accuracy, I think measuring the weight of raw meals is the way to go.

 

[Lauri & The Gang]

First you need to calculate how much you would feed the dog if you went 100% raw. Then you divide that in half. Then you take your current kibble amount and divide that in half.

BUT – you can’t go by items (like one chicken thigh). The chicken thighs you get at the store are probably very different than the ones I get. I have seen the size vary just between stores.

You MUST go by weight. The dog will get X ounces of raw meaty bones and X ounces of muscle meat and X ounces of organ meat each day. You have to calculate the X’s.

 

[Amaruq]

I agree with Lauri's post but you also need to make sure that you do the calculations based on your dogs IDEAL weight not his current weight.

 

[Maedchen]

I find feeding kibble & raw sounds highly complicated, not just from a mathematical point.

I would be totally confused about how much and exactly what nutrition my dog is actually getting. One has to consider, that the nutritional amount on the kibble does wary from batch to batch - but if I feed only raw, I have much better control of what nutrition my dog is actually getting,- I can put him on a diet (cutting down on protein & fat) while still maintaining some very essential nutrients (f.e. organ meats). JMO

 

[natalie559]

Originally Posted By: natalie559 for a chicken quarter there are 33 calories per ounce.

I feel so foolish !

I mis-wrote the caloric value of the chicken quarter!

My reference is 'Optimal Nutriton' by Monica Segal pg 50 where she has max, min and mean analysis of 6 chicken quarters with skin and bone. She writes that per 100grams there is a mean of 254 calories. 100grams = 3.5 ounces. Divide 254 by 3.5 to get the calories per ounce which is 73.

That's a *huge* difference from the 33 I wrote earlier and I am sorry if there was any confusion

Correction:

I would take the 386 calories you want to get from raw / *73* calories per ounce of chicken = and feed 5ish ounces of chicken a day.

This wouldn't be a whole lot of food and may still leave the dog hungry. Feeding something with fewer calories would allow you to feed more volume and satisfy the dog. Leaner meats and/or potatoes can be a good options.

 

[bosco146]

I will be the first to admit, math is not my strong point.....so a little help is needed. He is currently 110lbs, and his ideal weight is around 85-90. So if he went strictly on raw, to equal his 2 cups a day, how much in perecentages would that be.

 

[tracyc]

The math is:

2-3% of the dog's ideal weight in food, per day.

2% would be 1.75 pounds of food
3% would be 2.5 pounds of food

So, the amount of raw to feed daily would be somewhere between that. So let's call it 2 pounds of food a day.

Divide that into two meals of one pound each. (16 ounces in a pound.)

So, each meal would work out to (roughly):

9 ounces of RMB (Raw Meaty Bones)
6 ounces of MM (Muscle Meat)
1 ounce of OM (Organ Meat)

You can adjust the ratio of RMB/MM/OM to suit your dog, but these amounts will get you in the ballpark.



ETA--so if you were to do a half-raw/half-kibble diet, then you'd feed ONE pound of raw food a day, and half the normal kibble.

 

[bosco146]

Great, heading to the store today.