How much to feed dogs and cats

Natural raw food for your dog and cat

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When you choose to feed your pet a raw diet, you’re choosing to offer them the very best opportunity of a healthy, happy life. At Nurturing by Nature, we believe that each and every raw diet will be different in order to be tailored to the needs of the animal, as well as their person!

Tailoring the raw diet to your pet

Ensuring your dog or cat is being fed the correct amounts and a healthy, varied diet is what matters most. In order to understand your pet’s needs and accurately advise how much they need to be fed, we require the following information:

Breed, age and current weight

Are they neutered?

Are you happy with their weight? (If you visit us in store, we will weigh your pet for you and give you our feedback on how much they should weigh and how much to feed)

Age is a particularly key factor when working out how much raw food to feed dogs or cats, as pets in different stages of their life will need very different amounts. For example, a puppy or kitten will eat and need considerably more than an adult of the same breed.

Raw Feeding Puppies & Kittens

Puppies and kittens can eat up to 10% of their bodyweight in meat per day. As they grow and get older, the animal will need less food – at around 6 months they will need around 5-7% of their body weight for example. Adults need 2-3% of their bodyweight in meat per day and large breeds and some older pets may only need as little as 1% of their bodyweight in meat per day. We would also advise increasing the amount fed to a working or highly active dog.

It is important to remember that the above advice is a very basic guideline, and to assess the actual needs of your raw fed dog or cat, there is much more that needs to be considered. Equally, paying attention to your pet is key – if they appear hungry or aren’t eating their meals, you may adjust the feeding times, quantities and even ingredients according to their needs.

Working out the percentage is simple - here is an example:

12kg 6 month old dog - suggested feeding raw of 5-7% in bodyweight in meat per day.

12 x 5 = 60 add a 0 = 5% = 600g

12 x 7 = 84 add a 0 = 7% = 840g

So, for a 12kg, 6 month old dog we would recommend you feed 600 to 840 grams of meat per day.

To make raw feeding even easier and to help you understand just how varied your dog’s diet needs to be we’ve put together a raw feeding guide and a sample menu for you to take a look at. For more information, don’t hesitate to get in touch, or why not browse our raw pet food online?