How much you should feed

It is not simple to find the optimal amount of food for a dog. Every dog has another use, another activity, another age and so on. The amount depends on a lot of aspects and you have to find out for every dog again, how much food it needs. To make it a little bit easier, there is a basic rule:

Basic rule for the total quantity of food for 1 day:

2 – 3,5 % of the dog’s body weight = total quantity of food/day
 

 A dog with 25 kg body weight thus gets 500 to 875 g of food a day.

Older dogs and grown up dogs with only little activity rather need 2 % - young dogs and dogs with a lot of activity rather need 3 or 3,5 % of their body weight. Puppies even need up to 6 %!

As already mentioned: you have to take a look at your dog! If it is getting too fat, you have to feed less, if it is getting too slim, you have to feed more.
 

Meat/bones:
As already mentioned there is no fix regulation for the amount of food for a dog. But there is a guideline for the quota of meat and bones.

approximately 70 % of the total quantity of food consists of meat and fleshy bones

approximately 70 % of the quota of meat and bones consists of fleshy bones

For a better understanding let’s take a dog with 30 kg body weight and a total quantity of 1.000 g / day. Thus the food consists to 70 % of meat and bones (= 700 g) and to 30 % of vegetables, fruits, cereals and other add-ons (= 300 g). The quota of meat and bones consists to 70 % of fleshy bones (= 490 g) and to 30 % of meat (= 210 g). 

So the total quantity of food (= 1.000 g) consists of:

490 g fleshy bones
210 g meat (from cow, chicken, game, ...)
300 g vegetables, fruits, cereals, add-ons 

This is only an approximate calculation. Depending on what your dog is getting along with, the percentages also can vary. The quota of bones can also be 50 or 60 %, the quota of meat and bones can be more or less. Also here you have to take a look at your dog. If your dog starts to scratch itself more than usual, maybe the quota of meat and bones (proteins) is too high. Then you should try to reduce the quota of meat and bones.
 

Fruits/vegetables and cereals:
Fruits/vegetables and cereals can be of the same amount. If your dog does not get along with cereals, you should use only fruits and vegetables. If your dog is too fat or has a problem with too many proteins in food you have to take more vegetables/cereals and less meat.
 

Bones:
For older dogs you have to reduce the quota of fleshy bones, because otherwise the defecation could get more difficult.

It is very important to take a look at your dog. Older dogs and dogs with less activity need less food. Young dogs and dogs with a lot of activity can also need the 1,5 to 2-fold amount of food. The dog should never be too fat, the ribs should always easy to be touched – then everything is fine. Then it is absolutely not important how much or how little there is in the dogs bowl. If a high amount of food is necessary it is better to boost the quota of fruits/vegetables and cereals than the quota of meat/bones.
 

My dogs:
Ace (29 kg) gets 350 g fruits/vegetables/cereals, 250 g meat, 300 g fleshy bones
Okia (22 kg) gets 250 g fruits/vegetables/cereals, 250 g meat, 250 g fleshy bones
Dana (unfortunately already dead) (25 kg) got 250 g fruits/vegetables/cereals, 250 g meat, 200 g fleshy bones

Here you can see, that Okia – though she has less body weight, needs more food than Dana, who was already older.

You can feed cereals (in the morning) and vegetables and meat (in the evening) separately. But you can also feed it together at once. With this kind of feeding you have a lot of possibilities to experimentalize. You can vary a lot and time after time it gets a lot easier to feed your dog raw foods.