What is the Raw Dog Food Calculator?
The Raw Dog Food Calculator is a nutritional tool for pet owners transitioning their dogs to a biologically appropriate raw diet (BARF or PMR). It calculates the exact daily gram weights of muscle meat, edible bone, and secreting organs required to ensure complete nutritional balance.
How to Calculate Raw Food Portions (Formulas)
The calculation is based entirely on the dog's ideal adult body weight and the strict 80/10/10 Prey Model Raw ratio.
- Daily Total Weight: Dog's Ideal Weight in lbs * Target Percentage (usually 2% to 3% for adults).
- Muscle Meat (80%): Daily Total Weight * 0.80.
- Raw Edible Bone (10%): Daily Total Weight * 0.10.
- Liver (5%): Daily Total Weight * 0.05.
- Other Organs (5%): Daily Total Weight * 0.05.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can dogs safely eat raw chicken bones?
Yes. Raw, uncooked bones (like chicken necks, wings, and quarters) are soft, pliable, and fully digestible by a dog's highly acidic stomach. However, you must NEVER feed a dog cooked bones. Cooking calcifies the bone, making it extremely brittle and prone to splintering, which can puncture the digestive tract and be fatal.
Why is liver separated from other organs?
Liver is incredibly dense in Vitamin A and must be strictly limited to exactly 5% of the total diet. Feeding too much liver will cause severe diarrhea (often called "cannon butt" in raw feeding circles) and, over a long period, can cause Vitamin A toxicity. The other 5% must be a different secreting organ, like kidney, spleen, or testicles.
Are hearts and gizzards considered organs or meat?
In raw feeding math, heart and gizzard are highly worked muscles, NOT secreting organs. They must be counted towards the 80% muscle meat portion of the diet. If you mistakenly count heart as an organ, your dog will be severely deficient in the vital nutrients provided by true secreting organs.