Blood In Raw Dog Food

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It’s easy to forget about the importance of blood in raw dog food.

I mean, when’s the last time you actively put blood in your virtual or physical shopping carts?

Before I started working at BARFER’S, the German raw dog food company I currently work for, I hadn’t seen blood packaged individually for sale.

Certainly not during my 7 years of raw feeding in the States!

But BARFER’S sells blood, both the liquid kind and freeze-dried blood meal, which are geared towards DIY raw feeders.

So in today’s blog entry, I’d like to go over all things blood in raw dog food.

Brown dog sits in front of cubed blood to be used in raw dog food.

What’s In Blood and Benefits of Blood in Raw Dog Food

Nutrient-wise, blood is very rich in iron and also in protein. There’s also a few other minerals.

For example, 100g of beef blood have 47mg of iron and 19.35% of protein.

Just FYI, dogs need about 0.5mg of iron per kilogram (2 lbs) of body weight.

That said, iron is vital to keep your dog’s energy levels up as it helps transport oxygen throughout the body.

Iron also helps support a strong immune system. And the stronger the immune system, the less likely your pup is to come down with an infection.

Now regarding the importance of protein for dogs – as a raw feeder, you already know that dogs thrive on protein because it’s essential for a strong, healthy body!

How Much Blood Is In These Raw Dog Food Ingredients?

OK, most cuts of meat have some amount of blood=iron, but of course the respective amount varies drastically.

So below, I listed a few different cuts of raw meat for comparison’s sake.

I grabbed those values from my Animal Diet Formulator app.

Raw Spleen

100g of beef spleen has 44mg of iron, so almost as much as straight blood.

Other secreting organs like liver, heart and kidney all have some iron, but considerably less as you’ll see up next.

Raw Liver

100g of grass-fed beef liver has 6mg of iron. The same amount of non-grass fed beef liver has 4.9mg of iron.

100g of chicken liver has 9.25mg of iron, regardless of whether they’re from conventionally-raised chickens or from sun-raised chickens.

Raw Heart

100g of raw beef heart has 4.6mg of iron while the same amount of raw chicken heart has 5.96mg of iron.

Kidney

100g of raw beef kidney has 4mg of iron while the same amount of raw lamb kidney has 6.49mg of iron.

Ground Meats

100g of ground raw beef has around 2mg of iron.

The same amount of ground chicken only has 0.82g of iron.

Generally speaking, the leaner the ground meat, the more iron is present.

What About The Liquid Residue in Prepackaged Raw Dog Food?

Some people mistake the hemoglobin-rich water you’ll find in most prepackaged raw dog food for blood.

But while blood is the whole liquid that contains red and white blood cells and nutrients, hemoglobin-rich water is just water with some dissolved blood proteins like hemoglobin, not the full nutritional value of real blood.

When to Add Blood to Raw Dog Food

If you feed prepackaged raw meals, you shouldn’t need to add blood to raw dog food. The raw dog food companies will either use straight blood in their recipes, or they’ll add organs that are rich in iron.

Whole prey feeders who feed intact whole prey animals are fine, too, as the whole prey animals obviously come with their blood.

Now, if you make your own homemade raw meals and you don’t have any access to raw spleen, you’ll want to supplement with fresh blood or freeze-dried blood.

Especially if you’re mostly feeding white meats like poultry and rabbit. That’s because white meats have much less iron than red meats.

You’ll want to add about 50g of fresh blood per kilogram of muscle meat per day. That’s about 1.8oz per 2lbs.

For freeze-dried blood, add about 6g per 1kilogram of raw dog food. That translates into 1/2 teaspoon per 10lbs of body weight per day. You can either mix the blood powder into your dog’s raw meat as is, or rehydrate it with some water or bone broth.

I mention sources for both options in the next section.

Where to Buy Blood for Raw Feeding

Here’s where you can buy blood for raw dog food in the US:

Asian markets. They typically carry pig and duck blood.
Northwest Naturals freeze-dried beef blood
Wasatch Pup freeze-dried Beef Blood dog food topper

None of the online raw dog food retailers I’m aware of carry fresh (well, frozen) blood, so if you’re aware of any that do, please mention them in the comment section below this blog post!

You could also contact local butchers, farmers or wildlife processors to see if they might be willing to supply you with any animal blood.

Blood for Raw Dog Food: Bottom Line

So, how do you supply your dog with iron?

Fresh blood or freeze-dried blood are both great ways to do this, followed by iron-rich secreting organs like spleen (or liver).

Personally, I mostly cover my pup’s iron needs with raw spleen in my homemade raw meals. Beyond that, he gets whole prey rabbits that come with their blood once to twice per month.

Other than that, I occasionally add some frozen blood to his meals when I’m out of spleen. But that’s something I didn’t start doing until I started making DIY raw meals in Germany as blood for raw feeding is much easier to source here than it is Stateside.

As far as prepackaged raw meals, I only buy the kind that have raw spleen or blood on their ingredient list.