Raw Liver For Dogs: All Your Questions Answered

Yes, raw liver is essential for dogs – it’s one of the secreting organs that make up 10% of a balanced raw diet, with liver alone covering 5% of your dog’s daily raw dog food allowance.

That’s not a lot by weight, but it’s non-negotiable. Skip it on a regular basis, and your dog misses out on one of nature’s most concentrated multivitamins.

I’m Barbara, and I’ve been feeding my dogs raw since 2015 – first in the US, and now in Germany, where I also work for one of the country’s leading raw dog food brands, BARFER’S.

Below, I’m answering every question I’ve gotten about raw liver over the years, including exactly how much to feed, which types are safe, where to buy it, and what happens if your dog eats too much:

• What type of meat is liver?
• What does 1 oz of liver look like?
• What’s in liver?
• How much raw liver do dogs need per day (adult dogs & puppies)?
• How do I feed raw liver for dogs?
• How much (chicken) liver do I feed my dog?
• What types of liver can my dog eat?
• Can I cook raw liver for dogs?
• Raw liver alternative
• What if my dog doesn’t want to eat raw liver?
• How long can I refrigerate and freeze raw liver?
• Can I re-freeze raw liver for dogs?
• What happens when my dog eats too much liver?
• Where do I buy raw liver for dogs?
• Can I feed my dog raw venison liver from wild deer?

Liver for Dogs: All Your Questions Answered

What Type Of Meat Is Liver?

You probably know that liver is an organ. However, it’s not JUST an organ, but in raw feeding circles, it’s known as a secreting organ.

• Pancreas
• Kidneys
• Testicles & ovaries
• Brains
• Eyes
• Spleen
• Thymus

What Does 1 Oz Of Liver Look Like?

Someone once asked me what 1 oz of liver looks like, so here’s the answer in picture form!

Just FYI, it’s beef liver.

How Much Raw Liver Do Dogs Need Per Day?

Adult dogs need to eat 10% of secreting organs per day.

Since half of that needs to be liver, dogs need 5% of liver in their daily allowance of raw dog food.

The other 5% need to be covered by a different secreting organ like the ones I mentioned above.

It’s best to rotate between them! For example, feed liver and kidneys one week, liver and spleen the next, liver and pancreas the one after that, etc.

Also, my recommendations here are based on my hands-on raw feeding experience, not just charts or averages.

How to Do The Liver Math

So how much liver does Y O U R dog need to eat in ounces per day?

Here’s how to do that math:

Take your dog’s target body weight and divide it by 100. Then multiply it with 2.5.

-> Why 2.5?

Well, 2.5% is a maintenance percentage that keeps your dog at their current weight.

Pregnant dogs and working dogs who use significantly more energy need to be fed at a higher maintenance percentage, up to 4%.

But the average adult dog will be fine with 2.5%, maybe 3%.

If you feel like your dog’s a bit too chunky, redo the math with a maintenance percentage of 2.

This formula will give you your dog’s daily food allowance in pounds. Of that, 5% needs to be liver.

Let’s calculate that amount for a 60lb dog:

60(body weight)/100 = 0.6×2.5(feeding percentage)=1.5lb.

That’s 24oz (1lb=16oz).

Now, 5% of those 24oz is the amount of liver your adult dog needs to eat per day.

That’s 1.2oz of liver per day for a 60lb adult dog.

If your dog eats two meals per day and you want to meal prep ahead of time, you’ll need to add half of that, 0.6oz, to each food storage container.

How Much Raw Liver Can I Feed My Dog: Table With Values In Oz Per Day & Per Week

For your convenience, I provided the amount of raw liver your adult dog needs to eat in oz per day as well as per week.

Enjoy and feel free to use it as guidance for raw dog food meal prep!

Tip: Check out this blog post for more pre-calculated cheat sheets and worksheets that also help you determine the amount of bone to feed.

What’s in Liver?

Liver is one of Mother Nature’s multivitamins and rich in nutrients, particularly in Vitamin A.

Vitamin A is a powerful anti-oxidant that supports your dog’s digestion and reproductive organs.

However, it’s important to understand that the amount of Vitamin A in raw liver varies depending on the animal it’s from.

So when you’re comparing the Vitamin A values of 100 grams = 3 oz in raw liver from beef, chicken, turkey, goose, duck and lamb, lamb has the most Vitamin A with 15434 mcg (micrograms).

Followed by duck, goose, turkey, beef and chicken.

As far as minerals are concerned, raw lamb liver is richest in Copper, while goose and duck are richest in Iron.

Beef is richest in Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc, while turkey and goose are richest in Magnesium and Selenium.

This goes to show how important it is to rotate the cuts of raw meat you feed your pups as different cuts of meat from different animals have different nutrient profiles!

That’s why if you rotate regularly, you won’t have to worry about nutrient holes in your dog’s nutrition.

By the way, when I became raw dog food nutrition certified by Dogs Naturally Magazine, I learned that wolves eat the organs of their prey first, because they instinctively know how nutrient-rich they are.

Interesting, huh?!

Good to know: Organs that don’t secrete a substance like lung and heart are considered muscle meat in raw feeding.

You can feed about 15-20% of these cuts on a daily basis as part of the muscle meat allowance.

What Types Of Raw Liver Can Dogs Eat?

Dogs can eat liver from a large variety of animals, for example:

• Chicken
• Beef/Bison
• Elk
• Turkey
• Duck
• Rabbit
• Lamb
• Pork
• Goat
• Ostrich
• Deer

As a matter of fact, I strongly recommend that you switch between as many different animals as you can source and that your pup does OK with.

That’s because different animals have varying levels of nutrients.

Chicken liver, for example, is not nearly as nutritious as liver from other animals.

If your dog has severe food sensitivities to a variety of protein sources, you’ll have to stick to the animal your pup does fine with.

This will most likely be rabbit because it’s considered to be a hypoallergenic type of meat.

However, you’ll have to provide an alternative source of the nutrients your pup is missing out on.

You can easily do this with dehydrated veggie & herb or nut mixes from brands like Dr. Harvey’s or The Honest Kitchen.

Can I Feed My Dog Raw Venison Liver From Wild Deer?

Yes, you can.

I personally do that quite frequently because my boyfriend hunts.

However, there are certain safety precautions to be aware of. For example, freezing the raw venison liver for 3 weeks to get rid of potential parasites.

The deer liver featured in the picture below is from a buck my boyfriend shot. I rinsed it and then froze it for 3 weeks in Wally’s raw dog food freezer.

Just out of curiosity, I also weighed it. It weighed in at almost 16 oz = 1 lb!

You can read more about safely feeding your dog wild venison here.

Liver for Dogs Raw or Cooked?

Ideally, you want to feed the liver RAW.

That said, you can either make your own homemade raw dog food or buy pre-made raw dog food from trusted brands.

For example, Raw Paws Pet Food, Darwin’s or Raw Feeding Miami.

I personally alternate between both options. Whenever I can get a good deal on pre-made raw meals, I buy some!

Likewise, when I find discounted individual cuts of raw meat, I buy them as well!

That’s a great way of keeping your raw dog food on budget, but it obviously requires a freezer.

Pre-Made Raw Dog Food With Liver

I’m not aware of any reputable raw dog food brands that wouldn’t include raw liver in their formulas, so you can’t go terribly wrong here. Again, that’s because raw liver is an essential part of raw feeding!

You can find pre-made raw dog food meals from Raw Paws Pet Food here. They’re called “Signature Blends” (their green tripe blends are not complete foods, but can also be found in that section).

Raw Feeding Miami calls their pre-made raw meals “grinds”.

Note: For Raw Paws Pet Food’s Signature Blends and Raw Feeding Miami’s Grinds you need to add kelp to cover your dog’s iodine needs. Darwin’s premade formulas (see below) already include kelp.

Darwin’s offers an overview of their pre-made raw dog food here.

Homemade Raw Dog Food With Liver

Simply cut the liver up into smaller pieces and then use them come raw dog food meal prep time.

If you’re not squeamish, you can even tear liver into smaller pieces with your hands, that’s how soft it is.

However, some dogs are fussy with secreting organs and will take some time getting used to eating them. That’s particularly true for smaller dogs.

What you can do in the meantime is chop it up or purée it with a food processor, then mix it in with the rest of the raw dog food you’re feeding.

Handling Livers With Intact or Burst Gallbladders

When you’re sourcing organs from small prey animals — especially poultry — sometimes, you’ll come across livers with the gallbladder still attached. Duck, chicken, turkey, goose, quail, pheasant, and guinea fowl are all common examples.

Small-scale processors, hunters, and homesteaders often separate organs quickly and don’t always remove the gallbladder individually.

Larger livestock like lamb, goat, beef, or pork usually arrive without gallbladders because commercial processors trim them off to avoid bile contamination on the line, but when you buy from hunters or farms, it can still happen.

Rabbit livers are another common place you’ll see this, and that’s exactly what you can see in the photo below:

These dark, oval-shaped sacs contain bile — a very bitter-tasting substance that some dogs ignore completely, while others will spit the liver out the moment they hit it. While intact gallbladders are safe to feed, I always recommend cutting them off to avoid coating the liver in bitterness.

If you find a liver with a burst gallbladder, you can still feed it — you just need to rinse the liver under cool water to wash off the bile. The liver itself is perfectly fine; it just tastes unpleasant to many dogs when the bile isn’t washed away.

Whether it’s rabbit, poultry, or the occasional oddball from a hunter’s harvest, the approach is the same: trim, rinse if needed, and you’re good to go.

Can I Cook Raw Liver For My Dog?

Yes, you can.

Cooking liver for dogs is another alternative for getting them to warm up to this secreting organ, pun intended.

Dogs whose immune systems are compromised because of cancer or other illnesses sometimes do better with cooked food as opposed to raw food.

But it really depends on the dog – some continue to do fine with raw meat, and others don’t.

Side note: I do not cook or recommend that anyone cook raw bones. That’s because the cooking process turns them brittle and sharp. The only time when you should be cooking bones for your pups is if you’re making homemade bone broth!

When meaty bones are raw, they’re super soft and pliable and fine to feed.

Alternative: Liver Dog Treats

If you’re not crazy about handling raw liver, you can also treat your pup with store-bought freeze-dried liver dog treats.

Make sure that they’re single-ingredient treats made with just liver!

For example:

• Montana Dog Food Co Freeze-Dried Bison Liver Treats 
• PureBites Freeze-Dried Beef Liver Dog Treats
• Bravo Freeze-Dried Venison Liver Dog Treats
• Stella & Chewy’s Freeze-Dried Lamb Liver Dog Treats

Of course you can also make your own dehydrated liver dog treats!

All you need for that is a food dehydrator, raw liver and some patience as a batch of dehydrated liver dog treats takes around 24 hours.

Check out my blog post Spoil Your Dog With Homemade Dehydrated Dog Treats to see what else made it into that particular batch besides liver!

Liver For Dogs: Where Can I Buy Raw Liver?

It’s fairly easy to source raw liver locally, either in grocery stores or from local farms.

Tip: Try to buy liver from pastured animals whenever possible as they’re much richer in nutrients compared to conventionally raised animals.

Another option are hunters and wildlife processors as well as raw dog food retailers such as Raw Paws Pet Food and Raw Feeding Miami (by far my two favorite ones).

Grocery stores + Walmart

Most grocery stores carry chicken and calf or beef liver, and that includes Walmart.

Local Butcher Shops

You can usually find beef liver and pork liver at butcher shops. Just pop into your local butcher’s and see what’s available.

Again, try to stick with livers from pastured animals!

Hunters + Wildlife Processors

You can get your hands on deer liver from hunters or wildlife processors, but do make sure that you freeze it for 3 weeks before feeding it.

As I already mentioned before, that ensures that it’s free of parasites.

Local Farms (e.g. Ostrich Farms)

Since ostrich farms are starting to become more of a thing here in the US, chances are there’s one not too far away from you. Most sell ostrich liver and ostrich heart, as well as some ground version of ostrich meat.

I found one super close to me here in Central NC who sell their ostrich meat at a local Farmer’s Market.

Raw Feeding Miami

It gets a lot more tricky to find raw liver from other animals like rabbit and goat locally unless there’s a specific farm nearby, which is why I personally get mine from Raw Feeding Miami.

They’re an online raw dog food supplier who offers a huge variety of different cuts of meat, including other secreting organs besides liver, from just as many different animals.

Goat liver, beef eyeballs and kangaroo chunks, anyone?!

Save 15% with my referral link.

What If My Dog Doesn’t Want To Eat Liver?

Well, may I suggest you use some tough love!

Liver is essential to raw feeding and ideally shouldn’t be substituted by other foods.

However sometimes, this is necessary, for example when feeding Dalmatians raw dog food.

But back to the tough love.

The good thing about feeding liver is that your pup doesn’t require a whole lot of it.

For example, a 10 lb adult dog only needs 0.2 oz of liver per day, and even a 50 lb adult dog only needs 1 daily oz of liver!

Keeping that in mind, the easiest way of hiding liver is to purée or chop it, and then mix it in with the other cuts of meat you feed your dog.

Try mixing it with some green tripe – that should do the trick because green tripe is stinky, irresistible and super nutritious to dogs!

If you want to take it up a notch, stuff a beef trachea or a lamb trachea with the green tripe/liver mix. Note: Lamb tracheas are narrower than beef tracheas, so it’s a bit harder to stuff them – but doable!

How Long Can I Refrigerate And Freeze Liver For Dogs?

You can keep thawed liver in the fridge for up to 4 days.

In the freezer, it lasts up to a full year, probably even a little longer.

The longest I personally have kept liver in my chest freezer is around 9 months.

Can I Refreeze Thawed Liver?

Yes, you can.

I’ve done this many times since I usually have some liver left over after raw dog food meal prep.

Liver For Dogs: What Happens When My Dog Eats Too Much Liver?

When your pup gets too much liver, he’s going to have loose bowels.

If he truly ate a ginormous meal of liver, chances are he’ll come down with Vitamin A toxicity since liver is very rich in Vitamin A.

But first, let’s define ginormous – a dog would need to eat 500 grams per kg of dog weight in liver to experience Vitamin A toxicity. That’s a little over 1 lb per 2 lbs ish of body weight.

So a 30 kg dog would need to eat 5 kg of liver in one setting, which translates to a 66 lb dog eating 11 lbs of liver in one setting.

So yeah, that’s very unlikely to happen.

Regardless, the symptoms of Vitamin A toxicity are:

• Lethargy
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Weakness
• Tremors
• Paralysis, and
• Ultimately death.

Liver For Dogs: Bottom Line

Raw liver is one of the essential secreting organs in raw dog food.

You don’t need a lot for your pup, but that doesn’t mean that you can overlook it, at least not on a regular basis.

And certainly not when you’re feeding your puppies raw dog food (up to 12 months of age)!

It’s important to know how much liver you can give your dog on a daily basis. The exact amount will depend on your pup’s (target) weight.

They’ll only need 5% of liver of their daily raw dog food allowance.

Feeding too much liver can cause diarrhea “at best” and Vitamin A toxicity at worst.

For more raw feeding resources, visit my full homemade raw dog food library.

Related Reading:

• Raw pancreas for dogs – how to use to support digestive health
• How to feed raw beef eyeballs for dogs – advanced level
• Why raw hearts for dogs are a powerful raw organ meat
• Whole raw fish vs fish oil for dogs: what’s the difference?
• How to figure out how much raw dog food to feed
• I use this hack to store my secreting organ mixes
• How to feed raw kidneys for dogs and puppies
• Gizzards for dogs: How (much) to feed & more
• Raw spleen for dogs – all you need to know
• Raw brains for dogs: How to feed & more
• Your raw feeding FAQs answered

Barbara Rivers

Barbara Rivers is the founder of K9sOverCoffee and a raw feeding educator with over a decade of hands-on experience.

She has fed raw in the US and Europe since 2015, after her Boxer mix Missy’s cancer diagnosis led her to move away from processed kibble and commit to species-appropriate nutrition.

As a former professional dog walker, she developed deep insight into canine behavior, conditioning, and the essential link between proper exercise and long-term health.

Barbara completed online training with veterinarian Dr. Marion Smart and Labrador breeder Dana Scott and works for one of Germany’s leading raw dog food brands, BARFER’S.

In 2026–2027, she is completing a year-long raw nutrition certification for dogs and cats at THP School, founded by raw feeding pioneer Swanie Simon.

Through her blog and weekly newsletter, she provides clear, experience-based guidance to help dog owners feed raw safely and confidently.