Today I’m sharing a raw dog food recipe for my dog Wally. He’s an adult Feist mix (currently 3 years old) and weighs 38 lb.
This particular recipe follows the prey model approach of raw feeding and consists of 4 different protein sources:
Camel, Beef, Chicken, and Fish
Prey model raw dog food imitates what a dog’s prey animal would look like in the wild. They’re put together following a specific formula. More on that later.
Another option to feed raw dog food is the B.A.R.F. approach. It stands for Biologically Appropriate Raw Food, or Bones And Raw Food, and includes plant matter. For example, veggies, fruit, herbs, seeds, and nuts.
I use both approaches when making Wally’s raw dog food and add about 10% puréed plant matter every other day. The reason I purée it is because dogs lack the enzyme that’s responsible for breaking down plant cell walls. That means that veggies and fruit wouldn’t be fully digested if they were eaten whole.
80/10/10 Feeding Formula for Prey Model Raw Dog Food
As mentioned above, prey model raw dog food recipes follow a specific formula. It’s known as the 80/10/10 formula, or 80/10/5/5:
80% muscle meat, 10 % raw meaty bones, 10% secreting organs (5% liver, 5% other secreting organ like kidney or pancreas for example)
Tip: If you’d like to add veggies and fruit to your dog’s raw meals, decrease the 80% muscle meat to 70%, and add 10% veggies/fruit instead.
I Used Ingredients from Walmart, Raw Paws Pet Food, & Raw Feeding Miami
For this particular raw dog food recipe, I used a mix of ingredients purchased from Walmart and raw dog food retailers Raw Paws Pet Food and Raw Feeding Miami:
Camel trim (Muscle meat, Raw Feeding Miami)
Beef tongue (Muscle meat, Walmart)
Ground beef green tripe (Muscle meat, Raw Paws Pet Food)
GLMs = Green Lipped Mussels (Muscle meat – Fish, Raw Feeding Miami)
Chicken foot (Raw meaty bone, Walmart)
Monstermash (Secreting organ mix, Raw Feeding Miami)
Measurements or how much raw meat to feed your dog
Raw fed dogs eat 2-4% of their target body weight in raw food per day. The exact amount depends on each dog’s age, activity level, and metabolism. You could start with 3% of your dog’s target body weight and adjust from there.
Tip: Puppies can eat raw dog food as of 3 weeks of age, but eat varying amounts until they’re about 1 year old.
I wrote about the topic for the blog ThatMutt.com where I contribute blog posts regularly:
Raw food for puppies – can puppies eat a raw diet?
As mentioned earlier, my dog Wally weighs 38 lb and eats 2.5% of that weight in raw meat every day. That’s 15.2 oz. I divide his allowance into 2 for breakfast and dinner. That said, he eats about 7.6 oz per meal.
How to calculate 2.5% of 38 lb:
2.5%/100 = 0.025 x 38 = 0.95
0.95 lb total daily raw meat allowance = 15.2 oz per day = 7.6 oz per meal
80% of 0.95 lb (15.2 oz) = 0.76 lb (= 12.16 oz) of muscle meat per day = 6.8 oz muscle meat/meal
10% of 0.95 lb (15.2 oz) = 0.095 lb = 1.52 oz of raw meaty bones/day. I usually only include raw meaty bone in one of Wally’s daily meals to make it easier to measure out.
10% of 0.95 lb (15.2 oz )= 0.095 lb = 1.52 oz of secreting organ/day.
Measurements for this raw dog food recipe
Wally had the following amount of raw meat in his bowl:
- 7.2 oz of muscle meat
- 0.9 oz of raw meaty bone (the chicken foot weighs 1.52 oz, but only 60% of it is bone)
- 1.52 oz of secreting organ
I divided it up as follows:
- 2 oz camel trim, 2 oz beef tongue, 2 oz beef green tripe, 0.8 oz GLMs (Green Lipped Mussels)
- 1.52 oz of chicken foot
- 1.52 oz of Monstermash
The chicken foot weighed 1.5 oz, and 1 GLM was just shy of 1 oz. The chicken foot consists of roughly 60% bone and 40% meat, so that’s close enough for his bone allowance for this meal.
Tip: Don’t drive yourself crazy with over the top math calculations. It’s OK for cuts of meat to be off by a little. Just make sure you achieve balance over the course of 7-10 days. Use your pup’s poop consistency as a guideline: If it’s too soft, add more bone. If it’s too hard, feed less bone.
The secreting organs in this meal covered his daily allowance of secreting organ, so his next meal only consisted of muscle meat and another chicken foot.
Feed your Dog a Variety of Raw Protein Sources
It’s important to feed your dog a variety of different raw protein sources to ensure that he gets all the nutrients he needs to thrive – different cuts of meat from different animals contain different nutrients.
Not every single meal has to consist of different protein sources, but you should achieve variety over the course of a few weeks. You could, for example, feed chicken one week, beef the next, followed by rabbit and then duck.
What are Green Tripe and Organ Mix Monstermash?
Green tripe and organ mix Monstermash have become two of my favorite go to ingredients over the years whenever I put my dog’s own raw meals together.
Green tripe is the stomach lining of ruminant animals like cows, sheep, and goats. It’s great for gut health because it’s chock full of digestive enzymes. The one downfall is that it’s a bit on the smelly side, but as such it’s a phenomenal enticer for picky eaters!
Monstermash is Raw Feeding Miami’s secreting beef organ mix. It consists of 5% liver and 5% other secreting organs (green tripe, liver, kidney, spleen, and one other secreting organ that alternates). It’s super convenient when putting your own meals together because it’s the perfect secreting organ blend.
The only time when I wouldn’t recommend it is if you know that your dog doesn’t do well on beef. In that case, I’d order secreting organs from a different animal. For example, rabbit liver or kidneys, turkey liver, lamb brains, or beef eyeballs.
How to Meal Prep Raw Dog Food
If you’re interested in learning more about how to put your dog’s own raw meals together, check out my e-book Raw Meal Prep For Dogs – The Ultimate Guide for Beginners. It covers the basics of raw meal prep for dogs and includes:
- shopping lists
- amounts of food to feed
- where to shop for the ingredients
- resources to use
- hacks to make raw meal prep easier
Leave your comments or questions below in the comment section!
Join the K9sOverCoffee Community today! Get your free raw dog food recipe, excerpted from “20 Raw Meals for Dogs”!Related Reading:
How to make raw dog food at home
How to keep raw dog food affordable
Promo codes for raw dog food: 15% off RFM and Raw Paws Pet Food
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