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Hi,
I'm new to the forum, and just started feeding my dog (6 year old Papillon named Cricket, 10.5 lbs) and cat (newly adopted ragdoll cross named Layan, underweight at 9lbs) raw last week. They both love their new food, and are now eating 100% raw
(at the moment I am feeding a commercial ground raw food, and may switch to a prey model diet at some point, but I'm not ready yet).
I'm wanting to know how much people feed their very small dogs, because the suggestions and calculations for raw I have come across don't make sense to me for small dogs.
For example, I've read the suggestion to feed 2-3% of bodyweight. However, there are 200 calories or less in 0.25 lbs of commercially ground raw (I looked up quite a few brands), but my research has found that a 10 lb dog should be getting ~330 calories per day (The Dog Food Advisor calculator; the suggestions on the back of my kibble, Go! Grain Free; the Best Doggone Diet App; and my experience of what maintains my dogs weight, are all very consitent). From these calculations, this means that the average 10lb dog would need ~4% of their bodyweight of commercial raw food, which is a lot more than the 2.5% commonly mentioned.
What is your experience with how much to feed small dogs? Is 2-3% of bodyweight enough, or do you need to feed them more? Are these online raw feeding calculators and suggestions really off for small dogs, or do dogs need fewer calories on a raw diet? (maybe because they absorb more of their food?)
I would really appreciate hearing other people's experience on this so I can make a more educated guess on how much to feed. I know that I could just experiment, but my dog gets very unwell when he doesn't eat enough and causes a lot of issues that take awhile to resolve, and he is alreday about 1-1.5 lbs overweight (which is significant for a small dog) and I don't want him to gain more, so I waould like to avoid drastically under or over feeding him if I can.
I'm new to the forum, and just started feeding my dog (6 year old Papillon named Cricket, 10.5 lbs) and cat (newly adopted ragdoll cross named Layan, underweight at 9lbs) raw last week. They both love their new food, and are now eating 100% raw
(at the moment I am feeding a commercial ground raw food, and may switch to a prey model diet at some point, but I'm not ready yet).I'm wanting to know how much people feed their very small dogs, because the suggestions and calculations for raw I have come across don't make sense to me for small dogs.
For example, I've read the suggestion to feed 2-3% of bodyweight. However, there are 200 calories or less in 0.25 lbs of commercially ground raw (I looked up quite a few brands), but my research has found that a 10 lb dog should be getting ~330 calories per day (The Dog Food Advisor calculator; the suggestions on the back of my kibble, Go! Grain Free; the Best Doggone Diet App; and my experience of what maintains my dogs weight, are all very consitent). From these calculations, this means that the average 10lb dog would need ~4% of their bodyweight of commercial raw food, which is a lot more than the 2.5% commonly mentioned.
What is your experience with how much to feed small dogs? Is 2-3% of bodyweight enough, or do you need to feed them more? Are these online raw feeding calculators and suggestions really off for small dogs, or do dogs need fewer calories on a raw diet? (maybe because they absorb more of their food?)
I would really appreciate hearing other people's experience on this so I can make a more educated guess on how much to feed. I know that I could just experiment, but my dog gets very unwell when he doesn't eat enough and causes a lot of issues that take awhile to resolve, and he is alreday about 1-1.5 lbs overweight (which is significant for a small dog) and I don't want him to gain more, so I waould like to avoid drastically under or over feeding him if I can.
