[Nitin_1098]

Hello guys!!
I'm a first time dog owner, i have a 11 month old German Shepherd around 40 kgs.
I can only afford to feed him 500 gms of raw food daily and rest would be home coocked food like rice and veggies.
Is it ok to feed him like this?

 

[storyist]

There are a lot of advocates of cooked diets for dogs. I cooked for my last Rottweiler for years - cooked the meat and she got things like rice and sweet potatoes. Even with raw diet a lot of us add cooked veggies, eggs, other good thing than just meat. So long as you make sure the diet is balanced and meets his nutritional needs you should be fine.

 

[LeoRose]

The recommended amount for raw feeding is 10-15% of their body weight, if I recall correctly. If my math is correct, then 15% of 40 kg would be about 600 grams of raw. So really not that much more than the 500 grams you've said you can afford. Whether you go with a commercially made raw food, or assemble everything yourself, make sure that you've got the correct proportions of meat, bone, and organs.

If you are going to feed home cooked food, then working with a veterinary nutritionist to make sure that your recipes are balanced would be a good idea.

 

[storyist]

Maybe you mistook that 40 kg for pounds? Having recently had to do these calculations myself - the recommended percent is 2-3% of body weight, and maybe even more for an 11-month old. Anyway, 3% x 40kg = 1.2 kg, which would be 1200 grams a day.

Or you can make it easy on yourself and use an online calculator such as this one, which does both pounds and kilograms.

P.S. Yes, coming up with a balanced cooked diet is daunting, and it's worth getting professional help if you can. Same for raw really. A lot of raw diets are lacking this and that. Not that you can't do it yourself, but it's a bit of a project.

 

[LeoRose]

Sigh... I'll be the first to admit that I don't math worth a darn. Converting back and forth between metric and imperial only makes things worse.

The advice of working with a veterinary nutritionist is still sound, though.

I fed part kibble and part raw for a while. My crew did well on it, an I even got used to them crunching down the bones.

 

[storyist]

Yes, on nutritionist, but that's another cost. I noticed Monica Segal now has some balanced diets for raw and cooked available - $30 each, which means I'll never see one.

I have one dog wholly on raw and two on kibble and raw - because of cost. I feel guilty about it, but the one who gets all raw has allergies, and I couldn't find a single kibble that didn't have something she shouldn't have in it.

I know some say they can do raw for next to nothing. I can't. It's a lot more expensive than kibble for me. So was the cooked diet. I did that for my heart dog starting at the time of the Chinese melamine thing - because I couldn't face feeding bones or raw meat for that matter. I still won't feed raw chicken. Yuck.

Thinking it over, if I were the OP, I'd leave that 11-month-old on a quality kibble at least until he's mature. His calorie needs will be lower then, so raw would be at least a little more affordable. Less chance of nutritional deficiency or overage during formative months and time to do some research on diets and decide what to do when he's grown.

 

[Sanne]

Thinking it over, if I were the OP, I'd leave that 11-month-old on a quality kibble at least until he's mature. His calorie needs will be lower then, so raw would be at least a little more affordable. Less chance of nutritional deficiency or overage during formative months and time to do some research on diets and decide what to do when he's grown.

OP, I would follow this advice right here! Very well said. Balancing a homemade diet, cooked or raw can be a real pain in the butt and time consuming if you want to do it right. Keeping a growing dog on a balanced dog food while you research and decide if that kind of diet will work for you is a great idea.

When I first tried raw feeding, people on the internet acted like it was the most simple thing in the world. Once I got down to doing it myself though I realized it wasn't. It took a lot of research and consulting with my vet to balance the diet. After a while I decided it really was not for me. Now I feed partial kibble with cooked meats, eggs, veggies etc. added. My vet is happy with at least 70% of my dog's calories coming from kibble. If I stay around there I don't have to worry about balancing the added stuff which made things much easier. Good luck whichever way you choose to feed!