Dear Jubilee,

I have a new puppy. He is 10 weeks old. I want to feed the raw diet but I am not sure how much I should feed him. Can you give me any hints on how much food I should be feeding my puppy?

How Much Food?

Dear How Much,

We feed puppies about 10 percent of their body weight a day. Another way to figure how much to feed is to determine how much you would feed an adult of the breed and split it over four meals. We split the 10 percent of body weight over four meals from weaning until the puppies are about three months old. Then we go to three meals a day (with the three meals adding up to the total we feed adults of the breed) until they are six months old and finally to two meals a day (the same as our adults).

Ian Billinghurst, DVM, author of Grow Your Puppy With Bones, says to feed 60 percent RMBs and 40 percent patty mix. He is using a patty mix that has equal amounts of crushed veggies and ground meat with yoghurt, eggs. flax seed oil, raw liver, garlic, kelp powder and vitamins (mega dose of both B and C), plus scraps of other healthy foods like cooked veggies, rice, cottage cheese, cooked eggs, etc. The recipe for this patty mix is on our Diet page.

With our last litter, we fed closer to 80 percent RMBs and our patty mix (see recipe above) was closer to 80 percent ground meat and 20 percent veggies with yoghurt, alfalfa powder, kelp, whole raw eggs (ground fine) and raw organ meat (part of the 80 percent above, probably about an  eighth or a bit more of the ground meat). We add vitamins and salmon oil (no flaxseed oil) at the time we serve the patties (which resemble slurp more than patties).

Billinghurst says to watch the puppy carefully: if it becomes excessively thin, add more food; if it becomes too heavy, cut back. There should be steady weight gain but the puppy must not be too fat or roly poly. You must, he says, keep it slim and hungry. Whatever you do, avoid any fast growth spurts, so if you increase food, increase gradually. And finally, on this part, he says it is always good to err on the side of feeding too little rather than too much.

Here is Billinghurst’s list of principles for feeding a puppy:

1. Feed a diet based on raw meaty bones, about 60 percent.
2. Feed raw crushed veggies, about 30 percent.
3. Keep pups lean and slightly hungry.
4. Do not allow pups to become fat.
5. Grow pups slowly.
6. Never grow pups at their maximum growth rate.
7. Do not give pups extra calcium: let them eat plenty of RMBs.
8. Do not feed processed food.
9. Do not feed cooked grains as an entire meal: a little bit is OK.
10. Pups do not need a feeding routine.
11. Pups do not need each meal to be complete and balanced.
12. Pus DO need their entire feeding program to be complete and balanced.
13. A pup should eat mainly raw food -- fresh frozen is OK.
14. An occasional short fast will not be harmful and may be of benefit.