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Need some advice feeding our new puppy. The breeder started her on earthborn puppy but would we like to switch over to raw. The other dogs are already eating raw but were started as adults.
Need links or advice.

Ryder has been vaccinated for distemper,hepatitis, lepto,and influenza up to twelve weeks. I know rabies needs to be done when she gets older but she is now due for boosters. Need links or advice.

Hi Kelsie! Welcome to Leerburg. Congrats on your puppy and on choosing to feed raw.

I think you're on the right track. But I would suggest a more consistent approach to feeding edible bones. A properly balanced raw diet isn't just a "meat" diet with occasional bones...bones are just as important as the meat. Especially for a growing puppy that needs the minerals to grow bones and teeth.

The trick with such a tiny puppy is to find bones that she can completely consume. Is she actually eating the bones in the chicken quarters, or just gnawing the meat off? The bone-in split breasts I'm sure she can eat. An even better idea, in my opinion, would be to find chicken backs or necks. Those are nice soft bones that almost any size dog can handle.

For the sake of easy math, let's assume your pup will grow to be a 12-pound adult. Puppies eat (about) 3% of their ideal adult weight in food per day. For your little one, that's (about) 6 ounces of food a day.

While it's not critical that you weigh every meal, that should give you an idea of how much she should be eating each day--probably divided up over 2 or 3 meals each day. So each meal is pretty small.

Some people will feed a "bony" meal, then follow it with a "meat" meal. Others try to feed a balance of meat and bone in each meal. There's no single right way to do this...but I don't think that 3 meals a week that include bone is enough. Especially if she's not crunching and consuming the bones.

(and not that you are, but a completely boneless raw diet is a nutritional disaster, especially for a puppy.)

Fish is another food that has edible bone. Sardines, mackerel (even canned varieties of these fish have bones in them) are easy to find. With a small puppy (that will grow up to be a small dog) your challenge will be finding bones she can totally consume, not just play with. Cornish hens (which are just juvenile chickens) are another idea. Perhaps rabbit. Anyway, work on the "bony" meals.

The "meat" part's easy. Beef, pork, turkey--anything without bones will fill out the rest of the meal. Small amounts of organ meat (liver, kidney, etc.) just as you are doing...eventually up to 10% of the diet. But go easy on organs in any one meal. Sounds like she's tolerating new foods well, though, so that's great--and you're lucky!

the pumpkin, carrots, eggs are all great. An occasional raw egg is good , but lightly cooked might be even better. You can consider eggs like "meat" when you are mentally weighing the meal. Other veggie things can be tossed in occasionally too--especially greens or berries. But any vegetable-based foods need to be either cooked, frozen, or pureed first. Raw veggies can't be digested by dogs---they come out just about like they went in. There's no harm in it, but they aren't getting any nutrition out of raw veggies.

Yogurt is another great addition to the diet. Plain unflavored, unsweetened yogurt. For her size, just a couple of teaspoons would be plenty.

Hopefully this rambling helps. Keep asking questions. We love to help new raw feeders!


eta: the best indication of when you've got the "right" balance of meat and bone is the quality of her poop. It should be quite firm and log-shaped, but not so firm that it is crumbly or that she has to strain to produce it. Too firm means too much bone. Too soft means (among other things) not enough bone. Soft poop can also be caused by overfeeding.