I may try home-cooked, but how much to feed?

[Remali]

What with these recalls still happening, I'm so nervous feeding commercial dog food, altho the dog food that I feed my boys hasn't been in the recall (knock wood!), I feed them California Natural lamb and rice. But, I am thinking about buying some chicken breasts and feeding Bentley and Bailey boiled chicken and rice until things settle down with the recalls. Bentley is 19 lbs. and going on 2 years...how much chicken and rice, as a general rule of thumb, would I feed him? Bailey, my toy Poodle, is pretty thin (always has been and the vet has examined him and Bailey is fine, just a finnicky eater and on the thin side), so if Bailey gets a bit fat I'd be happy, so it is mainly how much to feed Bentley, if I decide to go the home-cooked route.

[Caraline]

Renee, here is a cut & paste from another thread I posted in a while back....

Here is a table of calories required for a healthy, active adult dog. It is only part of a larger table from "Complete Dog Care Manual" by Dr Bruce Fogle

Toy 5kg (11 lbs) = 210 calories
Small 10 kg (22 lbs) = 590 calories
Medium 20 kg (44 lbs) = 900 calories
Large 40 kg (88 lbs) = 1680 calories
Giant 80 kg (176 lbs) = 2800 calories

The above calories is for the entire day & must take into account treats given. Of course it needs to be adjusted for the elderly, inactive, overweight or the rapidly growing puppy.

If you are interested in the thread it came from, you can find it here

http://board.cavaliertalk.com/showthread.php?t=16119

[Lani]

Hi Renee!!

Lucky's vet gave us a copy of a recipe for home cooking from a vet text book - if you want to PM me your email I address, I would be happy to send you a scan of it. You have to measure it out in grams and the recipe is for a 40 lb dog so you'd have to adjust the portions accordingly. It's very flexible in terms of veggies, proteins and carbs.

All that said ... I've got Lucky on Evo and Pumpkin. So far so good and there are no grains to get stressed over for now.

Hope your guys are doing well!!!

[Caraline]

Also here is a little snip from an article entitled A Raw Deal by Mary Strauss, that was featured in this months Whole Dog Journal...

"Amounts to feed

As a general rule of thumb, dogs will eat around 2 to 3 percent of their body weight in fresh food daily, but remember that each dog is an individual, and the amounts they eat can vary considerably. There will be more details on calculating amounts to feed in the article on cooked diets" (next month)

[Remali]

Thank you everyone!! I am still undecided, and I still have them on their dog food yet. But in case I do make the switch, this infor will really be helpful!!