| mimimomo | 01-17-2014 09:50 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by tokipoki
(Post 4377215)
That's good to hear! I was going to say, even Toki gets over 200 calories so I figured that since Teddy is more muscular and almost a couple pounds bigger that he'd need more than what they were recommending. Yesterday, Teddy was kinda looking at me like "That's it??!?!" after he ate LOL. I'll bump him up a nugget or maybe give him something else to nibble on too.
| Princess & Momo, both 5#'s get 1 nugget per meal. I get the 'dat's it?!' look too! I feed them 3 small meals bc they seem so hungry all the time. The other 2 meals are canned food, kibble, ziwipeak or whatever fresh protein I happen to have.
I'm not good w/#'s, so I don't measure out their ea/individual calories, I should tho. I even have a food scale & bunch of measuring cups. I just guesstimate. I weigh them once a month, if they're gaining, I reduce the food a little & vise versa. I wanted to know your question, so I googled & found this...not sure if it answers your question but I still need to read it a few x's to 'get it'!: Dog Blog: Feeding for health and longevity: Raw vs. kibble vs. calories Calculating the ideal daily energy requirement for a dog is a little complicated, but not difficult. First, we need to know the dog’s ‘ideal’ weight. The standard guideline is to be able to easily feel the ribs beneath the coat, see a definite waist when viewed from above, and an abdominal tuck when viewed from the side. We also need to know the Metabolic Energy value (kcal/kg) of the food that we feed. This information is usually easy to find on the packet label of commercially produced, complete kibbles and some canned and pouched foods. The final piece of information that we need to calculate daily energy requirement is the dog’s age, sexual status and activity level. Tilly’s ‘ideal’ weight by eye and feel is around 14 kg. She is between 5 and 7 years old, spayed, and typically active.
According to the dog food calculator (picture left), this gives me two category choices – ‘typical’ and ‘senior, neutered, inactive’. She is neutered, but she is neither senior nor inactive, so ‘typical’ more accurately describes her.
I feed her Chappie original canned, which has a Metabolic Energy value of 850 kcal/kg. The resulting calculation is that she requires 796 calories per day and I should be feeding her 940 grams of Chappie per day, however, to follow the 25% food restriction diet to increase lifespan, a further calculation is needed. To calculate 25% of 796, we need to divide 796 by 100 (7.96) and then multiply this by 25 (199). This gives a reduced daily calorie intake of 597 (796 – 199). We know that 940 grams contains 796 calories, so to reduce this by 25% we divide 940 grams by 100, which gives 9.4 grams (1% of 940 grams), and then multiply 9.4 grams by 25 to give 235 grams. 940 grams minus 235 grams is 705 grams. So actually, Tilly requires 705 grams of Chappie per day.
Beau’s ‘ideal’ weight by eye and feel is 32 kg. He’s 3 years old, neutered, and very lazy, so even though he’s a young dog, I place him in the ‘senior, neutered, inactive’ category. I feed him Acana Grasslands kibble, which has a Metabolic Energy value of 3750 kcal/kg. According to the dog food calculator, this works out at 1211 calories and 320 grams of Acana Grasslands per day. To feed for increased lifespan, this is reduced to 908 calories and 240 grams of Acana Grasslands per day. If I went by Acana’s daily recommendation for an inactive, 32 kg dog, I would be feeding him 320 grams per day – 80 grams more than is needed. Beau’s ‘feeding for increased lifespan’ weight is around 31 kg. Feeding for increased lifespan drops the ‘ideal’ weight by 1 kilo – that’s a whole kilo of excess fat! Visually, the difference in my dogs between ‘ideal’ and ‘increased lifespan’ weights is that the ribcage is more defined, with the outline of the last three ribs visible beneath the coat (picture right). It is much, much harder to calculate how much raw food to feed because meats, vegetables, plants, etc, differ greatly in their individual Metabolic Energy values.The general guide to feeding raw food is around 2% of the dog’s ideal body weight per day. For Tilly this works out at 300 grams per day in which to pack 796 calories (her ‘ideal’ weight calorie count). To feed for increased lifespan, we need to reduce the calories to 597, but to feed for variety, the quantity of food fed per day will fluctuate greatly in order to provide the correct calorie count per meal. For example, there are around 85 calories in 100 g of raw tripe, which means that an all tripe day for Tilly weighs in at 705 g, but if fed according to the 2% rule would provide her with a meagre 238 calories. Raw lamb ribs are around 284 kcal per 100g, so an all lamb rib day for Tilly weighs in at 210 g, but feeding lamb ribs according to the 2% rule would provide her with 796 calories (and a huge quantity of fat). Because the Metabolic Energy values of different foods is so inconsistent, realistically, the best way to feed a raw food or home-cooked diet is by calorie content, not by weight, whilst trying to keep the overall quantity of the meal at around 2% of the dog’s bodyweight. That way, meals that combine meat, bone, offal, fish, egg, dairy and veg, fruit, grain, cereal, herbs based on the mesocarnivore 50-70:30-50 animal:plant ratio of the human-food-eating domestic dog could be made without overloading or starving the body with such wildly fluctuating daily calorie intakes and meal weights, although the ratios per meal would need to differ from dog to dog to accommodate individual calorie needs.
Hey IDK how that pink tongue face got in there... |
