hi i have 5 months old akita named storm,im feeding him pro choice,but want to start feeding him on chicken wings and legs,can someone advise me how much to feed him raw,night meal iwill always feed him pro choice,or can i mix pro choice with raw for every meal because i feed him 3 times aday.all advice will be appreicited.
  thanks Naz

Hiya,

Cant help with the quantities im afraid, my experience of raising a pup on a raw diet was wiht a lurcher pup who is at a year old considerable smaller than your Akita pup will be......

As far as mixing complete food with raw, id advise not to. Id personally advise a totally raw diet, but thats just me. If you do wish to feed complete, do NOT mix the two foods together. Processed dried or wet food will be digested by your dog much much faster than raw....if the bulk of teh stomach contents are complete food, when thats digested, everything goes through, so if you are mixing say, raw minced beef for example, with a dried food, the raw stuff will not be fully digested.
Feed the different foods at different meals, to avoid that happening.

Someone else will help with the amounts of food to feed im sure.

Em

Hi,
I'm not giving advice, (and not contradicting you Em, as I don't know which way is right :) ), but I feed Bess chicken wings and dry food at the same meal and she's fine with it, in fact she's loads healthier than when I just fed her totally dry. That's not to say it suits all dogs though.  Bess (6yo Springer) gets 1 wing night and morning plus her dry food (which I've reduced) and I mix different things in each day for a variety of tastes and nutrients. Cottage cheese, yoghurt, raw egg, veggies, gravy, etc, supplemented with kelp, brewers yeast, garlic.

As for amounts, sorry I can't help. I just go by how active Bess is and I watch her weight. She's always needed less than the packets say, but they are only a guide.

Kath.

Please read some of the brilliant books out there before you launch into raw feeding; it is, IMHO, essential that you fully understand the dog's nutritional requirements, where nutrients are found and some of the pros and cons of various items.  I would recommend Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats by Kmythy Schulze as it is very accessible, has diet plans and explains the "prey" model very well.  The BARF diet by Ian Billingshurst is written in a better style IMHO than his Give your Dog a Bone; if you get really into it then Raw Meaty Bones by Tom Lonsdale goes into further detail.  There is a lot more to it than feeding chicken wings and legs, variety IS the spice of life :D

Adult dogs are usually fed around 2 - 3% of their weight per day eg if you have a 30kg dog you will probably be feeding between 600 - 900 gms of food per day; however this is only a rough guide, some dogs need less/more depending on their temperament, exercise, work, time of year etc.

Puppies are normally fed around 8 - 10% of their projected adult weight per day but again this may differ depending on the calorific density of the food they are eating.

Personally I see no value in feeding commercial dog food but that is JMHO; I believe so strongly in the benefits of raw feeding and the downsides to commercial food that there is no way I would feed it.  However, I do know some people do it for various reasons.  I would recommend you feed commercial food and raw separately thought; again I know that some people do not have any problems doing this however again there seems no logic in doing this IMHO.

HTH