If you have never fed raw before, you may be surprised as you watch your dog's health improve while they transition to a healthier diet. It's important to be aware of how much you should be feeding your pet. When you feed your pet a raw food diet, they will often require less food than if you were to feed them a kibble/grain-based diet, because the food has so much more nutritional value. 

There are a few factors that will affect the recommended amount to feed your pet, such as age, activity level, and weight goals. We suggest using the calculator amounts below as a starting point, waiting 2 weeks to see how your pet does and adjusting the amount up or down as needed.

Steve's Real Food Feeding Calculator

Enter your pets weight and life stage below for an estimation of the amount to feed per day.

What is your pet's breed?

Erroe goes here

What lifestage is your pet?

Please select pet lifestage

  • Puppy 2-3 months
  • Puppy 4-5 months
  • Puppy 6-9 months
  • Adolescent 10-14 months
  • Adult 15 Mo. - 9 Yrs Not Spayed/Neutered
  • Adult 15 Mo. - 9 Yrs Spayed/Neutered
  • Senior 10+ Years Spayed/Neutered
  • Senior 10+ Years Not Spayed/Neutered

Keep in mind that our feeding guidelines should be used as a starting point.  Some large breeds have lower food requirements than average, and some active breeds need more food than their weight would imply. You know your pet better than we do, and you can adjust from this model as you feel best.

Transitioning

You want to transition your pet to raw food slowly to prevent stomachaches and loose stools. Start by mixing 1 part Steve’s with 3 parts of the food you are currently feeding. Slowly increase the amount of Steve’s while reducing their previous food over the course of 1 to 2 weeks. Monitor their temperament and stools to ensure they are transitioning well. More transitioning tips are on our “Starting on Raw Food” page, and you can check out our Blog from December 2014 to see how the sensitive dog of our Director of Relations did when he transitioned to Steve’s for more ideas. More on Transitioning

Safe Handling

Please keep in mind that you are dealing with raw, unprocessed meat. As you would when preparing raw meat for your human family, take the precautions of washing your hands after touching, cleaning surfaces thoroughly, and any other steps you would normally take. While animals have the digestive tracts to deal with contaminants such as salmonella and e-coli (which we test regularly for and keep our foods free from regardless) it is the risk for human contact that leads to FDA recalls of raw pet food in our industry. So remember to treat your dog and cat food as you would any other raw meat. Recalls are actually more likely from kibble, so if you are mixing take the same precautions with both types of food.

Dog bowl_preview