So I just bought a 3 lb. bag of the little patties of the Chicken raw food from Natures Variety. And I am not sure how much I should feed Charlie and Tucker. I am mixing it with Canidae so I wont have to spend as much money. I just dont know if Im feeding them enough...Tucker gets one pattie and a half a cup of food but he still acts like he is starving, he will eat the patties in two bites! He is almost 7 months old now and weighs almost 20 lbs. Charlie on the other hand gets one pattie and about 1/4 cup kibble but he is tiny at only 7 lbs. so I think he is getting enough.  Does that sound like its the right amount? The lady at the store where I buy my dog food just said to start them out at one a day with some kibble.

Sorry this is so long!

I am sure Nora can help with this one as she feeds it, but their website says 8.4oz of raw for a 20lb dog. The patties are 8oz so I would say with 1/2 cup food he is getting more than enough, if not too much food. You could try adding green beans to break it up a little and add some bulk.

I would count the total number of calories you're feeding them.  You can use the two calculators in the link to get a basic idea of the number of calories needed.

http://www.mycockerspaniel.com/mer.htm

This is kind of confusing, do you buy raw food or do you make it?

I do both Val (buy prefab raw and make my own). And I have fed kibble with raw mixed on many occasions, esp. when transitioning a dog. No one seemed to have a problem with it.  Kind of like saying you should have a raw salad along with a cooked meal....

Where do you get these products??

Actually, Gwacie... my Nature's Variety distributor, who also does agility with her dogs and feeds raw (and who is very knowledgeable concerning canine nutrition)... says not to mix them. I told her I had mixed them during the transition period. She told me I should have switched to raw cold turkey after 24 hours of fasting. (I guess I didn't think to ask that question at the time).

She explained that kibble and raw food are digested differently, and so should never be fed together, in the same meal. If you feed dry kibble at the same meal as the raw meat, you are increasing the amount of time the food is in the body, and increasing the possibility of illness from bacteria. I did not know this, but she said it can be confusing to the dog's body when trying to digest kibble which pulls moisture from the body to digest it. Moisture is supplied with a raw natural diet. When carbohydrates and proteins are eaten at the same time, the protein enzymes go to work first, and the digestion of carbohydrates must wait. While the carbohydrates are waiting around to be digested, they ferment and release toxins in the body. So she told me that if I felt I needed to feed both... to feed kibble one meal and the raw natural diet the next meal.

Edited to add:  (I took this from an email she sent to me...it's not my explanation).  She has taken numerous canine nutrition courses and from my perspective is the expert in the field -- not me!   But now I don't mix them.  Hubby doesn't like to fool with the raw, so when he feeds them (if I'm not home) he feeds the Nature's Variety Salmon & Brown Rice kibble... but he feeds the kibble only.

Val... here's a website for Nature's Variety.  You can check to see if there is a distributor near you.

http://www.naturesvariety.com/

They carry it at the store I get the Canidae from. so now what do I do? I only feed Fred the medallions? Is it all soft food or will there be kibble to help clean his teeth too?

You'll find that by feeding raw...it helps with the dental issue. It also helps with the breath issue! And... as an added bonus, the dogs don't poop nearly as often!    You can always give your dogs raw bones to chew on... or bully sticks... (Nature's Variety has great bully sticks)... to help.

If I were you and you are going to switch. I'd feed both dogs the same thing -- either the patties or the medallions. They have crushed bone in them too btw. The patties are the same consistency as hamburger meat.

What I do is... purchase a sleeve of 12 patties. I take the frozen patties out of the sleeve and put each pattie in a ziplock bag. I put the ziplock bags in the freezer. I put two in the refrigerator to thaw out overnight and by the next evening they thawed and ready to feed. When I feed the two thawed patties, I then take two more out of the freezer and put them in the refrigerator for the next night (I only feed once a day). This is how I do it. It is advised not to microwave them....