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Feeding Guidelines

 

 

Happy Dog PicFeeding Nu Dimensions Nutrition Pet Foods To Your Companion Animal...

NDN products are designed to make feeding a raw food diet as convenient as possible. We encourage you to reference Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats: The Ultimate Diet by Kymythy R. Schultze to get an overview of your pet's basic nutritional requirements. Our ground fresh-frozen foods should be fed along with the "meaty bones" that are an integral part of the carnivore's natural diet.

Each animal is unique, and you should tailor the diet to meet your pet's individual needs. The following table serves as a starting point. For more tips on feeding puppies, seniors, and pregnant or nursing dogs, refer to the text mentioned above, Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats: The Ultimate Diet. As your pet progresses on the diet, you may increase or decrease the quantity served as needed. Remember—no one knows your pet better than you do. The process of feeding your pet a fresh food diet is somewhat intuitive. You must be willing to observe your pet's body condition, health, and level of vitality and adjust the diet accordingly. If you're uncertain, we're always here to help, and we encourage you to email us with your questions.


Dog With Bowl PicGuidelines for Feeding Puppies and Adult Dogs
 

Daily Diet Guidelines for feeding Puppies:
Young puppies (2 to 4 months) should be fed smaller frequent meals (3 to 4 times per day) and will probably eat more than an adult dog their size. Older puppies can be cut back to 2 to 3 meals per day and will usually eat the equivalent amount of food as they will eat as an adult (estimate their adult weight and consult the charts below). Remember puppies need nutritious food to support their rapid growth. Feel your puppies ribs often and adjust daily food as needed. Ideally puppies should be kept lean (no more roly-poly puppies from the old days), you should be able to feel their ribs with a thin layer of fat covering them. If the ribs or bones start becoming to visible then increase the amount food consumption.


 
Daily Diet Guidelines For Puppies, and Small to Medium Adult Dogs
Your Pet's Weight Amount of Veggie Cuisine Amount of Meaty Bone
Up to 10 lbs 1/16 of lb 1/10 to 1/8 of lb
Up to 25 lbs 1/8 of lb 1/4 to 1/3 of lb
Up to 50 lbs 1/5 of lb 1/2 to 3/4 lb

 

Daily Diet Guidelines For Large Adult Dogs and Working Breeds
Your Pet's Weight Amount of Veggie Cuisine Amount of Meaty Bone
Up to 75 lbs 1/3 of lb 3/4 to 1 lb
Up to 100 lbs. 1/2 of lb 1 to 1.5 lbs
Over100 lbs. 1/2 of lb 1.5 - 2 lbs.+ daily

For our canine friends Veggie Cuisine should be approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the total daily diet. Meaty bone should make up the balance of the diet ( 2/3 to 3/4 of total daily consumption). The amounts in the tables above are total daily requirements and can be feed as one meal or split into multiple meals per day. Remember that the above guidelines are starting points and should be adjusted to keep your canine companion at optimal body weight. When increasing or decreasing total food consumption adjust the amount of meaty bone per day, usually the veggie cuisine consumption will remain constant.

All of our NDN products come in convenient 1 lb bags. We give the following conversions to for your convenience.
1 bag of NDN = 1 pound (lb)
1 pound = 2 cups
2 cups = 16 oz

 

Cat with bowl picGuidelines for Feeding Cats
Cats have a very low need for vegetables in their daily diet. We recommend 90% meaty bone and 10% veggies. The formula for this 90/10 ratio using NDN products is 1 part Veggie Cuisine and 4 parts Ground Meaty Bone (see the conversions below for ease in figuring a formula that will work best for you). As an example mix 1/5 lb of Veggie Cuisine with 4/5 lb of Ground Meaty Bone. Re-freeze all portions that will not be used within 2 to 3 days. Often cats can be very finicky about their food and a very slow switch may be required. If they do not initially like the raw food then we suggest starting with an extremely small amount of ground meaty bone added to their favorite foods. Slowly increase the Ground Meaty Bone until it is the entire meal, then begin adding in the Veggie Cuisine. As a starting amount feed approximately the same volume of NDN raw foods as you were feeding of kibble, adjust this amount over time as needed.

Cats have a need for vitamin A and can not convert beta carotene to vitamin A, so we recommend adding a little cod liver oil to their food several times a week to every day.

Here are some additional tips for transitioning finicky feline eaters. Add nutritional yeast, tuna juice or other favorite foods to the raw mix. Lightly brown or sear the raw food to bring out the aroma and taste.

Note: Do not let your cat skip more than a few meals. A gradual switch is much better for cats than fasting.

Daily Diet Guidelines for feeding Kittens:
Young kittens (2 to 4 months) should be fed smaller frequent meals (3 to 4 times per day) and will probably eat more than an adult cat their size. Older kittens can be cut back to 2 to 3 meals per day and will usually eat the equivalent amount of food as they will eat as an adult (estimate their adult weight and consult the charts below). Remember kittens need nutritious food to support their rapid growth. Feel your kitten's ribs often and adjust daily food as needed. Ideally kittens should be kept lean, you should be able to feel their ribs with a thin layer of fat covering them. If the ribs or bones start becoming to visible then increase the amount food consumption.

All of our NDN products come in convenient 1 lb bags. We give the following conversions to for your convenience.
1 bag of NDN = 1 pound (lb)
1 pound = 2 cups
2 cups = 16 oz.

Species Appropriate Nutrition Facts

Your companion animal needs species-appropriate
nutrition to achieve optimum health.

Omnivores Pyramid Pic

Humans are omnivores; they have a nutritional need for a varied diet that includes both plant and animal foods. Our teeth reflect this adaptation to dietary need, with our mouths containing both teeth for tearing, and flatter, rounder teeth for grinding and breaking down grains and other plant foods. As the science of human nutrition evolves, it's clear that a varied diet of fresh, whole, minimally processed food produces the best health and lowest incidence of chronic and acute disease.

Carnivores Pyramid Pic

Dogs & cats are carnivores; they have evolved to eat primarily other animals. Their teeth reflect this adaptation to dietary need, with sharp pointed teeth throughout their mouths designed to rip and tear flesh. A more acidic digestive system means that less mechanical breakdown of food is required, and bacteria which might make humans ill generally don't survive the carnivore's intestinal environment. The plant material consumed by carnivores comes largely from the partially broken down material still in the stomachs of the "prey animals" that they live on.

This website is not intended to replace professional veterinary care and guidance.

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Copyright © 2007 Steven Moize (Webmaster) and Nu Dimensions Nutrition®™
Last modified: 03/17/11