Today I’m sharing the raw dog food recipe for my pups’ dinner bowls.
They’re two Boxer mixes and weigh 50 and 75 lbs, respectively.
Disclaimer: This blog post was originally published in 2018 and has been updated in 2024. It contains affiliate links I may earn compensation through at no additional cost to you.
On the menu this week is a smorgasbord of raw dog food goodness, along with a little boiled veggie.
I topped their meals off with a joint lubricating, immune system boosting supplement.
My Ingredients For This Raw Dog Food Recipe
The pups are having raw:
- Beef
- Turkey
- Chicken
- Fish (sardines)
- Boiled sweet potato
More about their respective amounts coming up below.
Bravo Super Food Turkey Mix
Bravo Super Food’s turkey mix forms the raw base for our meals this week.
It consists of ground turkey, turkey bone, turkey heart, turkey gizzard, turkey liver, green beans, squash, and broccoli.
The mix comes in 5 lb tubes and is around $30 in 2024.
Note: Back when I lived in the States, I bought the tubes at Naturally Unleashed, an independently owned pet retail store in Fayetteville, NC.
Your normally active dog can have about 6 oz of the turkey mix per 10 lbs of body weight per day.
If you feed twice per day, that’s 3 oz per 10 lbs of body weight per meal.
For Missy, that translates into 15 oz per meal. For Buzz, it’s about 22.5 oz.
But since I added other cuts of meat as well, Missy got 10 oz of the turkey mix, and Buzz got 17 oz.
Raw Turkey Base Alternatives
Obviously, you can also source raw turkey foods from other brands.
For example, Signature Turkey from Raw Paws Pet Food based in Indiana (they ship within the continental US).
That one has an additional secreting organ in the form of testicles, and consists of:
Turkey Meat, Turkey Breast, Turkey Frames, Turkey Heart, Turkey Liver, Turkey Gizzards, Turkey Fries (testicles)
You can save 15% OFF with my affiliate discount code K9Savings. Here’s a YouTube video tutorial that shows you how to do that.
Or Turkey Grinds from Raw Feeding Miami. Those consist of:
Ground up turkey meat, heart, liver, bone
You can save 10% on your first order from Raw Feeding Miami with my referral discount link.
Beef Tongue And Chicken Wings From Walmart
I mixed in some cut up beef tongue and whole chicken wings that I bought at a local Walmart last week.
That was in preparation for a raw dog food recipe post I wrote for ThatMutt.com.
I gave each pup one chicken wing and about 3 oz of beef tongue.
Boiled Sweet Potatoes From The Grocery Store
Since I boiled some sweet potatoes for myself to eat along with my homemade chili this week, I’m sharing some with the pups.
Not only do they really enjoy the taste of sweet potatoes, they’re also high in dietary fiber & low in fat.
They each got about a tablespoonful.
These particular sweet potatoes weren’t organic, so I removed the skin before feeding them.
Had they been organic and not treated with pesticides, I also would have fed the skin.
Ground Sardines From Raw Feeding Miami
I topped things off with some ground sardines I still had in the freezer from a previous raw food shipment placed with Raw Feeding Miami.
These days, Raw Feeding Miami no longer carries ground sardines, but they have whole sardines. 2.5 lb are $11.75 in 2024.
Sardines are a very oily fish and chock-full of Omega-3 fatty acids.
It’s a great alternative to bottled fish oil and keeps the pups’ coats healthy and shiny.
I gave them about a teaspoonful each.
Green Lipped Mussel Powder From Super Snouts
I also added some freeze-dried Green Lipped Mussel powder from Super Snouts (found them on Amazon).
A 150 g = 5.29 oz jar of the powder is around $49 in 2024 and shipping is free with Amazon Prime.
Green Lipped Mussels do wonders for joint lubrication and alleviate arthritic related pain.
Missy & Buzz currently don’t have any joint problems, so I’m feeding the powder as a preventative measure.
At the pups’ weight (between 50-75 lbs), they can each have 3 scoops of the GLM powder per day, which equals 750 mg or 0.02 oz.
That’s not a typo – only very little is required, which is why the scoop that’s included comes in handy and means the jar will last a while.
Why This Raw Dog Food Recipe Is Not 100% Balanced, Yet OK To Feed
In order to be considered balanced, a prey model raw meal should consist of roughly 80% muscle meat, 10% raw meaty bone, and 10% secreting organs.
Of the 10% secreting organs, half should be liver, and the other half another secreting organ like pancreas or kidneys for example.
If you’re feeding BARF meals with plant matter like veggies, fruit, nuts, and seeds, decrease the muscle meat to 70% and add 10% plant matter.
In our meals this week, the turkey mix is already fairly balanced.
The only item it’s missing is a second secreting organ besides the liver.
The beef tongue is additional muscle meat that’s rich in taurine btw (a MUST have for cats, just FYI).
And the chicken wing is additional bone along with some muscle meat.
Good to know: Chicken wings consist of about 45% bone. The rest is muscle meat.
The ground sardines fall into the category of muscle meat. 10% of the muscle meat should be (oily) fish.
Green Lipped Mussel powder is a joint supplement that’s also naturally rich in taurine, and the sweet potato is fibrous plant matter.
The only item we’re not feeding this week is an additional secreting organ such as raw kidney because I’m out.
I’m not too worried about it because I’ll go out and buy some more within the next few days.
It’s OK to achieve nutritional balance within 7-10 days for adult dogs.
Sometimes Missy and Buzz have a large raw meaty bone like a duck frame for breakfast, which means they won’t need any more bone for the next 2 days.
Duck frames consist of 75% bone and 25% muscle meat.
Easy Raw Dog Food Recipe: Bottom Line
So there you have it, that was a quick peek into my Boxers’ raw dog food dinner bowls.
And while it’s not 100% balanced, it’s still fine to feed.
Remember, you can achieve balance in raw feeding over the course of 7-10 days.
Because here’s the thing – do you and your family consume all of the nutrients that would be ideal to consume every single day?
Probably not. And neither am I.
But I still place an emphasis on eating pretty healthy myself overall, and I apply that same strategy to my dogs’ nutrition.
Leave your comments or questions in the comment section below this blog post!
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