Homemade Dog Food Portion Calculator
Scale a home-cooked recipe to your dog's daily calorie requirement and see how long a batch lasts.
Recipe batch
From the calorie needs calculator.
Feed per day from this batch
498 grams
- Batch weight
- 1,000 g
- Batch energy
- 1,264 kcal
- Energy density
- 1,264 kcal/kg
- Per meal
- 249 g
- Batch lasts
- 2 days
| Ingredient | Grams | kcal | % of calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken breast, cooked | 500 | 825 | 65.3% |
| Brown rice, cooked | 300 | 369 | 29.2% |
| Carrot, cooked | 200 | 70 | 5.5% |
This balances calories only. It says nothing about calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D, zinc or the other nutrients a complete diet needs. Home-cooked diets fed long term without a formulated supplement are very commonly deficient.
How this is calculated
A batch has a total weight and a total calorie content. Dividing one by the other gives an energy density, which is then used exactly like the figure printed on a bag of kibble.
ingredient kcal = grams × (kcal per 100 g ÷ 100)
batch kcal = sum of ingredient kcal
batch kcal/kg = (batch kcal ÷ batch grams) × 1000
grams per day = (daily kcal ÷ batch kcal/kg) × 1000 Worked example
500 g cooked chicken breast (825 kcal), 300 g cooked brown rice (369 kcal) and 200 g cooked carrot (70 kcal) make a 1,000 g batch containing 1,264 kcal, so 1,264 kcal/kg. A dog needing 630 kcal a day eats 498 g, and the batch lasts almost exactly two days.
Sources
- US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central.
- Stockman J, Fascetti AJ, Kass PH, Larsen JA. Evaluation of recipes of home-prepared maintenance diets for dogs. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2013;242(11):1500–1505. Of 200 recipes assessed, none provided all essential nutrients at recommended concentrations.
- National Research Council. Nutrient Requirements of Dogs and Cats. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2006.
- WSAVA Global Nutrition Committee. Global Nutrition Guidelines and toolkit.
What this calculator does not do
It balances calories and nothing else. A batch that hits the calorie target exactly can still be severely deficient in calcium, vitamin D, zinc, copper, iodine, choline and vitamin E, and a meat-and-rice mixture almost certainly is.
That gap is not theoretical. Studies assessing home-prepared recipes from books, websites and veterinary sources have found the overwhelming majority fall short of established requirements for at least one essential nutrient. The dog looks fine for months, which is exactly what makes it dangerous.
Doing it properly
Use this tool for portioning, not for formulation. If home cooking is going to be the whole diet, get the recipe formulated for your individual dog by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist, add whatever supplement they specify, and follow the recipe without substitutions. Recheck it when your dog's weight, age or health changes.
Common questions
How much homemade food should I feed my dog?
Work out the energy density of your batch by dividing its total calories by its total weight, then divide the daily calorie requirement by that. A 1,264 kcal batch weighing 1,000 g supplies 1,264 kcal/kg, so a dog needing 630 kcal a day eats about 498 g of it.
Are homemade dog food recipes balanced?
Most are not. Published analyses of recipes from books and websites have found the large majority fail to meet at least one essential nutrient requirement, and many fail several. Calcium is the most common and most serious gap, because meat and rice contain almost none.
What is usually missing from home-cooked dog food?
Calcium first, then vitamin D, vitamin E, zinc, copper, iodine and choline. A chicken-and-rice diet that looks wholesome supplies roughly a tenth of the calcium an adult dog needs. This is why a formulated supplement is not optional for long-term feeding.
Can I feed chicken and rice long term?
No. It is a short-term bland diet for an upset stomach, meant for a few days. Fed for months it causes real deficiency disease, and in a growing puppy it does so quickly.
How do I make a homemade diet complete?
Use a recipe formulated by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist for your individual dog, or a service that does the same, and add the supplement they specify. Follow it exactly. Substituting ingredients is what breaks otherwise sound recipes.
Should I weigh ingredients cooked or raw?
Cooked, and consistently. Meat loses roughly a quarter of its weight in cooking and rice gains substantially in water, so a recipe written for raw weights and measured cooked can be far off. The values in this tool are for cooked weights.