The 80/10/5/5 Raw Ration, Worked From Body Weight
Published 9/4/2026 · 5 min read · Everyday calculators
Marco Bianchi — Home, DIY & motoring writer at OneKitly
Renovation · Materials
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The daily amount is body weight times a feeding percentage: 2.5 per cent for an adult at maintenance, 2 to lean out, 3 to gain, 3.5 for a working dog, 2.2 for a senior and 5 for a growing puppy. A 25 kg adult dog at 2.5 per cent therefore eats 625 grams a day, which on two meals is 313 grams each and 4.4 kilograms a week. The common ratio splits that into 80 per cent muscle meat and heart, 10 per cent edible bone, 5 per cent liver and 5 per cent other secreting organ — 500 g, 63 g, 31 g and 31 g respectively.
A 25 kg dog at maintenance eats 625 g a day: 500 g muscle meat, 63 g edible bone, 31 g liver and 31 g other organ. The percentage you pick is worth more than every other input combined — growth is exactly double maintenance.
The percentage is the whole decision
Every other input is arithmetic. Body weight is measured, the ratio splits a total that is already fixed, and the number of meals divides it. The feeding percentage is the only judgement, and it spans 2 to 5 per cent — a factor of two and a half between the lightest and heaviest profiles, and exactly two between adult maintenance and a growing puppy. On a 25 kg dog that is the difference between 500 g and 1,250 g a day.
The right percentage is the one that holds the animal at the body condition you want, and the way to find it is to weigh, feed for a month and weigh again. Published percentages are starting points for an average metabolism at an average activity level; an individual can sit a full percentage point either side of the profile that describes it. Adjust on the scale rather than on the label, and adjust slowly — a quarter of a percentage point at a time is a fifty-gram change on a 25 kg dog and is enough to move a body condition score over two months.
Why the ratio is written as four numbers and not three
The 5 per cent of liver and the 5 per cent of other secreting organ are separate lines because they are not interchangeable. Liver is the vitamin A and copper source and is the one organ that can be given in excess; kidney, spleen and pancreas cover different ground and cannot substitute for it. Doubling the liver to fill the organ slot is the commonest home-made error and the one with a real toxic ceiling behind it.
The bone line has the mirror problem. Ten per cent is edible bone in a meaty cut — a chicken wing, a duck neck — not ten per cent of a stripped bone, which is far denser in mineral and pushes the calcium far above target. The tool splits the ration into the four lines rather than giving a single total precisely so the substitution has to be made deliberately rather than by rounding a shopping list.
Cats are not small dogs on this page either
A cat at 3 per cent of a 4 kg body weight eats 120 grams a day, which sounds like a smaller version of the dog calculation and is not. Cats are obligate carnivores with a dietary requirement for taurine, arachidonic acid and preformed vitamin A that a dog can synthesise or do without; a raw ration that is adequate for a dog can be deficient for a cat on exactly the same ingredients. Heart, which is the usual taurine source, is counted in the muscle-meat line and therefore invisible in the ratio.
So the same four-line split is a reasonable starting frame for a cat and an inadequate specification. Where a dog's ration can be built from a handful of proteins and adjusted on the scale, a cat's has to be checked against the nutrient profile a body of feline-nutrition work has established — which is a job for a veterinary nutritionist and a formulation service, not for a percentage.
| Profile | Percentage | Daily | Weekly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Losing weight | 2.0 % | 500 g | 3.5 kg |
| Senior | 2.2 % | 550 g | 3.9 kg |
| Adult maintenance | 2.5 % | 625 g | 4.4 kg |
| Gaining weight | 3.0 % | 750 g | 5.3 kg |
| Working / very active | 3.5 % | 875 g | 6.1 kg |
| Growing puppy | 5.0 % | 1,250 g | 8.8 kg |
Frequently asked questions
- How much raw food for a 10 kg dog?
- 250 grams a day at 2.5 per cent for an adult at maintenance, which splits into 200 g of muscle meat, 25 g of edible bone, 12.5 g of liver and 12.5 g of other organ. A growing 10 kg puppy at 5 per cent eats 500 g. Weigh the dog rather than estimating it: a two-kilogram error on a small dog is twenty per cent of the ration.
- Should I feed to current weight or target weight?
- Target weight, for an animal that needs to lose. Feeding 2 per cent of a body weight that is already twenty per cent too high just maintains the excess more slowly. Enter the weight you are aiming for and use the lean-out profile; for an animal that is underweight, do the opposite and enter the target with the gain profile. For an animal at a good condition score the two are the same number and the question does not arise.
- How many meals a day?
- Two for an adult dog, three or four for a puppy under six months, and free-choice grazing is not an option with raw food because it cannot sit out. The number of meals does not change the daily total — the tool simply divides — but it changes what a single portion looks like, and a 625 g daily ration split into one meal is a very different thing on a plate from two 313 g ones.
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General information, not veterinary advice. A raw diet has to be balanced over time by someone qualified to do it: an unbalanced home-made ration causes real deficiencies, and puppies of large and giant breeds are the most vulnerable to a wrong calcium-to-phosphorus ratio. Raw meat also carries Salmonella, Campylobacter and Listeria, which reach the household as well as the animal — handle and store it as you would raw meat for people, and discuss the diet with your vet before switching an animal that is young, old, pregnant or unwell.
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