Since different bone in cuts can have varying amounts of fat and bone content, sometimes it can be difficult to figure out how to calculate the bone content percentage in a “prey model” raw diet.
Figuring out how much fat is present in the diet can also be helpful, especially for animals that require a certain amount of fat in their diets. Knowing the percentages of these products can make that job a lot easier.
Here’s Petfoods4u's guide to bone and fat content in raw meaty bones.
Remember: in a “prey model” raw diet, you want to aim for 10% bone.
This 10% value is for only bone, not the entire RMB. “BARF” diet percentages call for anywhere from 25-60% raw meaty bones in the diet – these higher and more varied percentages are due to the fact that there is such a large variation in bone content depending on what kind of RMBs you’re feeding.
If you fed chicken necks and backs as 60% of the diet, for example, that would be way too much bone! RFC prefers the “prey model” percentage of 10% bone content for this reason.
Figuring out what and how much to feed to get the right bone content in the diet might sound complicated, but it is actually just a bit of really simple math. Let’s say you have an 80 pound dog that eats 2 pounds of meat a day (which would be 2.5% of the dog’s weight, right in the middle of the 2-3% guideline).
You want to incorporate duck wings as a source of bone in his diet, which are 50% bone. You think, what if I fed duck wings as half the meal? 50 divided by 2 is 25%, so that is still too much bone. What about a fourth of the meal? 50 divided by 4 is 12.5%, which is much better! So for a 2 lb total meal size, 0.5 lb of that should be duck wings. The rest can be meat, organ, and whatever else you’re adding – egg, veggies, etc.
You don’t have to feed exactly 10% bone in every meal – you would spend all your time doing math and trying to cut meat into impossible sizes to get that to work every day! The 10% value is something you should aim for over time – it doesn’t have to be exact. So don’t obsess over 10%, just use it as a guideline.
Remember to choose bones that are appropriate for your pet! If you have a large dog, chicken necks might be too easily swallowed whole, which is a choking hazard, but for small dogs, cats, and ferrets, chicken necks are great RMBs. A good RMB for a Great Dane might be a slab of pork ribs, but a Chihuahua that tries to eat pork ribs might end up with a cracked tooth. Choose RMBs accordingly!
Chicken
Whole bird – 27-32% bone, 12-14% skin, 5-8% fat Breast – 15-20% bone Back – 44% bone, 10% skin, 17% fat Thigh – 21-32% bone and cartilage, 24% skin and fat Drumstick – 33-34% bone, 9% skin a
nd fat Wing – 46% bone, 21% skin, 1% fat Leg quarter – 27-30% bone, 11% skin, 5% fat Neck – 36% bone, 39% skin and fat Cornish game hen – 39% bone, 13% skin, 5% fat Foot – 60% bone Head – 75% bone
Quail
Whole – 10% bone, 14% skin
Duck
Whole, domestic – 28% bone, 38% skin and fat Whole, wild game – 38% bone Leg, domestic – 34% bone Breast, wild game – 15% bone, 31% skin and fat Wing – 39% bone Foot – 60% bone Head – 75% bone Frame – 75% bone Neck – 50% bone
Goose
Whole – 19% bone, 34% skin and fat
Pheasant
Whole – 14% bone, 10% skin
Dove / Squab / Pigeon
Whole – 23% bone, 12% skin
Guinea hen
Whole – 17% bone
Rabbit
Whole, unprocessed – 10% bone Dressed (skinned and gutted) – 28% bone
Mouse / Rat
Whole – 5% bone
Lamb
Neck – 32% bone, 10% fat Ribs – 24-27% bone, 11% fat Shank – 28-36% bone, 9% fat Shoulder – 21-25% bone, 17% fat Chop – 15% bone, 12% fat
Goat
Whole – 33% bone
Veal
Ribs – 35% bone, 5% fat Shoulder – 21% bone, 4% fat Shank – 48% bone, 3% fat Loin – 30% bone, 10% fat
Beef
Ribs – 52% bone, 32% fat Ox tails – 45-65% bone
Pork
Shoulder – 16-25% bone, 10-14% fat Ribs – 21-30% bone, 6-9% fat Feet – 29% bone Tail – 30% bone