How Much To Feed

[ChaoticEva]

I've been feeding Banjo raw for about 7-8 months now and I've been feeding him a commercial raw. He's been having roughly 100g of raw a day. He's currently at 11.5lbs but needs to be at 10-10.5lbs.
I just bought some high quality raw from a very small pet food company (the lady literally makes the raw herself and get's it tested. and the meat is all local, hormone/antibiotic free. basically, it's AMAZING) and I was told he should be eating 3% of his ideal weight (I was feeding him 2%) which would be roughly 130g a day. I find that's a pretty big jump. I calculated that if I feed him 2.5% of his ideal weight, it would be 113g a day. I think the 113g would be best. Keep in mind that he goes to the vets every 6 to 8 weeks (it's like his Weight Watchers weigh in haha) and in 8 weeks, he's lost .4lbs. So he isn't losing weight too quickly, but that was on the old raw, which had veggies in it, which I'm guessing bulks up the food.
Basically, as you can clearly tell, I'm a little confused here haha

 

[Tobermory]

My three get about 114 grams a day divided into two meals. I make their food so that’s the muscle meat, liver and supplements. Ideally, it would be better to calculate calories rather than amount, but since I rotate chicken, pork, rabbit and turkey which vary in fat content, I figure I’m okay to do it by weight. I weigh them once a week and they’re all maintaining a good weight with almost no fluctuation.

Back when I free fed dry food, Lily got too fat so I switched to all canned food (in about 2012) and gradually got her from a high of 14 lbs. down to her current 10.75. It took a long time since you don’t want more than 1-2% weight loss a week. Slow is good! I switched to raw last December, and she’s done really well. The other two don’t have a weight problem. A lot of people feed more than I do, but 114 grams or 4 ozs. a day works for my girls.

 

[ChaoticEva]

Same here. When I was free feeding Banjo, he got to 16lbs. When I changed vet, she really told me he needed to lose weigh, since with him being a tripod, it was causing pain in his back leg (which no other vet ever told us....) At first we tried vet food, but that wasn't doing anything. Then I started working in a holistic pet food store and learned a lot about nutrition. So I switched him to an almost all wet food diet, which made a huge difference. He was losing weight and he loved the food. Then we got a new manager and she explained how raw food would do wonders. So I switched him to that. Now he's losing weight, he's more active, his poop is beautiful etc!
Like you, it would be difficult to give them by calories as I switch protein very often. I believe the only one that I should be giving more of is maybe the rabbit or venison. I know venison is a very lean meat, so maybe I should give him 120g when I'm feeding him that.