# Calcium & Phosphorus



## goldentemperment (May 16, 2012)

Do you feed Rusty raw? If you feed a decent quality kibble, they generally do a pretty good job of keeping those levels appropriate. Of course, it's good always to be mindful of the ratio, anyway.

If you feed raw, you need to always be concerned about that, because too big of a disparity between calcium and phosphorous (for a long period of time) can cause some pretty serious health conditions. Luckily, it's not too hard to keep the ratio close to appropriate when feeding raw if you include bones in his diet.


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## Melfice (Aug 4, 2012)

Thanks for the info, and I'm going to try raw for my dogs, but right now we are on Acana. 

Acana has their Grasslands dry food and it's Calcium: Phosphorus Ratio is 1:6:1

Which is a little high compared to Acana's other dry foods. I really love the idea of feeding Rusty a lamb based food tho, and I keep buying foods with a lower ratio.


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## Hina (May 31, 2013)

According to this, "HVN recommend *calcium at .5-.9% for adult dogs* and double that for puppies and pregnant/nursing dogs. Similar levels are recommended for cats. *Phosphorus is recommended at .2-.8% for adult dogs*, .8-1.4% for puppies and pregnant/nursing dogs, .3-.8% for adult cats, and .8-1.4% for kittens and pregnant/nursing cats. All percentages are on a dry matter basis."

Choosing A Pet Food

I'm not sure if other sources recommend different percentages.


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