How to Accurately Measure Dog Food
The most precise way to measure your dog food and determine how much a cup of dog food weighs is to measure it yourself. Using a measuring cup, dog food, and a digital scale, you can calculate how much 1 cup weighs and use that information to ensure that you are feeding your dog the right amount of food.
You can do this using a traditional kitchen scale. You’ll need to weigh your measuring cup or scoop and then tare the weight, so it’s back to zero. Add 1 cup of your dog’s food, and voilà! Now you know exactly how much 1 cup of dog food weighs.
Some dog food labels will provide you with the number of kcal per kilogram instead of the kcal per ounce. You can solve this problem by dividing the number of kcal per kilogram by 35.27 (the number of ounces in a kilogram).
For example, if your dog food label states that it has 3,500 kcal/kg, divide that number by 35.27, and you get 99.23 kcal/oz. If you measure in cups, multiply 99.23 by X (the number of ounces each cup of your dog’s specific food weighs). Now you know exactly how many calories your dog is getting in each cup of dog food.
If this seems like too much math for you, you can type “convert kcal/kg to kcal/oz” into Google and let it do the calculation!
Calculating how many cups of dry dog food in a pound
I filled up a cup with some of our dog’s dry food, then emptied it out into some weighing scales. The kibble food I am using here is Royal Canin’s French Bulldog variety.
You can see a photo below.
I didn’t fill it completely to the top as some cups and mugs will vary in size, but it’s not too far off being completely full.
You can now see below where I emptied the cup of dry food into our weighing scales. Claude the French Bulldog was really interested in the experiment as you can see!
Once I had managed to get Claude’s nose away from the dry food (our cat even tried to get involved!) I was able to see exactly how much a cup of dog food weighs.
You can see a close up of the weight measurement in the photo below. A cup of dog food holds 5 ounces (150 grams).
Now that I knew how many ounces of dry dog food were in one cup, I could do my calculations as follows.
There are 16 ounces in 1 pound. We already know that an average sized cup can hold 5 ounces of dry dog food. 5 ounces is 0.31 pounds. That means you can get just over 3 cups into 1 pound.
It’s not exact, so for those of you that like exact numbers, if you multiply 0.31 pounds by 3 cups, that gives you 0.93 pounds. There’s no real need to quibble too much with this – as you can see, 3 cups of dog food equals nearly 1 pound so it’s a good guide to follow.
Using this same calculation method I’ve also estimated the following answers to other commonly asked questions relating to how many cups of dog food are in a pound.
How Much Does a Cup of Kibble Weigh in Grams?
If you prefer measuring in metric, no problem! If you are calculating the number of calories per gram, keep in mind that there are 1,000 grams in 1 kilogram. Use your kitchen scale to weigh how many grams of your dog’s food fit in a cup. Remember to weigh only the food, not the cup’s weight. You can either place the empty cup on the scale, push the tare button, and then fill the cup with food, or subtract the cup’s weight from the total weight of the filled cup. Now multiply the number of grams in one cup of your dog’s food by the number of kcal/kg, then divide the result by 1000.
How much are you feeding How to measure your pet’s food
Feeding your dog the right amount of food each day is the best way to keep them healthy. The best way to do this is to find out the recommended number of calories that they should be consuming and then figure out how much of their food they need to meet that number. Measuring your dog’s food inaccurately or not measuring it at all can lead to malnourishment or obesity. To keep your dog at their optimal weight, feeding them correctly is important.
It’s easy to say that your dog needs 1 cup of food, but how many calories are in that cup? Not all dog food is the same. It gets even more confusing when you know that 8 ounces are in a cup, but the dry dog food that fills that cup does not weigh 8 ounces.