Veterinary feeding guide · Labrador Retriever
Every number on this page is calculated from your dog’s own body weight using the same equations veterinary nutritionists use — then converted into grams you can actually weigh out.
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Resting need of a 35 kg Labrador
1,007 kcal
Typical neutered adult, 35 kg
1,612 kcal
Peak need — 6-month puppy
1,987 kcal
Newborn, per kg body weight
~220 kcal
Adult, per kg body weight
~46 kcal
Start here
Forget the picture on the bag. A feeding amount is a calorie target converted into grams — and the calorie target depends on two things only: how much your dog weighs, and what kind of life your dog leads.
Step 1
This is the energy your Labrador burns doing nothing at all — heart, lungs, brain, temperature. It is called RER (Resting Energy Requirement).
The 0.75 power is not a typo. Energy use does not scale straight with body size — a 40 kg dog does not burn twice a 20 kg dog. This is why “10 g per kg” rules of thumb are always wrong at the extremes.
Step 2
Nobody rests all day. Multiply the resting number by the factor that matches your dog’s life stage, neuter status and activity. This gives MER — the daily calories to feed.
Growing puppies sit at the top of the range and step down as they mature. A neutered adult pet Labrador sits at 1.6. The full ladder is in the tables below.
Step 3
Find kcal/kg on your food bag — it is the metabolisable energy, usually in small print near the analysis. Then:
Two foods can differ by 30% in energy density. This is the step everyone skips, and it is the single most common reason a carefully calculated diet still makes a dog fat.
Scoops and cups are measured by volume, and kibble settles. Studies of owners measuring dry food with a cup have found errors ranging from roughly 20% under to nearly 50% over the intended amount. A £10 digital scale removes that error permanently — and for a breed as prone to obesity as this one, it is the highest-value thing you will buy.
Read this before you use the calculator
Every number on this page scales with body weight. That is fine for a dog at a healthy weight — and actively dangerous for one that is not.
The feedback loop that runs the wrong way
If you enter today’s weight for an overweight dog, this chart will hand you the calories needed to keep him exactly that heavy — permanently. And as he gains, it will tell you to feed even more. The heavier the dog, the bigger the portion it recommends. Left unchecked, a weight-based calculator will feed a Labrador into obesity and then defend the portion size with arithmetic.
There is a second reason current weight overestimates. Fat tissue is metabolically almost inert compared with muscle — it burns very little energy at rest. An obese dog’s true requirement per kilogram is therefore lower than a lean dog’s, not the same. Calculating on current weight overshoots twice: once for the extra kilos, and again for assuming those kilos are as metabolically hungry as lean tissue.
Every veterinary weight-management guideline says the same thing: calculate energy requirements on ideal body weight, never on current body weight.7
| Which weight you use | Sum | kcal / day | Grams / day | What actually happens |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Today’s weight, 45 kg the intuitive, wrong choice | 1.6 × RER(45) | 1,946 | 556 g | Holds him at 45 kg for the rest of his life. Nothing changes, and the chart looks like it is working. |
| Ideal weight, 32 kg once he is lean — maintenance | 1.6 × RER(32) | 1,507 | 431 g | What he will need after he reaches target — still 439 kcal a day less than the wrong figure. |
| Ideal weight, 32 kg while reducing — the correct plan now | 1.0 × RER(32) | 942 | 269 g | Loses weight at a safe 1–2% a week. This is the row he needs today, under veterinary supervision. |
| What your hands tell you | Score | Over ideal | If he is 45 kg today |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ribs easily felt, clear waist from above, belly tucked from the side | 5/9 | — | 45 kg is ideal |
| Ribs felt with slight pressure, waist starting to soften | 6/9 | ~10% | ~41 kg |
| Ribs hard to feel, no waist when viewed from above | 7/9 | ~20% | ~37.5 kg |
| Ribs not findable, fat over the spine and tail base | 8/9 | ~30% | ~34.5 kg |
| Heavy fat deposits, distended belly, obvious fat on neck and limbs | 9/9 | ~40% | ~32 kg |
The answer to an overweight Labrador is never to halve the food overnight. Cutting too hard costs lean muscle and leaves the diet short of protein and micronutrients. Target 1–2% of body weight per week — for a 45 kg dog that is 450–900 g a week, and reaching a 32 kg target will take the better part of a year. Use a purpose-formulated reducing diet so the nutrients stay complete at low calorie levels, and have your vet weigh the dog monthly. Faster weight loss is not better — it is a different problem.
Do it for your dog
Enter the weight your dog should be, pick the life stage, and read the answer. For a dog already at a healthy weight that is simply today’s weight. For an overweight dog it is the target weight — see the section above for why that distinction is not optional.
Resting need · RER
1,007 kcal
70 × weight0.75
Feed per day
1,612 kcal
Includes everything — food, treats, chews, training rewards.
That is roughly
460 g/day
230 g per meal, twice daily
This is a starting point, not a prescription. Individual dogs vary by up to ±25% from the calculated figure. Weigh your dog every 2–4 weeks and adjust by 10% at a time.
The core idea
Relative to its size, a newborn Labrador burns energy at roughly five times the adult rate. That multiplier falls steadily from the day it is born until it stops growing — and if the food does not fall with it, the dog gets fat. This is the single most useful thing to understand about feeding this breed.
A 6-month-old male Labrador weighing 22.6 kg needs about 1,987 kcal a day. The same dog, fully grown at 34 kg and neutered, needs about 1,577 kcal.
The half-grown puppy eats roughly 25% more than the finished adult dog — while weighing two-thirds as much. Peak absolute intake happens somewhere around five to eight months, and then it comes down.
Owners who keep feeding the six-month amount at eighteen months are overfeeding by about a quarter, every day, forever.
Four weeks is the weaning milestone. The puppy begins taking solid food alongside milk, and its energy need per kilogram of body weight is the highest it will ever be in its life — roughly five times the adult rate per kilo.
Four months is the multiplier milestone. This is where the feeding factor steps down from about 3× resting to about 2× resting, and it is the one that changes your arithmetic when you are working out a daily amount.
So: four weeks is about what the puppy eats. Four months is about how much you feed. If you are reading a number off this page, four months is the line that moves it.
The multiplier ladder above and the European FEDIAF energy equations are separate systems built by separate bodies — and for adult dogs they land within about 2% of each other. For a 35 kg Labrador: the WSAVA multiplier gives 1,612 kcal, FEDIAF’s figure for a typical pet dog gives 1,583 kcal. When two independent standards agree that closely, you can feed to the number with confidence.
Birth to eighteen months
Weights shown are typical for the breed, not targets to hit. A puppy slightly under these figures with good body condition is healthy; a puppy above them is not “doing well”. Calories come from the NRC growth equation, which accounts for how much growing is still left to do.
| Age | Typical weight | kcal / day | × resting | Grams / day | Meals | Grams / meal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 weeks | 8.0 kg | 1,415 | 4.2× | 372 g | 4 | 93 g |
| 10 weeks | 10.2 kg | 1,591 | 4.0× | 419 g | 4 | 105 g |
| 3 months | 13.1 kg | 1,762 | 3.7× | 464 g | 4 | 116 g |
| 4 months | 16.7 kg | 1,898 | 3.3× | 499 g | 3 | 166 g |
| 5 months | 19.9 kg | 1,964 | 3.0× | 517 g | 3 | 172 g |
| 6 months peak intake | 22.6 kg | 1,987 | 2.7× | 523 g | 2 | 262 g |
| 8 months | 26.5 kg | 1,980 | 2.4× | 521 g | 2 | 260 g |
| 10 months | 29.2 kg | 1,953 | 2.2× | 514 g | 2 | 257 g |
| 12 months | 31.5 kg | 1,917 | 2.1× | 504 g | 2 | 252 g |
| 15 months | 33.0 kg | 1,889 | 2.0× | 497 g | 2 | 248 g |
| 18 months switch to adult food | 34.0 kg | 1,868 | 1.9× | 492 g | 2 | 246 g |
| Age | Typical weight | kcal / day | × resting | Grams / day | Meals | Grams / meal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 weeks | 6.8 kg | 1,253 | 4.3× | 330 g | 4 | 82 g |
| 10 weeks | 8.7 kg | 1,413 | 4.0× | 372 g | 4 | 93 g |
| 3 months | 11.2 kg | 1,565 | 3.7× | 412 g | 4 | 103 g |
| 4 months | 14.2 kg | 1,683 | 3.3× | 443 g | 3 | 148 g |
| 5 months | 17.0 kg | 1,743 | 3.0× | 459 g | 3 | 153 g |
| 6 months peak intake | 19.3 kg | 1,764 | 2.7× | 464 g | 2 | 232 g |
| 8 months | 22.6 kg | 1,758 | 2.4× | 463 g | 2 | 232 g |
| 10 months | 24.9 kg | 1,733 | 2.2× | 456 g | 2 | 228 g |
| 12 months | 26.8 kg | 1,703 | 2.1× | 448 g | 2 | 224 g |
| 15 months | 28.1 kg | 1,678 | 2.0× | 442 g | 2 | 221 g |
| 18 months switch to adult food | 29.0 kg | 1,658 | 1.9× | 436 g | 2 | 218 g |
Leaving food down all day is the classic large-breed mistake. In Labradors specifically, puppies fed freely grew faster, carried more weight, and had a measurably higher rate of hip dysplasia than littermates fed a measured ration.3 Growing fast is not the same as growing well — and the skeleton is what pays.
Large-breed puppies cannot fully regulate how much calcium they absorb. Too much causes developmental bone disease. Choose a food carrying an AAFCO or FEDIAF statement for growth of large-breed dogs — calcium roughly 1.0–1.8% on a dry-matter basis — and then add nothing. No bone meal, no supplements, no eggshell powder, no “joint” mineral mixes.
Puppy numbers go stale fast. Reweigh every two weeks, run your hands over the ribs, and adjust by about 10% at a time. If you can no longer feel ribs easily, cut back before the next growth spurt — not after.
Labradors reach roughly 90% of adult weight by twelve months and finish filling out by fifteen to eighteen. Move to adult food somewhere in that window — earlier if the dog is already carrying condition, later if still lean and growing. Transition over 7–10 days, mixing gradually.
Energy needs drop after neutering — the ladder moves from 1.8× to 1.6×, and appetite often rises at the same time. Cut the ration by about 10–15% within a fortnight of surgery rather than waiting to see what happens. Most post-neuter weight gain is preventable and happens in the first six months.
Growth diets should supply DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid that supports brain and retinal development. Any food meeting the AAFCO growth profile will contain it. This is one of the few genuine reasons to use a proper puppy food rather than adult food in smaller portions.
The working years
A Labrador that swims and retrieves for two hours a day and a Labrador that walks to the end of the road are the same breed with completely different diets. Find the row that honestly describes yours.
| Status | Factor | 25 kg | 30 kg | 35 kg | 40 kg | 35 kg → grams @3,300 |
@3,500 | @3,800 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight-loss plan calculated on target weight, vet-supervised | 1.0× | 783 | 897 | 1,007 | 1,112 | 305 g | 288 g | 265 g |
| Gains weight easily neutered, low activity, food-obsessed | 1.4× | 1,096 | 1,256 | 1,410 | 1,556 | 427 g | 403 g | 371 g |
| Neutered adult the default for most pet Labradors | 1.6× | 1,253 | 1,436 | 1,612 | 1,779 | 488 g | 460 g | 424 g |
| Entire adult not neutered, normal pet life | 1.8× | 1,410 | 1,615 | 1,813 | 2,001 | 549 g | 518 g | 477 g |
| Very active pet 2h+ hard exercise, daily swimming | 2.0× | 1,566 | 1,794 | 2,015 | 2,224 | 610 g | 576 g | 530 g |
| Working gundog in season, full shooting days | 3.0× | 2,349 | 2,692 | 3,022 | 3,336 | 916 g | 863 g | 795 g |
| Heavy work sled, search & rescue, endurance | 4–8× | 3,132+ | 3,589+ | 4,029+ | 4,448+ | 1,221 g | 1,151 g | 1,060 g |
Two walks a day and a garden is not the 2.0× row — that is an ordinary pet Labrador at 1.6×. The higher rows are for dogs doing sustained hard work: a full day’s beating, competitive field work, long-distance running alongside a bike. Overestimating activity is one of the most common ways owners accidentally overfeed.
A Labrador that swims regularly in cold water, or lives and works outdoors through winter, has a genuinely higher requirement — thermoregulation is expensive. Working dogs in winter conditions can need 10–20% above their warm-weather figure. Feed to condition and expect the number to move with the seasons.
Ready-made · print it for the food bin
Male and female, worked all the way to grams per meal, with the treat allowance already taken out and variations for activity, age and weight loss.
Eight years and beyond
Older Labradors slow down, lose lean muscle, and often develop arthritis that further reduces activity. Energy needs fall — but protein needs do not.
| Situation | Factor | 35 kg | Grams |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior, still active | 1.4× | 1,410 | 427 g |
| Senior, slowing down | 1.3× | 1,309 | 397 g |
| Arthritic, mostly resting | 1.2× | 1,209 | 366 g |
The old advice to restrict protein in healthy older dogs has not held up. Ageing dogs lose lean muscle mass, and adequate good-quality protein helps slow that. Restriction belongs only in specific diagnosed disease — and that is a decision for your vet with bloodwork in front of them, not a routine change at a birthday.
What does matter: keeping an arthritic Labrador lean is the most effective non-drug treatment available for joint pain. Every extra kilo is load on joints already struggling.
The most important section on this page
Roughly six in ten Labradors in surveyed populations are overweight or obese. This is not a cosmetic issue — it is the single biggest modifiable factor in how long your dog lives and how comfortably.
Forty-eight Labradors were followed for their entire lives. Half were fed 25% less than their paired littermates. The restricted dogs lived a median of 13.0 years against 11.2 years — and needed treatment for osteoarthritis years later than their siblings.2 Nearly two extra years, from portion size alone. No supplement, drug or diet trend on the market comes close to that effect size.
Check your dog in ten seconds — hands, not scales
Too thin
Ribs, spine and pelvic bones visible from a distance with no fat covering. Obvious loss of muscle over the back. Severe waist tuck.
Ideal — aim here
Ribs felt without pressing — like the back of your knuckles, not your palm. A clear waist behind the ribs when viewed from above, and a visible upward tuck of the belly from the side.
Overweight
You have to press to feel ribs. No waist from above — the back looks broad and flat. No abdominal tuck from the side. Fat deposits over the lower back and tail base.
Pregnancy and nursing
Pregnancy energy needs barely move for the first five weeks — the puppies do almost all their growing at the end. Nursing, by contrast, is the highest energy demand a healthy dog will ever face.
| Stage | Factor | kcal / day | Grams / day | Feeding notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pregnancy, weeks 1–5 | 1.8× | 1,615 | 414 g | No increase needed. Overfeeding early adds fat, not puppies, and makes whelping harder. |
| Pregnancy, weeks 6–9 | 3.0× | 2,692 | 690 g | Increase gradually. Switch to a growth diet. Split into 3–4 meals — there is little room left for a full stomach. |
| Nursing, week 1 | 2.0× | 1,794 | 460 g | Free access to water at all times. Demand climbs steeply from here. |
| Nursing, weeks 3–4 peak lactation | 4–8× | 3,589–7,178 | 920–1,840 g | Scale with litter size. Feed to appetite — free access to a growth diet is appropriate here, one of the few times it is. Weight loss in the bitch means she needs more. |
| Weaning onward | taper | ↓ to 1.8× | ↓ 414 g | Reduce as the puppies take solid food, back to maintenance by the time they are fully weaned at around 8 weeks. |
Giving extra calcium to a pregnant bitch suppresses the hormonal machinery she needs to mobilise her own calcium stores when lactation begins — and increases the risk of eclampsia, a life-threatening drop in blood calcium after whelping. A complete growth diet supplies what she needs. Any supplementation should be on veterinary instruction only.
The ten percent rule
Treats should make up no more than 10% of daily calories — and that 10% comes out of the food ration, not on top of it. Everything above 10% starts to unbalance a diet that was carefully formulated to be complete.
| Daily total | Treat allowance | Food ration |
|---|---|---|
| 1,007 kcal on a reducing plan | 101 | 906 |
| 1,410 kcal gains weight easily | 141 | 1,269 |
| 1,612 kcal typical 35 kg adult | 161 | 1,451 |
| 1,813 kcal entire adult | 181 | 1,632 |
| 1,987 kcal 6-month puppy | 199 | 1,788 |
| Treat | kcal | % of allowance |
|---|---|---|
| Large dental chew | ~140 | 87% |
| Medium banana | ~105 | 65% |
| Tablespoon peanut butter check it is xylitol-free | ~95 | 59% |
| Small piece of cheddar (28 g) | ~110 | 68% |
| One boiled egg | ~78 | 48% |
| Plain rice cake | ~35 | 22% |
| Cup of plain popcorn air-popped, no salt or butter | ~31 | 19% |
| 100 g green beans | ~31 | 19% |
| Medium carrot | ~25 | 16% |
| Ice cube | 0 | 0% |
Grapes, raisins, sultanas and currants (kidney failure, no safe dose established) · xylitol / birch sugar in sugar-free gum, sweets, some peanut butters and baked goods (catastrophic blood-sugar crash and liver failure) · chocolate · onion, garlic, leek and chives in any form, including powders and gravy · macadamia nuts · alcohol · raw bread dough · cooked bones of any kind, which splinter. If your dog eats any of these, ring your vet or an animal poison line immediately — do not wait for symptoms.
Breed-specific
It is not that Labrador owners are careless. There is a documented genetic reason this breed is hungrier than others — and knowing it changes how you should manage the food bowl.
Researchers at Cambridge identified a deletion in the POMC gene that is common in Labrador Retrievers and their close relative the Flat-Coated Retriever — and essentially absent in most other breeds. The gene is involved in the pathway that signals fullness after eating.
Dogs carrying it were significantly more food-motivated and, on average, heavier — around 1.9 kg heavier per copy of the variant.1 It was found in roughly a quarter of Labradors tested, and was over-represented in assistance dogs, where high food motivation makes a dog easier to train.
What it means for you: your dog acting permanently starving may be genuinely biological, not manipulation, and not evidence you are underfeeding. Judge by body condition and the scales — never by how convincingly your Labrador claims to be hungry.
8 weeks – 4 months: 4 meals
4 – 6 months: 3 meals
6 months onward: 2 meals
Adult: 2 meals a day
Twice daily suits most adult Labradors and helps with a breed that experiences hunger keenly. One large meal a day is not recommended in a deep-chested breed.
Avoid a large meal immediately before or after vigorous exercise. Leave about an hour either side. Labradors are moderately deep-chested and while their risk of gastric dilatation-volvulus is far below that of giant breeds, the precaution costs nothing.
Signs of GDV — a swollen hard abdomen, unproductive retching, restlessness and distress — are an emergency. Go straight to a vet.
Look for a manufacturer that employs a qualified nutritionist, runs feeding trials, and will tell you the kcal/kg and full nutrient values on request. The WSAVA publishes a list of questions to ask — it is the most reliable filter available to an owner.
Be cautious with grain-free and exotic-protein diets: an FDA investigation examined reports of dilated cardiomyopathy in dogs eating them, including Labradors. Causation was not established and the enquiry closed without a definitive answer, but a diet from a manufacturer with genuine nutritional expertise remains the safer default.
Practical
Every number on this page is in calories, because calories are the only unit that transfers between foods. The conversion takes one line of arithmetic.
Look for kcal/kg or ME (metabolisable energy). It is usually in small print near the analytical constituents, sometimes as kcal per cup or per 100 g. If it is per 100 g, multiply by 10 to get kcal/kg. If your bag genuinely does not state it, email the manufacturer — and consider it a mark against the brand.
Worked example. A 35 kg neutered adult needs 1,612 kcal. The bag says 3,500 kcal/kg.
1,612 ÷ 3,500 × 1000 = 460 g per day — so 230 g morning and 230 g evening.
| Food energy | Typical of | Grams / day |
|---|---|---|
| 2,900 kcal/kg | Light / reducing dry | 556 g |
| 3,300 kcal/kg | Large-breed adult dry | 488 g |
| 3,500 kcal/kg | Standard adult dry | 460 g |
| 3,800 kcal/kg | Puppy / active dry | 424 g |
| 4,100 kcal/kg | Performance dry | 393 g |
| 1,000 kcal/kg | Wet / tinned | 1,612 g |
Calculated requirements assume a healthy dog. Kidney disease, liver disease, pancreatitis, diabetes, heart failure, food allergy, cancer, hypothyroidism and recovery from surgery all change both the calorie target and the nutrient profile required. If your Labrador has a diagnosed condition, is losing or gaining weight unexpectedly, has a suddenly ravenous or absent appetite, or is on long-term medication, the diet is a clinical decision. Take this chart to your vet as a starting point — not as a substitute for one.
Where these numbers come from
The equations and multipliers on this page are published veterinary standards, not house rules. If you want to check the arithmetic yourself, everything you need is here.