Give a dog a bone (or some grain)

The Detail

In recent weeks I have been travelling around South Australia with Grain Producers South Australia, providing workshops on grain markets. This had focused a lot on supply and demand, as this is the primary driver of pricing levels.

Demand is the volume of grain for export, but also the requirement of local consumers. This could be pig farmers, cattle feedlots or pizza manufacturers. One of the often forgotten about animals when it comes to consumption is mans best friend. So it is worthwhile providing an update on how much demand dogs create.

To determine the value, we have to do a little digging to create a methodology for working out the feed demand.

There are approximately 5.1m dogs in Australia, 1 for every 5 people, according to a 2019 study by Animal Medicines Australia. Just like any other animal, such as a pig or chicken, they eat a certain amount of food per day, based on their weight. However, we know that dogs can vary significantly in size; a great dane will eat more than a shitzu.

The average weight of a dog in Australia turns out to be approximately 22kg. The feed requirements for dogs are based on a conversion of grams of food per kg of bodyweight. A generally accepted feed requirement is 11g per kg of body weight.

At an average dog size of 22kg, this amounts to 242g of food per day. Across our average population of dogs, this is 451kmt of feed per year. This isn’t a volume that should be sniffed at.

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