In BARF, iodine, zinc, etc. are important supplements that can be added to your animal's diet in various ways. Iodine is particularly relevant for thyroid function and is therefore found in the highest concentrations in the body there. There are various methods within the BARF community for supplementing the feeding plan with iodine, which we would like to highlight in this article, and we also explain what we believe to be the best approaches.
BARF: Covering iodine needs
What is the best way to meet your dog's iodine requirements as part of a BARF diet? You can choose between supplying the animal portion of the meals or adding supplements, in this case seaweed flour. The natural product made from seaweed contains 500 to 800 milligrams of iodine per kilogram and is therefore a very rich source of iodine. In contrast, iodine can be supplied through animal sources such as fish or by feeding a whole prey animal according to the original prey model . This whole prey animal contains the thyroid gland, which provides by far the largest proportion of iodine in prey animals. It is also possible to add iodized sea salt.
The disadvantage of adding sea salt or feeding fish is that it does not cover a dog's daily iodine requirement. For example, a typical BARF meal after adding one gram of salt only covers 13 percent of the daily iodine requirement, and a pure fish meal, depending on the fish used, also only provides a fraction in most cases. By far the fish species richest in iodine are cod and pollock - these can certainly meet the daily requirement in one meal if they are given sufficient quantities. However, a pure fish diet is of course difficult to implement in the long term, and only one pure fish meal per week is generally recommended. Therefore, a full supply of fish for dogs is generally not possible here either - which leaves seaweed meal as the most practical and easiest alternative for everyday use if you do not want to feed a whole prey animal.
BARF: How much iodine is needed?
With any type of diet, including BARF , an adult dog weighing up to 30 kilograms should be given around 380 micrograms of iodine per day. However, this general figure is of course very imprecise, which is why the requirement can also be calculated individually:
The exact amount of iodine required can be calculated using the metabolic body weight. A simple calculation is to multiply your animal's current body weight by 0.75:
[current body weight] 0.75
This gives a metabolic body weight of 9.46 kilograms for a dog weighing 20 kilograms. An adult dog should receive around 30 micrograms of iodine per kilogram of metabolic body weight, which in our example is 283.8 micrograms. For growing puppies up to around 16 weeks old, the same formula recommends 61 micrograms of iodine, which gives a metabolic body weight of 5.63 kilograms for a dog weighing 10 kilograms, and therefore a total of 343.43 micrograms. Unfortunately, there are no official guidelines for growing dogs; you can usually reduce the 61 micrograms for the calculation in small steps until they reach adulthood to get a guideline.
Conclusion: Supplementing iodine with seaweed flour is easiest
For most dogs, the best way to solve the issue of BARF and iodine is to add seaweed meal to their daily diet. If you feed your pet fresh prey that still contains its internal organs, the iodine can be absorbed through the thyroid. However, as this is rarely a realistic option, the iodine is supplied through normal meals. Adding salt is not enough to cover the iodine requirement and only a few types of fish can do this in healthy portions. In addition, a "fish day" is only recommended once a week for healthy dogs without food intolerances.
In our BARF shop you will find many other supplements as well as seaweed meal that you can add to your pet's food. We wish you much success with feeding!
