Balance Over Time– Creating Nutritionally Complete and Balanced Meals Over Time for Dogs Using Hare Today Grinds and Animal Diet Formulator
A species-appropriate diet is essential for the well-being of our pets. There are various approaches to providing our pets with a nutritionally diverse raw diet, ranging from commercial complete and balanced diets to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) diets. DIY can be beneficial if you have a pet with food intolerances, want full control over sourcing and ingredients, or want to cut costs. There are also different ways to DIY raw diets from prey model, frankenprey, barf, etc.
No matter what method or style you choose to feed, we still want to ensure that our pets get the needed nutrients in their diet. Some people want to use software and spreadsheets to make sure they are feeding a complete and balanced diet every day. Others are happy with feeding a variety of food to ensure that nutrients are met over time.
We believe that while not every single meal needs to be complete and balanced, diets should be balanced over time and we should strive to get as close as possible to a complete nutritional profile, regardless of the protein(s) we choose to feed.
What is Balance Over Time?
Balance over time is a method of raw feeding that provides essential nutrients over time instead of daily. Healthy adult animals have the ability to regulate the nutrients they consume in their body and don’t require complete and balanced meals every day. We can provide the essential nutrients to balance their meals over time, over the course of multiple days up to one week. It is important to know that the amount of the nutrient needs to account for the days missed. The recommended amount must be doubled when feeding three times a week, tripled when feeding two times a week, or the seven day total when feeding once a week.
Do and Don’t for Balance Over Time
The balance over time method of feeding is only appropriate for healthy adult animals. It is NOT appropriate for growing puppies or kittens. It is also NOT suitable for medically compromised animals. For puppies and kittens, we DO want to provide them with complete and balanced nutrition daily so they can develop optimally as they grow. We also want to provide daily balanced meals for medically compromised animals so that we don’t tax their bodies more than necessary and they have all the nutrients required for healing.
Certain nutrients DO need to be provided daily and cannot be balanced over time because the body can’t store them. These nutrients include: calories, macronutrients (moisture, protein, fat, carbohydrates), amino acids, and water soluble vitamins. Other nutrients can be balanced over time because the body can store them when fed in excess. These nutrients include: fatty acids, fat soluble vitamins, and minerals.
How do we know what nutrients are lacking and what foods to add?
Some people feed using a ratio like 80/10/10 where 80% of the food is meat, 10% is organ, and 10% is bone. There are typical nutrients that are deficient in these ratio diets including: ALA fatty acids, EPA/DHA fatty acids, iodine, manganese, vitamin E, vitamin D, and zinc.
The best way to know what the diet is lacking is to use a formulation software that contains nutritional data on thousands of food ingredients. This will allow you to determine if the diet is complete and balanced. It will show you which nutrients are lacking, which are in excess, and what ingredients you can add to balance the diet.
The goal is complete and balanced nutrition; however, it is important to note that nutrition is not an exact science for people or pets. The National Research Council (NRC) has developed Recommended Allowances (RAs) for essential nutrients that should be in dog and cat food. There are also standards for pet foods set forth by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) and the European Pet Food Industry Federation (FEDIAF). The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides us with nutrient analyses that are averages of the nutrients in foods.
Balancing Diets for Dogs
The following examples were created using the Animal Diet Formulator software to determine what nutrient deficiencies were present in just the Hare Today grinds (meat, bone, and organ). We also can determine what whole foods contain specific nutrients that are needed to address the deficiency.
Below is a list of the nutrient deficiencies in the Hare Today Alpaca grind and what foods will provide those nutrients:
- Manganese- mussels, green tripe, turmeric, hempseeds
- Zinc- oysters, beef, venison, lamb, turkey
- Iodine- kelp
- Vitamin D- mackerel, salmon, herring, eggs, cod liver oil
- Vitamin E- sunflower seeds, almonds, cod liver oil, wheatgerm oil
- Vitamin B5- beef liver, beef kidney, chicken liver, pork heart, beef heart, eggs
- Linolenic Acid- chicken, beef, and pork fat, chicken skin, hempseeds, coconut oil, sunflower seeds
An example of what you can add per 1 pound of Hare Today Alpaca to address the deficiencies and create a balanced recipe include:
- 3 large eggs
- 0.5 oz oysters (½ oyster)
- 2 oz oily fish (mackerel, salmon, sardines, etc)
- 5 g (½ tsp) hulled hempseed
- 6 g (2 tsp) turmeric
- 1.1 g (1 tsp) cod liver oil, No added A & D
- 1 g (⅛ tsp) kelp (700 micrograms of iodine per gram)
Below is a list of the nutrient deficiencies in the Hare Today Rabbit grind and what foods will provide those nutrients:
- Manganese- mussels, green tripe, turmeric, hempseeds
- Zinc- oysters, beef, venison, lamb, turkey
- Iodine- kelp
- Vitamin D- mackerel, salmon, herring, eggs, cod liver oil
- Vitamin E- sunflower seeds, almonds, cod liver oil, wheatgerm oil
An example of what you can add per 1 pound of Hare Today Rabbit to address the deficiencies and create a balanced recipe include:
3 large eggs
3 oz canned sardines in water, no salt added
2 oz oysters (2 oysters)
10 g (1 tsp) hulled hempseeds
0.5 g (1/16 tsp) kelp (700 micrograms of iodine per gram)
1 g (1 tsp) cod liver oil, No added A & D
Putting It All Together
This is just an example of one way you can balance your dog’s diet over time. It’s completely fine if this method doesn’t work for you. There is no one correct way to feed our pets. The ultimate goal is to strive to get as close as possible to a complete nutritional profile to ensure that our pets receive all of the essential nutrients they need to thrive.
Below are some additional resources for how to balance over time:
Balance Over Time - Raw Feeding Guide for Adult Dogs & Adult Cats
BARF Ratio Diet: Raw Feeding Adult Dogs & Puppies | Hannah Ra
