Dehydrated eggs? Yes, indeed! I know, we’re a little crazy, but these are the thing we test for you, furfriends! This is the next unusual food trial in our special little dehydration experiment. With Easter coming up, we figured it was the perfect time to try a very unusual take on eggs. We’re going to try both making dehydrated eggs and making our own ground eggshells for dogs. And as a little pupdate a few years on, based upon the results, I’ve updated this post to include a pawnote on baked egg mini bites and dehydrated baked egg mini bites, too!
Pups and Purines
For different reasons, many of our furfriends are on restriction diets, especially some of our Dal pals. Dalmatians differ from other dogs in how their bodies metabolise purines. This places them at a heightened risk of kidney and urinary crystals and stone formation. Yeouch! See our post on Dalmatians and purine issues for more information and linked resources.
We’re fortunate that none of our dogs have, thus far, had issues. Still, it’s better to lean on the side of safety. The boys aren’t on a prescription or specialist diet, but we aim to moderate their purine intake. Our dogs get a variety of meats and fish in moderated quantities, but also lots of less traditional dog foods, including dairy, eggs, gelatin, fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, and more. Gelatin is one of our favourite treats and bridges all sorts of doggy dietary models, including being a low-purine protein. One more of the many reasons we love gummies!
Eggs and cottage cheese are also doggone delicious nutritious lower purine protein sources. They’re common ingredients in purine moderated diets, so we’re going to do a few special dehydrator experiments for our furfriends and see whether we can successfully dehydrate those to make them into bite sized treats, food toppers, or a just to be little more portable for taking with you on road trips, camping, etc. We share our dehydrated cottage cheese experiments in a previous post. Now we’re going to try making dehydrated eggs.
Egg-cellent Considerations
Delicious and Nutritious
Eggs are a high protein food option (for people and pets), but as with any food or treat ingredient, they may not be suitable for some dogs. They’re one of natures few complete foods, and are compatible with a variety of different feeding plans and dietary models.
Raw vs. Cooked
There is debate around this, so you’ll need to make the decision about what works for you and your dogs. Eggs do have a small risk of salmonella. However, unless your dog has health issues or a compromised immune system, they’re generally far better equipped than us humans to handle the bacteria that may be associated with raw animal products. Our boys eat both raw and cooked eggs.
Whether to Include the Shells
Again, there is debate around this, so you’ll need to make the decision about what works for you and your dogs. With the shells included, the eggs are a more complete food. Just a like a dog might raid in the wild. Our boys get the shells dropped into the bowls with their raw eggs, like raiding a nest in the wild, but it’s often pooped out so they’re not really getting the nutritional benefits. Grinding can be easier on dogs’ mouths and more digestible. Depending on the food regulations in your area and what type of eggs you buy, shells may be treated. Eggs with shell also carry a higher salmonella risk. Choose, handle, and prepare with care if including the shells.
Cost and Storage
Eggs are generally quite affordable, but have a limited shelf life. They also not very portable (haha!). That makes these crunchy little nuggets of dehydrated egg an interesting option for preparing eggs for longer-term storage or portable use. Dehydrated eggs will never replace our use of raw eggs, but onwards with the dehydrator experiment and verdict report. Into the dog treat test kitchen we go!
Grinding Eggshell Powder for Dogs
We’re using the whole egg in this test, but you could do either the eggs or the eggshells to store and use separately. Eggshell powder is not something I would normally make for our dogs, but I’m all about trying new things.
Although our dogs usually get raw eggs with their shells, I took a multi-step approach to prepping the eggshells for grinding, then added it to my scramble (optional). That way, readers with different supplies or health concerns can see a more thorough prep option for eggshells, and I could be more confident in safe storage. It also makes it safer for the humans who may be exposed to the powder during grinding and use.
After transferring the eggs to a dish for prep, I washed all of the eggshells. They were then immersed in boiling water for a sterilising wash. The washed eggshells were transferred to a baking tray to dry briefly, and then baked at approximately ~100C for approximately 10 minutes. This is both to provide an additional safety measure and to completely dry the eggshells prior to grinding.
Once cooled, ensure that they’re completely dry. Then grind to the desired texture. In hindsight, I should have tried transferring the shells from the food processor to the coffee grinder to see if I could get a finer powder. Mine was still rather coarse. On to prepping the eggs!
Dehydrating Scrambled Eggs for Dog Treats and Food Toppers
Scrambling Prior to Dehydrating
After doing some reading on camping and prepping forums and websites, I decided to scramble and then dehydrate the eggs. This would allow the egg to be dried on the perforated racks as well as (hopefully) give me nuggets of dried egg. I scrambled in the microwave so I could prep a large batch without any added oils. I included dog-safe herbs and the eggshells in my scrambled egg mixture, but both are optional.
Safety First, Furfriends!
Depending on your personal food safety and handling preferences, precooking the eggs via scrambling may not be enough. You can use the FSIS recommendations for dehydrating poulty as a guide and use either precooking to a minimum of 75C before dehydrating at a moderate heat (pre-heating meat wet is recommended for human food safety) and/or pop them in the oven for a bonus safety cook after dehydrating.
Dehydrating the Scrambled Eggs
Place the prepared scrambled eggs in thin dollops on a dehydrator rack (or prepared tray). Dehydrate according to your specific dehydrator’s settings/instructions. If you don’t have a food dehydrator (affiliate link), you can substitute an oven-safe baking/cooking rack, drip tray, and a fan-forced oven. The dehydration time will depend on your machine, settings, how thick your eggs are spread, and the moisture content. As the egg mixture dries, it will change in colour and take on a hard firm texture.
Storage
Allow to cool thoroughly before storage. In theory, thoroughly dehydrated food should be shelf stable if kept completely dry. However, as with all of our homemade dehydrated treats, I prefer to err on the side of food safety caution and keep mine in the fridge (or freeze if making a large batch for extended storage). The dehydrated eggs take incredibly less space to store than fresh. Win!
Dehydrated Egg Experiment Verdict
Dehydration: Success
It took some prep, but this was mainly time with the optional eggshells, not the actual eggs. It was easier to successfully dehydrate the scrambled eggs than I expected, and the dried eggs were firmer than I’d anticipated. The dogs had zero complaints. Moderation is key. You’ll be amazes at how much things reduce during dehydration, so don’t be overly generous on the size or quantity. No matter how big those puppy dog eyes may be!
Consistency: Firm Nuggets and Crumbles
The dehydrated scrambled eggs were much firmer than the preceding dehydrated cottage cheese experiment. Larger portions worked ok as hand treats. The smaller nuggets were easier to use in small servings as toppers. With more care in placement on the dehydrator tray, I could probably get a a more consistent nugget rather than a mix of nuggets and small crumbles. With some adjustments (and possibly other ingredients), I might consider trying a piped mixture instead of the dollops. Or prepping the eggs like an omelette and slicing into small pieces instead. I think the omelette method would probably be my next test for dehydrating eggs, if I was making another batch. See below!
Portability: Handle with Care
Although surprisingly firm, I still wouldn’t consider these great as portable pocket treats. Even if only for the food safety and handling factors. In a jar, however, they’d travel ok. As a topper, no worries at all. Dehydrating eggs could be a good option for short term portability if you’re travelling with a diet restricted pet. As noted above, even with thoroughly dehydrated treats, I still prefer freezing for safer storage long term. But the compact dehydrated eggs are certainly a lot easier to store and/or serve in small quantities from the freezer than whole eggs.
Would I Do it Again?
Maybe. Raw eggs are still my preference by far and I’m not sold on the hard nuggets of dehydrated egg. But, if I needed to store in bulk, I’d definitely consider scrambling and dehydrating eggs. Or perhaps slicing from a omelette-style egg prep instead, as mentioned above, to test a different consistency. I’m not sure about the shells, though. Still, it’s nice to know that it works, potential issues, and the consistency limitations. You never know when it might come in handy.
Baked Egg Mini Bites and Dehydrated Mini Bites
Pupdate from the test kitchen! It’s been a few years since this test post was shared, but I finally did it, furfriends. I tested some mini egg bite omelette cubes in the dehydrator. I can confirm that omelette works great as an alternative to scrambled. My mini bites were plain, and using this method would likely work better without shells or add-ins that might float or settle before solidifying. But it makes great little cubes!
For simplicity and to avoid any added oils, I baked the omelette by simply scrambling plain egg and baking it briefly in the oven to set. I used baking paper to make sure that I could pop the baked egg cleanly out of the pan, no muss no fuss. The baked eggs were sliced into little mini bites. This is a great option for bulk prepping small portion eggs for little pups or for general use small portion treats or toppers. It was very easy and I will absolutely be doing this again! A whole egg is too much for some dogs and/or diets, and this is a very easy way to split the servings. I dehydrated a few as a test follow on from the scrambled experiment above (success!) but freezing as-is works fine if you don’t need/want the extra portability or crunch of dehydrating. Simply cutting the baked omelette, freezing, then transferring to another container for free flow works great for the mini bites. I think this will be one of my new favs for storage before expiry to avoid waste.
Hungry for more tasty treats? There are all sorts of homemade dog treat ideas in our blog archives. You can use the category and tag labels to find recipes that might be of interest or use our internal search tools to find something specific. Remember, treats (bought or homemade) are for spoiling your pup in moderation. We share ideas from treats that we’ve made ourselves for our pets, but different animals have different preferences (likes/dislikes), just like people. Some pets may have special dietary requirements and/or food allergies/intolerances. If you are ever in doubt or have questions about what’s suitable for your pet, have a chat with your trusted vet.
