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| Dehydrated Chicken Strips. |
Molly is still a pup at about 16 months and keeps us on our toes. Thankfully one of my wonderful readers has posted some very informative comments under some of the dog treat recipes I have posted. She also mentioned in an email (We have been conversing.) that she wanted to attempt to dehydrate some chicken for her dogs using her oven.
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| We have to keep her BUSY chewing on things we choose. |
Idea!! I have an electric dehydrator sitting in the bottom of the closet and have been buying dried chicken and duck strips in one pound bags for Molly. Perhaps I should look for a sale on chicken breasts and dry my own??
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| Molly loves all of the treats I make her. |
So I did. Step one was to place the boneless skinless chicken breasts in the freezer to get them firmed up for easier slicing. I probably left them there for 60-90 minutes. They were not frozen hard but the were quite firm. Next I placed the half breasts on a clean cutting board and sliced them making long thin strips about 1/4 to 3/8" thick.
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| Ready to start the process. |
Place the chicken strips on the trays or on a rack over a pan if you are using your oven in a manner that does not crowd them. When I looked up chicken in the direction book that came with the dehydrator it said to turn it on high and that it would take between 12 and 24 hours. This batch was perfectly done in 14 hours.
If you are using a conventional oven I suggest a temperature of 325 degrees and I would just check it ever hour or so.
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| Molly's window on the world. |
It looks to me that my yield is maybe a third of what the fresh chicken weighed so I am not certain I save any money this time but you can be sure I will certainly be watching for good sales on chicken as this was easy as pie!!
Molly is a happy dog.
My Molly Godiva is a 4 year old Chocolate Lab. I had been buying chicken 'jerky' strips for her treat. She suddenly developed large, hard sores on the tops of her feet. Our Vet said to be sure the chicken was not imported from China. It was. So I bought a couple packs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced them up and put in the Excalibur. I dry them at 125-130 about 18 to 20 hours. It's chicken and I want to be sure it's dry. Molly loves this treat and her foot sores healed up and were gone in 2 weeks.
ReplyDeleteWow!! Thanks for the warning!!! I found boneless skinless chicken on sale for $1.99 @ pound so I am stocking up!! I did another batch last night and I agree with you, may as well make the treats myself to be sure it is not contaminated!!Plus the packaged stuff runs 10-13 dollars for a one pound package dehydrated. I got a better yield for 7 dollars. Hi to your Molly!! Mine is outside already chasing the squirrels!!
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