More and more people are feeding their pets freeze dried snacks. 
Dogs and cats both love the flavor and texture of freeze dried turkey, chicken and beef. Pet owners who have furry friends with skin allergies are turning to freeze dried meats and vegetables as source of limited ingredient treats. These snacks are so much better for your pets than processed treats that contain chemicals and who-knows-what. The trouble is, they’re expensive. A 3.5 ounce bag of dried turkey treats costs about $15.00 – that adds up quickly, especially if you have more than one pet.
Freeze drying your own dog and cat treats is an easy and economical way to give your fuzzy buddies healthy snacks. It’s so simple. Just freeze dry bite-size pieces of chicken, turkey, beef or whatever protein your pet likes best, and seal them in a glass jar or Mylar bag. For pets with allergies, you can also freeze dry duck, buffalo, ostrich or whatever protein source your vet recommends. Dogs love freeze dried butternut squash, pumpkin and sweet potato, and they go especially crazy for green beans. Plus, vegetable treats are the way to go if you’re trying to talk your dog into dropping a few pounds and vegetables are cheaper than meats. Cats like freeze dried tuna, chicken and turkey and we’ve even known a few who won’t pass up vegetables. Finicky cats like the flavor of nutritional yeast (a.k.a nooch) – it mimics the flavor of nacho cheese flavored chips.
If you own a Harvest Right freeze dryer, you can stop buying processed pet treats. It’s so much cheaper and healthier to make your own. Have you tried freeze drying food for your pets? Tell us what you’ve learned.
How much chicken and how much beef will produce a 4 and half ounce bag of treats? I had ask that question before and was referred to a sea of information instead of answering this one question.
The reason you might have been referred to a sea of information is that this is a really tricky question to answer. Different companies infuse different amounts of water even in to meats. So, how much the food weighs after the freeze drying process is a hard question for us to determine how much the food weighed before the process. The freeze dryer can handle about 8 to 10 pounds of food at one time. But, after freeze drying it weighs very little. So, it’s probably likely that it would get a few bags of treats, but it would all depend on how much water is in the meat.
I got beef liver & heart from a local butcher (via my CSA farm), have started FDing it.
might be a dumb question but do you cook it first?
Our dogs have been on a raw food diet for as long as we’ve had them. We bought it as frozen food from a local processor until recently their shop burned down.
Since we already process oir own chickens and turkeys ourselves, we decided to use spent layers and make our own dog food. We are following the B.A.R.F. diet and there’s lots of info online on making it.
Because we now make a year or more worth at a time, we freeze dry it.
We now WAY prefer feeding it this way. It rehydrates in just a couple minutes and makes life so much easier taking the raw food on camping and car trips.