# eggs in dog food



## Howard Gaines III (Dec 26, 2007)

Can the shell and egg be cooked and placed in kibble and is there a BIG risk giving it raw? My Bantams are laying and don't seem to be "chicken." #-o:mrgreen:


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## Lori Longardino (Apr 4, 2009)

We feed raw eggs with the shell about 4 times a week, bought from the super market. Never had any issues. The only thing is that they don't digest the shell from what I can tell, just passes through them.
~Alex


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## Anne Jones (Mar 27, 2006)

I feed a raw diet & I feed whole raw eggs shell & all a couple of times a week. Sometimes I quick scramble one for them & just toss the shell into their dish. It is my understanding that they shouldn't be given more than 2-3 raw eggs a week.


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## James Downey (Oct 27, 2008)

I feed my dogs just about everything. I feed RAW and we keep all the Scratch from what we do not eat. My dogs are still alive. I feed some meals that are only eggs.


Ann why so few eggs?


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## Anne Vaini (Mar 15, 2007)

I'm also wondering why the limit of 2 - 3 eggs per week? My previous dog ate 3 - 4 eggs at a sitting. Maybe a dozen a week.

I feed raw egg - mostly just raw eggshells right now. When I crack an egg I toss the shell to the dog.


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## Meng Xiong (Jan 21, 2009)

Lori Longardino said:


> We feed raw eggs with the shell about 4 times a week, bought from the super market. Never had any issues. The only thing is that they don't digest the shell from what I can tell, just passes through them.
> ~Alex


 
+1


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## chris haynie (Sep 15, 2009)

i have heard that when feeding too many raw eggs the enzyme avidin can cause the dogs to absorb too much of the vitamin B complex biotin.

i don't feed eggs tto the dog except the occasional one maybe once every three months. i love cooking eggs and dont often feel like giving any to the dog. i'd rather eat them myself.


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

I can't find the link to the discussion on why you should not give eggs more than a few times a week...I will keep looking and hopefully Connie will see this and know which link I am talking about. 

I feed eggs shell and all....Ajay loves whole eggs and he picks them up carefully whole and then crunches them and the inside dribbles all over his food.....it is the first thing he eats when he gets and egg in his food......then he eats the meat. 

For kibble, either way (raw or cooked) would be fine......I would throw the empty shell in as well. 

I dry all my eggshells that we eat and then run them through an old coffee grinder.....when I feed ground meat I will add some as it is a source (small) of calcium. The reason I grind them is it makes them easier to store in a small container.


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## chris haynie (Sep 15, 2009)

Carol Boche said:


> I dry all my eggshells that we eat and then run them through an old coffee grinder.....when I feed ground meat I will add some as it is a source (small) of calcium. The reason I grind them is it makes them easier to store in a small container.


that's a really good idea.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

chris haynie said:


> i have heard that when feeding too many raw eggs the enzyme avidin can cause the dogs to absorb too much of the vitamin B complex biotin.
> 
> i don't feed eggs tto the dog except the occasional one maybe once every three months. i love cooking eggs and dont often feel like giving any to the dog. i'd rather eat them myself.


It's actually the other way around. Avidin in raw egg whites binds up biotin, making it biologically unavailable to be used in the body. So this can be avoided in two ways. First is by boiling the eggs (also helpful to reduce salmonella concerns) and second is to not feed only the egg whites. I seem to remember in Small Animal Clinical Nutrition Vol. III (an older version to be sure) that egg yolks have more than enough biotin.


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## Jennifer Marshall (Dec 13, 2007)

chris haynie said:


> i have heard that when feeding too many raw eggs the enzyme avidin can cause the dogs to absorb too much of the vitamin B complex biotin.
> 
> i don't feed eggs tto the dog except the occasional one maybe once every three months. i love cooking eggs and dont often feel like giving any to the dog. i'd rather eat them myself.


Chris, you have it backwards  Avidin can prevent them from absorbing biotin. Avidin is found in egg whites. I give my dogs raw eggs but not too often simply because of the gas I get to deal with afterwards! Too many raw eggs can cause runny stools and such if a dog isn't used to eating them. If raw eggs were a large part of the diet I would add a biotin supplement on the days eggs were not given to make up for any negative affect of feeding raw eggs.

Biotin is a positive addition to most dog's diets, I have given supplements with biotin in them for years. Came from the supplements I use with my horses, most of them are safe for dogs (check the ingredients so you are not giving sugar and other additives) and they get the same stuff. 

Biotin is also known as B7 or vitamin H and from what I've read no reactions or toxicities have been found in dogs. Biotin helps with skin and coat health and is considered a "natural" remedy for quite a few skin ailments and allergy symptoms (itching, hives, coat loss)

From: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=1044

"Biotin is one of the B vitamins. Several studies have shown that dogs suffering from dry skin, seborrhea, and dry, itchy allergic skin greatly improved when supplemented daily with biotin. Biotin is often used in combination with fatty acids to manage dogs with allergies, is very safe, and there are no side effects or toxicities."


***EDIT***

Maren beat me to it!


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## James Downey (Oct 27, 2008)

I have to say this....Just because I am insane as the rest of you.

But how Friggin Nuts are we, that we are concerned about the effects of egg whites and shells, avidin, biotin. But without a second thought, drink a pot of coffee, a few beers, a Coke, eat a hot dog, McDonalds smoke, chew, take pills....With absolute disregard about the consequences. Or the motivation to look how it maybe robbing us....But god forbid the dog get to many eggs.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

*shrug*

I'll be making my career on sports medicine and nutrition, particularly in working and performance dogs, so it does matter to me.  Formula One racers don't get their oil changed at Wal-Mart, after all...


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

My dogs have always enjoyed a raw egg with the shell, even before I knew anything about raw feeding.
Unfortunately one of my GSDs has no idea how to get it out of the shell unless I help. he just stares at it. ](*,)


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## Anne Vaini (Mar 15, 2007)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> I seem to remember in Small Animal Clinical Nutrition Vol. III (an older version to be sure) that egg yolks have more than enough biotin.


That's correct. I don't believe it was changed in the 4th edition.


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## chris haynie (Sep 15, 2009)

i just wonder whos feeding only whites. 

when i give the dog an egg i just drop it in with his RAW food and maybe crack the shell for him to get it started. I wouldn't ever think to separate the whites from the yolks for the dog...maybe for cake batter but not the dog.


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## Anne Vaini (Mar 15, 2007)

There are a whole 15 calories in egg white.  The good part is the yolk!


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

James Downey said:


> I have to say this....Just because I am insane as the rest of you.
> 
> But how Friggin Nuts are we, that we are concerned about the effects of egg whites and shells, avidin, biotin. But without a second thought, drink a pot of coffee, a few beers, a Coke, eat a hot dog, McDonalds smoke, chew, take pills....With absolute disregard about the consequences. Or the motivation to look how it maybe robbing us....But god forbid the dog get to many eggs.


LOL, you got that right, very intersting.

Joby


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## susan tuck (Mar 28, 2006)

We keep Call Ducks and Guinea Fowl and the eggs we don't let them hatch out, or keep to eat for ourselves, we feed (raw) to the dogs. Interestingly enough, the huge Guinea Hens lay tiny white triangle shaped eggs, slightly smaller than bantam chicken eggs, and Call Ducks, which are bantam ducks, (around 1 - 2 lbs when full grown), lay huge black speckled eggs, slightly larger than the xtra large chicken eggs you find in the supermarkets!


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## Howard Gaines III (Dec 26, 2007)

Carol Boche said:


> I dry all my eggshells that we eat and then run them through an old coffee grinder.....when I feed ground meat I will add some as it is a source (small) of calcium. The reason I grind them is it makes them easier to store in a small container.


 It was my thought that the small amount of calcium could be good too. I washed the eggshells off before cooking them for a few minutes. Hope the heat kills any little chicken bugs. I think raw is the way I will go and hope the dogs don't get a foundness for poultry scratch grains. Thanks all...


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Howard Gaines III said:


> It was my thought that the small amount of calcium could be good too. I washed the eggshells off before cooking them for a few minutes. Hope the heat kills any little chicken bugs. I think raw is the way I will go and hope the dogs don't get a foundness for poultry scratch grains. Thanks all...


I just put the egg shells in a bowl for a few days til they are dry and then grind them. I don't cook them at all. 

And....I do not add calcium to all meals, just when I am feeding ground meat. I have a guy that brings me 75 to 100 lbs a year, he rotates his buffalo and beef so he "donates" it to the dogs. 
We had to go look for his daughter and found her for him (back when I did not have dogs) so he likes to come see the dogs.....great victim too. 

I know someone mentioned that they cook their eggs to kill any "chicken bugs" so I just want to say that I hope they are not cooking any meat with bones in and then feeding the bones to the dogs......not a good thing.....


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> It's actually the other way around. Avidin in raw egg whites binds up biotin, making it biologically unavailable to be used in the body. So this can be avoided in two ways. First is by boiling the eggs (also helpful to reduce salmonella concerns) and second is to not feed only the egg whites. I seem to remember in Small Animal Clinical Nutrition Vol. III (an older version to be sure) that egg yolks have more than enough biotin.


That's what I was always going by, too (and I have that same version).

Then in 2006 or 2007, I read a paper from some biochemist at Bayer who said that no, there is not enough biotin in an egg yolk to bind to all the avidin in the raw white. He found that over 5 grams of biotin are needed to neutralize the avidin in an average size egg, but that there are actually only about 25 micrograms in an average egg yolk.

So the suggestion/conclusion by whoever quoted this paper (Maybe UC Davis [some newsletter]) was pretty much to avoid raw whites for a pregnant dog and to limit raw egg whites for all dogs (and humans) to two or three per week (maybe it said three or four; this was a while ago) because of their calculations of how long it takes an average diet to rebuild depleted stores of biotin. 

But I never went as far as to figure out the good biotin sources and how much I was feeding, etc., etc. Instead I just started lightly cooking whole eggs in a steamer. I don't know how worried I'd be about it -- my reaction was to either limit the number of raw eggs or lightly cook them most of the time or not to give the raw whites each time with the raw yolks.




Not very definitive. :lol: If someone else has a better source of this 2006 or 2007 updated biotin/avidin info, that'd be nice. Better than this vague memory of mine.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Bob Scott said:


> Unfortunately one of my GSDs has no idea how to get it out of the shell unless I help. he just stares at it. ](*,)




Dog Rule:

When they do figure it out, if you feed raw indoors, it's after they have secretly rolled the egg into the living room and under the couch.



:lol:


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## Geoff Empey (Jan 8, 2008)

Anne Vaini said:


> I'm also wondering why the limit of 2 - 3 eggs per week? My previous dog ate 3 - 4 eggs at a sitting. Maybe a dozen a week.
> 
> I feed raw egg - mostly just raw eggshells right now. When I crack an egg I toss the shell to the dog.



Egg shell is made up mostly of *calcium* *carbonate* and it is not absorbed into the body the same way as the *calcium* of raw bone. 

Depending on the weight of the dog .. say a dog that is 50bs I wouldn't give more than 2-3 whole eggs in a week. Especially if the dog gets a lot of consumable bone. If the dog over eats on bone it just passes the bone in its stool .. the famous chalk white poop we hear about, the dog's body only uses the *calcium* it needs. 

But *Calcium* *Carbonate* is absorbed differently and if used in high doses can cause hypercalcemia. http://diaglab.vet.cornell.edu/clinpath/modules/chem/hypercal.htm

Eggs in moderation with RMBs are not a worry but it is something that we who feed RAW should be aware of .. especially if someone wants to add extra things again on top of everything else like commercial vitamin/mineral supplements.


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## James Downey (Oct 27, 2008)

We do not know....We think we do, but we do not.

For humans.

Is milk good or bad?


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## Daryl Ehret (Apr 4, 2006)

What kind of milk? I understand some breeders feed goat's milk to puppies, to "harden their teeth".


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

James Downey said:


> For humans.
> 
> Is milk good or bad?


Do you mean lactose intolerance? That's so variable.... I've read that only 2 to 5% of the population of Scandinavian countries was lactose intolerant (low production of the enzyme lactase) but that the percent goes up to 70 or higher as you get closer to the equator. There's more than one theory about this.

Off the top of my head, I'd probably say that milk is good for some people, like those in areas where low direct sunlight means low production of Vitamin D. Continuing to produce lactase beyond childhood would seem to be a good thing in such locales; people can drink milk after childhood and the calcium would help to offset a D deficiency that could otherwise lead to rickets.

But I haven't really studied the subject beyond the conclusion that there's probably no one answer for all people.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Daryl Ehret said:


> What kind of milk? I understand some breeders feed goat's milk to puppies, to "harden their teeth".



That's interesting.

Is the idea that goat's milk is somehow better than cow's milk or the mother dog's milk?


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## James Downey (Oct 27, 2008)

I was not talking about lactose intolerance. I was just talking about the benefits and consequences of milk as a whole. 

But I rest my case about the milk..... No one knows.


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## Michael Wise (Sep 14, 2008)

James Downey said:


> I was not talking about lactose intolerance. I was just talking about the benefits and consequences of milk as a whole.
> 
> But I rest my case about the milk..... No one knows.


The commercials say it does a body good. Taste good. I vote good for the entire human race.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Michael Wise said:


> The commercials say it does a body good. Taste good. I vote good for the entire human race.



:lol:


Yeah, as James says, I think that we really don't know. There are certainly well-reasoned arguments on both ends of the spectrum.


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## Michael Wise (Sep 14, 2008)

I take it you haven't seen the commercials, either.

On topic, I read the same as Connie about egg yolks. Can't seem to find it. I'd just refrain from making mass quantities of the diet eggs.


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## Geoff Empey (Jan 8, 2008)

James Downey said:


> I was not talking about lactose intolerance. I was just talking about the benefits and consequences of milk as a whole.
> 
> But I rest my case about the milk..... No one knows.


But my hat is off to the neandrathal or cro-magnon man who decided that he was thirsty and was going to sneak up to that wild bovine in the forest and suck on its teat. I thought this thread was on adding eggs in dog food though? Where did the milk come from the chicken or the egg?


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## James Downey (Oct 27, 2008)

Geoff Empey said:


> But my hat is off to the neandrathal or cro-magnon man who decided that he was thirsty and was going to sneak up to that wild bovine in the forest and suck on its teat. I thought this thread was on adding eggs in dog food though? Where did the milk come from the chicken or the egg?


 
actually it came from here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXS5GBuk-GQ


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Connie Sutherland said:


> Dog Rule:
> 
> When they do figure it out, if you feed raw indoors, it's after they have secretly rolled the egg into the living room and under the couch.
> 
> ...


When I fed raw it was with three terriers. My two Borders and my crrent JRT. I just opened the back doo and dumped it in three piles on the porch.
That's how I feed the GSDs now. Put it (kibble) in two bowls on the patio and go back in the house.
They all knew/know not to start any crap over food.


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## Howard Gaines III (Dec 26, 2007)

These Bantam eggs are so small, a quail on GHR could have bigger eggs. I read that the cold weather retards their ability to lay and that the energy is spent in keeping warm. Hard boiled eggs is my next treat for them!:twisted:


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## charles Turner (Mar 2, 2009)

Howard Gaines III said:


> Can the shell and egg be cooked and placed in kibble and is there a BIG risk giving it raw? My Bantams are laying and don't seem to be "chicken." #-o:mrgreen:


yes, I don't reccomend every day, but a few times a week is ok, just try and cruch the shells up as fine as possible, for sure if you are feeding puppies. not cooked though, I would feed raw.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Connie Sutherland said:


> That's interesting.
> 
> Is the idea that goat's milk is somehow better than cow's milk or the mother dog's milk?


I want to say the rationale was because it has less lactose and is closer in profile to bitch's milk, but don't quote me on that one. 

On the egg issue, I agree with lightly cooking. It's so easy to do (easier than homecooking a relatively balanced meal) and you can do a decent sized batch at a time, might as well. I'm on a new externship, but if I get some time, I'll see if I can find that article. Sounds interesting! They are supposed to be coming out with a Small Animal Clinical Nutrition V soon, so I wonder if that info will make it in?


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## Sherry Spivey (Sep 7, 2009)

My vet, who does not approve of the raw feeding, cautioned about the raw eggs due to the raw whites leaching B-vitamins. I have feed with and without the shell. Mostly I saw shell coming out in the poop so I stopped adding it. I feed 2-3 per week and have not seen any issues in my 4 GSD's who were fed raw.

"Milk does a body good" as well as "Got Milk?" are ad campaigns run by the Dairy Association. Read the fine print. Also, "Pork, the other white meat" ad campaign. If we are bombarded by it often enough it must be the truth.... and if you decide to believe everything you read or the studies (funded by whoever they benefit, see Soy products good for heart). Just like the thought that dogs MUST be fed kibble, and good grief, don't vary their diet. We grew up feeding table scraps and our dogs did just fine. When did dogs go from "domesticated wolves who ate from our garbage dumps" to over evolved creatures who must be fed "special diets" just to survive????

I just go with the theory: varied diet, all things in moderation. So far this has worked out pretty well for my dogs.


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## lora andersen (Jan 5, 2010)

I have to say that mine get at least 3 whole eggs a week, sometimes they eat the shell, sometimes not, they also get at least 1L of RAW milk from our family cow every day. My thoughts are that raw milk is great for both humans and dogs. My parents got a new kitten, they were feeding him milk from the store, he kept puking and runny poos too, I gave them some raw milk, he is much better now. My kids exzima gone after the switch too. Even the pigs we have cant handle the pasturized milk, but do great on the raw stuff!


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

What's your somatic cell count on your bulk tank? Do you run California mastitis tests? What's your teat dip and dry period protocol?


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## Courtney Guthrie (Oct 30, 2007)

I do not really like milk. 

Just thought i'd throw that out there. lol lol 

I feed my dogs RAW eggs, 2 times a week. 

Courtney


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## Jason Hammel (Aug 13, 2009)

Connie Sutherland said:


> That's interesting.
> 
> Is the idea that goat's milk is somehow better than cow's milk or the mother dog's milk?


I know after all the holistic stuff we were going thru w/ my sons possible aspbergers and all the stuff my wife was studying that Goats milk is supposed to be the closest thing to a womans milk production. Not sure if it works the same for dogs too.

There was a pasturised comment that I read in this thread I agree with too.


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