# Hard boiled egg



## Edward Weiss (Sep 19, 2011)

I was told by an experienced breeder to add a hard boiled egg to biches diet daily last 4 weeks of pregnancy and increase her food by about one quarter.
Any consesus on this and other suggestions welcome.


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## Denise King (May 31, 2009)

I don't know why you want to hard boil it but my guys get an egg daily...including the shell which is crushed with myfingers!


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## Terrasita Cuffie (Jun 8, 2008)

Last one I whelped, I had on a homemade diet which included eggs, cottage cheese and yogurt--her regular maintenance diet. I don't know if the increase is written in stone. I just fed her what she needed to maintain. Some people overfeed and that can cause whelping issues if the pups are gigantic. I think you see the most rapid growth the last two weeks. 

T


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## Edward Weiss (Sep 19, 2011)

Thanks your recipe appeals to the Holistic side of me will try it.


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## patricia powers (Nov 14, 2010)

cooked eggs give dogs gas & diarrhea. raw egg mixed with their kibble or raw ration is a good source of protein, enzymes & trace minerals. don't get carried away with it though as too much raw egg can also give them diarrhea. (1 or 2 per day is sufficient)
pjp


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## James Downey (Oct 27, 2008)

Edward. It's not so much doing pregnancy the dog needs extra calories. When she starts nursing it takes an incredible amount of calories to produce milk. but I don't have any hard fast rules... I just pay attention to the dog. and if she looks like she is getting thin... I add more food. If she is getting fat....less food. I am not sure there is any magic in a hard boiled egg.


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## Edward Weiss (Sep 19, 2011)

Thanks for the help.


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## jamie lind (Feb 19, 2009)

James Downey said:


> I am not sure there is any magic in a hard boiled egg.


I'm sure it has something to do with it being one of the most complete single source food items there is. Another would be milk. The most complete would be blood but I don't think many people feed it.


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## Kadi Thingvall (Jan 22, 2007)

There are conflicting reports regarding feeding raw eggs. For awhile they said the raw egg whites leeched biotin from the dogs system resulting in a Biotin deficiency if eaten in any large/regular amounts. Then they said the egg yolk has more biotin in it than the whites can effect, so it's fine. More recently I have read that they are reversing that stance and saying to many egg whites aren't good again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotin_deficiency 

I have chickens, ducks and turkeys, although the ducks and turkeys aren't old enough to be laying yet. But my dogs get a lot of eggs, and will get even more when everyone starts laying. I soft boil the eggs, not so much because I'm worried about biotin but because I've found with 1/2 my dogs they will eat an entire raw egg, but the other half will happily crack it open, eat the insides, and leave the shell. If I break the shell up ahead of time they will still try to pick around it. If I give them the egg boiled they eat the entire thing. So ...

I agree with James regarding when the calories are needed. I do like a female to go into whelp a couple pounds heavier than normal, in part because when working I keep them trim. Not to heavy since that's not healthy, but heavy enough their body has some reserves when it gets hit with those extra calorie needs. If she looses to much weight while nursing it can be a real bear trying to get it back on her while the pups are still around, better if she starts off with a little something to loose.

I don't think eggs are a magic bullet, but they are a very complete and easy food to feed, and have a nice "punch" of calories, fats, etc.


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## James Downey (Oct 27, 2008)

jamie lind said:


> I'm sure it has something to do with it being one of the most complete single source food items there is. Another would be milk. The most complete would be blood but I don't think many people feed it.


Yeah, I get that. but why wait till she's pregnant?


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

With cottage cheese make sure it's low salt.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Raw eggs: Kadi mentioned the fairly recent info that came out of Bayer about the amount of biotin in yolks. It used to be thought that there was enough to make up for the biotin that's bound (and rendered biologically unavailable to the system) by the avidin in the raw white. It turns out that there is nowhere near enough.

This means that a regular and significant addition of raw eggs to the diet (unless it was offset by some kind of biotin supplement) would be likely to trigger a biotin deficiency.


Shells: The whole shell is way too much calcium for a regular thing unless it's deliberately being included (and measured) for a diet that's deficient in calcium. The amount of calcium in an average (large) eggshell is enough to cover *two pounds* of boneless food. 

One shell yields 1800 to 2000 mg of calcium. That's a lot of calcium to add regularly to a balanced diet. 

For example, a cooked diet, or one where an owner has a deal on a bunch of boneless meat, say, requires only half of an eggshell, ground, to produce the one-half teaspoon of ground shell to supplement each pound of the boneless (calcium-less) meat.

A simple rule of thumb might be to cook most of the eggs a dog eats and to discard the shells unless there's a specific reason to include some.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

patricia powers said:


> cooked eggs give dogs gas & diarrhea. ...



The diarrhea (if it happens), is often from the sudden inclusion of the extra fat (the yolk). (But see "intolerance," below.)

If it's from the sudden extra fat, you could leave out some of the yolks until the gut is acclimated.

I don't feed any foods that causes gas in a bloat-vulnerable breed, so if my dogs got gas from eggs, they would get no eggs. 


(Yes, some dogs get gas from eggs. It smells more if the eggs are cooked because -- oversimplified -- the sulphur in them smells so much stronger when it has been heated. Actual *intolerance *to eggs exists in dogs just as in humans. This does indeed cause gas and/or diarrhea, and the gas is much more noticeable if the eggs are cooked. [If the small intestine doesn't create enough of the right enzymes to digest the proteins in egg whites, the proteins, once lower in the tract, start to get bacteria forming around them. This is the trigger for the intolerance symptoms.])


JMO!


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## Howard Gaines III (Dec 26, 2007)

Here we go EGGING folks on...


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Howard Gaines III said:


> Here we go EGGING folks on...




:roll: That was soooo bad! :grin: :wink:


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