All Natural Easter Eggs

Like plenty of pampered pets the Urban Hounds get a good filled basket every year, one thing thats always in there: hard boiled eggs.  

Last years basket

Eggs are one of the easiest, cheapest, and healthiest things you can give your dog for Easter, or any other time of year. Like many concerned pet owners I feed my dogs high end grain free kibble but I still worry that my dogs are not getting the nutritional benefit they would from a fresh diet.  To help boost the nutritional value of their food I regularly add fresh foods such as yogurt, cottage cheese, cooked meat, and eggs.   

Dogs need high quality protein and eggs are just that.  In addition to protein they have plenty of vitamins and minerals, and as I mentioned before they are cheap.    Egg can be fed to dogs raw or cooked, I prefer cooked since my dogs don't regularly eat a raw diet.   However, I have fed raw eggs when I was sure of the eggs source, i.e. from a local farmers market.

Once large egg has about 70 calories which is a fine daily kibble topper for an active medium to large dog, for smaller dogs you can divide the eggs or serve every other day and reduce the kibble as needed.   In home cooked diets egg shells are often recommended as a source of calcium, but if your dog is eating kibble then you should remove the shell to avoid giving your dog too much calcium.  The shell should also be removed on any eggs that are not organic.

Of course dogs could care less if the eggs are dyed:

"Just give me an egg mom!"

but its fun for the human.  This year in keeping with the organic eggs  I decided to use natural dyes.  I made three colors: red, yellow, and blue.  The red did not get as bright as I hope and came out more of a pinky brown.

Red Dye

2 large beets grated by hand or in a food processor fitted with the grating blade

2 cups water

1 tbsp white vinegar

Combine the beets, water and vinegar in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.  Boil for 15 minutes.

Yellow Dye

3 tbsp ground Tumeric

2 cups water

1 tbsp white vinegar

Again combine and boil for 15 minutes.

Blue Dye

8 ounces of frozen blueberries, crushed in the food processor or blender

1 cup water

1 tbsp vinegar

Again boil 15 minutes.

Dyes boiling on the stove

Cool the dyes for about 15 minutes before adding your hard boiled eggs.  If you want you can strain the dyes through a sieve or you can the  eggs right in the pot, which will produce a mottled effect.  Let the eggs sit about an hour and then remove them and blot them.

The finished eggs