[Dailydrool] Question for those who dehydrate treats

[dpmcquade at verizon.net]

I have had a Ronco dehydrator for some time now, but I was afraid to try drying out meat for dog treats. The directions that came with the unit said something about scraping off any mold that formed. So it took me a long time to get up the courage to try them.

Last week, I finally tried it. I cooked the chicken first, to be on the safe side, then let it dehydrate for part of the afternoon and overnight. When it was finished, I found some white stuff on the treats that didn't really scrape off. Since I know mold is very bad for dogs, I tossed the treats.

Can anyone give me some help on this? Did I throw out perfectly good treats? Should I not have cooked them first? Is there a trick to doing this that I've missed?

I don't want to hurt Horton, but he has an ongoing, as-yet-unidentified, occasional stomach thing, so I'm afraid to give him treats, since I don't know if the problem's food related. His i/d food is chicken based and doesn't seem to cause trouble, so I thought that plain, dehydrated chicken might work. But now I have this problem.

I will not feed any commercial chicken treats that come from China, since my dogs once got very sick on some Chinese treats. I have only found one brand made in the USA, and I'm about to try them out, but they look as if they may be rather oily. I'd like to be able to do my own quality control.

Help, anyone?
 
Pam, food slave and treat maker for the Dashing Bassets