Dehydrating food?

[brashterson]

Hey guys,

So I have been thinking about trying to switch Smaug onto some pellet food (at least some of the time) he will still get live feeders and all but at this time of year its just harder to find fresh greens-anyways- I have seen some Bearded Dragon food that looks like it is dehydrated?
This one, for instance, I saw on Dr's Foster & Smith- but it is expensive! So i thought to myself-- hmmm it looks like it is just dehydrated chunks of vegetables and fruits, because the instructions say to add hot water.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=6016+7891+6048+19613&pcatid=19613

So my question is- Do you guys think I could just use my own food dehydrator and chop up his vegetables to make them last longer throughout the winter? Has anyone ever tried something like this before?

Thanks!

 

[Soulwind]

As long as you rehydrate them before feeding, I don't see why not.

Note that I don't think you'll have much luck with dehydrating/rehydrating greens
though. They tend to be too fragile to survive the process and end up as a
kind of nasty mush after rehydration.

Your dragon might not mind ... my guys won't touch wilted greens much
less anything worse in texture than that. You may have different results though.

 

[oatmeal]

Hey! I've thought of this too.. I'm planning on dehydrating a lot of the veggies and greens I grow, grinding them into a powder (because they don't rehydrate very well) for use in cooking/smoothies/etc. My dragon is picky and probably wouldn't just eat the rehydrated powder, but I'm thinking I could sprinkle it on what limited veggies I can find in the winter sort of like you would a multivitamin, or just "toss" the salad in a good amount of the powder.
Unfortunately I didn't do that this year, but I'm excited to give it a shot next summer! If you do try dehydrating foods, let us know how it goes!