Palatable, long-lasting pet chew product
Disclosed herein are pet chew products and methods for making them. The methods include sewing together strips of material obtained from a bovine or from other animals to form an outline of a desired shape; interweaving additional strips of rawhide, animal penis or both under and on top of the strips forming an outline to form a pet chew product of desired shape and size; and drying the pet chew product to the desired moisture content.
1. A method of forming a substantially spherical pet chew product from strips of material obtained from a bovine animal, comprising:
(a)fabricating flat shape strips of rawhide and/or animal pizzle;
(b) interweaving the strips over a substantially spherical substrate in the length and number required to obtain a substantially spherical pet chew product;
(c) dehydrating the pet chew product in a dryer 15 h at 45° C.;
(d) removing the substantially spherical substrate;
(e) drying the pet chew product again for 4 h at 45° C.; and
(f) sterilizing the pet chew product in a sterilizing oven for 10 h at 100° C.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the spherical substrate is a balloon.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the spherical substrate is an ice ball.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the strips have a length of about 5 cm to about 100 cm.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the strips have a width of about 1 mm to about 20 mm.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the number of strips used to form the pet chew product is about 9.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the substantially spherical pet chew product has a diameter of about 5 cm to about 20 cm.
8. A pet chew product obtained by the method of claim 1 .