Feeding dog raw - What to keep from processing meat chickens

[Joanmcm]

We have been feeding our dog on a raw diet for a year. This year we have 50 meat chickens to feed the people. I would like rather than to throw away (waste) anything, freeze what we are not using to feed the dog.

A chicken died from flip (we think) while we were moving the pen this morning. I butchered it and saved the head, feet, giblets for the dog. We tossed the intestines but really there is no difference between green tripe sold in the store and using those as well. The dog gets green beef tripe once a week. Tossed the gall bladder and will continue to do that as that is supposed to make anything it touches taste bad. Any advice out there?

 

[Chick Charm]

I live next door to a Sheriff who has a trained police dog as well as a little terrier. Great neighbor. He feeds RAW WHOLE CHICKENS NEVER FROZEN to both his dogs. BONES AND ALL. Raw natural diet like this is supposed to be the best. I had no idea you could feed chicken bones to a dog. Go figure. He has been doing this for years. I believe he said he uses organs as well.

You should see how the dogs look at my chickens through the chain link fence. Biggest tease there is for them.

Best of wishes to ya.

 

[Joanmcm]

Ah. That is what I thought. Thank you! Yes...my dog gets raw chicken several times a week (not whole though). Dogs can eat any bones as long as they are RAW and uncooked. Cooked bones are what will cause problems.

 

[AgroUrica]

Yeah, dogs will eat whole chickens for sure but there's still a risk of them choking on the bones. Chicken bones, especially the leg bones, splinter when crushed and can easily lodge in an animals throat.

I've long fed chicken tripe to my hogs, afterall, it's almost pure protein. A couple of weeks ago I chopped up a young dead bird and one of my workers fed it along with the tripe to my hogs. I was on the other side of the ranch when he phoned to say that one of the females, recently impregnated, was choking. She was dead in minutes.

It happens. Be careful with chicken bones. There won't be any more chopped chickens for my hogs, that's for sure.

 

[knittychickadee]

I've been feeding raw for about 8 years now. I save everything except for the intestines (my dog won't eat them) and the bile sac. Heads and feet into large gal zip bags (if you freeze them on cookie sheets before bagging they will stay loose and you can pull what you need from the bag), other organs, windpipes etc into gladware containers that I reuse. I bleed them out into a plastic bag lined ice cream bucket on a stool under the killing cone. This hardens up like jello pretty quickly and I divide it up into little gladware containers too. I also freeze whole carcasses for her, just plucking them and bagging them up for freezer with heads and feet attached.

 

[Kelsie2290]

I feed raw chickens to my dogs, mostly small roosters that are not worth growing out or are causing a problem.
I feed these whole, but I do singe the feathers off to lessen the association between live chickens and dinner. Bigger ones that we don't want for ourselves, I will singe, gut, halve (top and bottom), and feed like that, the dogs will pretty much eat everything except the lower intestines of the bigger birds. I have tried giving them the larger chickens whole but I kept having to pick intestines out of the yard, decided it was easier to just gut them. I haven't had a problem with feeding raw chicken to the dogs that are in the yard with the chickens, but I do try to make the chickens they are having for dinner not look like the chickens they are supposed to be guarding.

 

[Joanmcm]

The dog gets raw chicken now (bones and butcher leftovers from the market). I'll not save the intestines. I have heard several people say that their dogs would not eat intestines. She will scarf down moles whole but I am guessing that is different.

 

[Jo Anne]

I have fed my dogs raw in the past, but had one dog get a sick from it, spent a nice chunk of change getting him well. That was a fluke accident though haven't had much of a problem since. I feed them raw lamb bones too.

 

[Joanmcm]

Thanks everyone. Your feed back has been very helpful. I am going to use a bit of all your advice. While the dog has been on raw for over a year, this is the first time we raised our own meat chickens and have other parts available.

 

[FreedomFarmVT]

I've been feeding raw for about 8 years now. I save everything except for the intestines (my dog won't eat them) and the bile sac. Heads and feet into large gal zip bags (if you freeze them on cookie sheets before bagging they will stay loose and you can pull what you need from the bag), other organs, windpipes etc into gladware containers that I reuse. I bleed them out into a plastic bag lined ice cream bucket on a stool under the killing cone. This hardens up like jello pretty quickly and I divide it up into little gladware containers too. I also freeze whole carcasses for her, just plucking them and bagging them up for freezer with heads and feet attached.

Out of curiosity, when you take them out of the freezer, do you cook the organs or just defrost them in the fridge and serve?
We're new to feeding raw. We feed our dogs real food, and want to include raw.
Thanks
Joe