Chickens/Dog Sharing Food?

[yellowbee0110]

Hi Everybody,

I gave the girls a ham bone to clean in their coop and then I gave it to my dog. Seemed like a good idea at the time, seems like a bad one now. I'm worried that their little poopy feet and little poopy bedding will bring salmonella or whatever else into our lives. The other side of me rationalizes that he is a dog with a dog's stomach of steel who recently found an amazing raw, wild bone in the woods and ate it all up without a problem. Also my coop is relatively clean and the bone spent all night outside of the coop in 15 degrees F.

Do any of you do this sort of food-sharing, cross contamination between your chickens and dogs? Has anyone died or wished they had?

Thanks!

 

[Isaac 0]

Not all chickens have salmonella.Ive heard dogs on BYC eating a whole bunch of there chickens food and nothing happened.

 

[TalkALittle]

Hahaha! My dogs sneak and eat the feed, steal old melon rinds from run, and even eat the chicken poop in the yard all the time and have never caught anything from it. I've not even really thought about whether or not they could be a vector for some disease or pathogen. Maybe it's because I was raised around animals and learned early on that contact with dirt and feces was inevitable, but I'm just not that worried about cross-contamination between our species. I try to keep everyone in good health, wash hands after being outside, and try to not track stuff in the house. Nobody's dead yet.

 

[Percheron chick]

Trust me, most dogs feast on poop of all kinds chicken, horse, goose, cat... Delish! I would be more concerned with the high salt content for both the chickens and the dog. I'd save the bone for a pot of soup.

 

[yellowbee0110]

Thanks everyone. Glad to hear your input! Since when has a dog been too clean to eat anything, right? Ha ha.

And as far as the salt goes, yeah....I see what you're saying. I did at least use it for bean soup first, so it was somewhat salt-leached.

Appreciate it!