First time raising meat birds - my journey of raising Cornish X in the city

[3KillerBs]

Question for anyone who may know? Is it okay to feed the intestines to my dog if they seem to still have a little food/poop in them? I saved them and they have been on ice for two days with the other organs I won't eat. They smell a little like poop and I can see some poop coming out of some parts. If I cook it will it be okay?

I don't know about the safety, but I wouldn't want the odor of cooking poop in my house.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

I don't know about the safety, but I wouldn't want the odor of cooking poop in my house.

Haha yeah, agreed. Well, what I ended up doing was cutting out any parts that looked like they had a significant amount of poop in them. Then I boiled the rest of the intestines. A lot of residue that was inside (not sure if it was intestinal lining or undigested food/poop) boiled out of the intestines. Then I strained and rinsed them. Still not sure if I will give it to the dog. The parts of the intestines I did boil were the parts I didn't think smelled.

I did not think this through very well lol.

 

[Sussex19]

Intestines always make me feel a bit , so they just get buried in the garden. I have no idea whether one can or should feed them to dogs

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Intestines always make me feel a bit , so they just get buried in the garden. I have no idea whether one can or should feed them to dogs

Okay, maybe to the compost they will go! They are a little weird. After asking this question, I watched a Youtube video of a Filipino person washing chicken intestines before eating them in a traditional dish. She basically squeezed the poop out like toothpaste lol. So yeah, maybe next time if I'm feeling up to that...

 

[Sussex19]

Okay, maybe to the compost they will go! They are a little weird. After asking this question, I watched a Youtube video of a Filipino person washing chicken intestines before eating them in a traditional dish. She basically squeezed the poop out like toothpaste lol. So yeah, maybe next time if I'm feeling up to that...

I'm sure they can be used, but for me, I'd rather not. But thats just me! And I like to think that the apple trees like it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Natural sausage casings are made from intestines. There is nothing wrong with eating the intestines themselves. You can search online to find some methods to clean them for human consumption to see if you might want to try one of those methods for cleaning them.

I know your concern is what is in the intestines, not the intestines themselves. If you withheld food before you butchered (many people do) there won't be much in them to start with. But there will be a bit.

The way I look at it, if your dog catches and eats a rabbit, rat, or anything else it will usually eat the intestines. Many predators eat intestines. It is disgusting to you and me but they are filled with highly nutritious partially digested food and animals are not going to pass up a good source of nutrition. I'm not sure how much nutrition is in the intestine walls themselves so I won't speculate on that.

Most diseases are species specific. It is highly unlikely they will be carrying any disease that will infect your dog. We feed internal organs to dogs all the time without a worry about infections. It's possible there could be a parasite like roundworms that could be passed on. Did you look in the intestines for tapeworms or roundworms when you were butchering? I do, if the one I butchered has them the rest of the flock does too. I've never seen either one in the intestines of my chickens. If your dog and chickens share the same territory if one has them the other probably does too.

I haven't seen one recently but there have been a few threads on the forum about dogs eating chicken poop. Nobody reported any ill effects from that, it's just disgusting to many people. I shut one of those threads down when I commented that I don't worry about dogs eating poop but I don't French kiss my dogs so I don't have to worry about where their tongue has been.

Personally I don't feed the intestines to my dogs. I cut them into 2" lengths and feed them to the remaining chickens without cleaning them.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Natural sausage casings are made from intestines. There is nothing wrong with eating the intestines themselves. You can search online to find some methods to clean them for human consumption to see if you might want to try one of those methods for cleaning them.

I know your concern is what is in the intestines, not the intestines themselves. If you withheld food before you butchered (many people do) there won't be much in them to start with. But there will be a bit.

The way I look at it, if your dog catches and eats a rabbit, rat, or anything else it will usually eat the intestines. Many predators eat intestines. It is disgusting to you and me but they are filled with highly nutritious partially digested food and animals are not going to pass up a good source of nutrition. I'm not sure how much nutrition is in the intestine walls themselves so I won't speculate on that.

Most diseases are species specific. It is highly unlikely they will be carrying any disease that will infect your dog. We feed internal organs to dogs all the time without a worry about infections. It's possible there could be a parasite like roundworms that could be passed on. Did you look in the intestines for tapeworms or roundworms when you were butchering? I do, if the one I butchered has them the rest of the flock does too. I've never seen either one in the intestines of my chickens. If your dog and chickens share the same territory if one has them the other probably does too.

I haven't seen one recently but there have been a few threads on the forum about dogs eating chicken poop. Nobody reported any ill effects from that, it's just disgusting to many people. I shut one of those threads down when I commented that I don't worry about dogs eating poop but I don't French kiss my dogs so I don't have to worry about where their tongue has been.

Personally I don't feed the intestines to my dogs. I cut them into 2" lengths and feed them to the remaining chickens without cleaning them.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I did not see signs of worms in the intestines, although I did not specifically go out of my way to check for them. I have seen my dog eat chicken poop before now that you mention it, so that does make me less concerned. And he did not test positive for any type of worm at his last vet visit. It's not that he couldn't get worms from this at some point of course, but I think the point you're making is that it's not SUPER likely that they will get worms or a parasite from eating a small amount. Maybe I will give him small amounts of the cooked intestines, and then the rest can just go to compost. Maybe some little pieces parts can go to my hens as well. I've been trying to avoid doing TOO many organs in the compost, because I live in the city and don't want to attract too many critters. My neighbors wouldn't be too pleased.