Making your own dog food.

[QBert]

My little one is offended by feathers, so the few times I've given her chicks, I've rough-plucked at least the largest feathers. Chicken isn't her favorite protein, although I suspect she may change her tune if she gets well-raised birds; I'm eager to find a source for ducklings and quail to let her try. So far she's only ever had frozen chicks, so bleeding wasn't really an issue.
The last time I fed prey-model was with a much larger dog, and she would delicately pluck all the feathers off her birds with her teeth before settling down to eat. I never saw her deliberately eat a feather.
I suppose it won't matter when she eats outdoors, but I suspect I'll want to bleed fresh-killed birds, at least partially, if I'm having her eat in the house.
I do like my animals to have food they can thrive on, but there simply aren't large packs of wild Chinese Cresteds for me to compare her diet against.

 

[Akane]

I at least split the skin because mine have issues figuring what to do with feathers and may turn up their noses for something else if it's covered in feathers and they don't feel like plucking to get to the meat. The akita can spend hours just plucking feathers off one mouth full at a time and spitting them out before actually eating anything. Makes quite a mess even though it's confined to their yard. Other than that I just chop heads off and throw it to them whole. I find cutting the heads off of quail easier than trying to break them. There's a lot that can go wrong breaking the neck if you haven't done it before and then knowing for certain they are dead. A good pair of gamebird shears and in one snip you know for certain they are dead very quickly.

For anything not raised on my property I prefer it to be thoroughly frozen for 24-48hours first. It kills a lot of bacteria and parasites if you do that. Previously trichinosis would have been a concern in even frozen pork and the reason it should not be fed raw to dogs but recently the USDA lowered their recommended cooking temp of pork because modern practices have done such a good job of getting rid of it. I don't worry anymore about it and occasionally give my dogs entire slabs of raw pork ribs.

 

[QBert]

Years of reptile care has left me with more animal-dispatch experience than I like to dwell on. I am confident in my ability to provide a quick and humane end.
I think my next step is to find someone local who will allow me to purchase just one or two young birds to see what goes over well and research the regulations for keeping my own animals. With a very small dog it may prove to be smarter for me to buy a chest freezer and find a local provider than to try raising my own.