"Natural" Death - Can you still eat it??

[brandywine]

Dogs don't need or rely on "the taste of blood" to become predatory towards chickens. It's the sound and movement of poultry that triggers a dog's prey drive, not some knowledge of "what's inside."

Many dogs fed a raw diet never look sideways at a chicken or lamb or whatever. Most livestock-killers (nowadays) are fed kibble.

I feed raw, including lots of chicken and turkey backs, necks, and cheap leg quarters. My gentle, nurturing, chicken-safe English shepherd grump is the same dog who murders enormous groundhogs on sight and eats them. Chicken = member of the household, belongs to the Momma. Groundhog = lunch. I certainly never fed her some good ol' raw whistle pig to get the taste going. (I did encourage her to go after them, as I'm a serious gardener.)

If you are not going to feed your dogs a raw diet as a matter of course, then cook the chicken and bone it out before feeding it to them. Don't give cooked bones to dogs.

As an alternative, you can put it in a pressure cooker and WAY overcook it, until the bones are mush, and those are safe for the dogs to eat, and nutritious, too. You can add some veggies to this and make a very nice dog meal, which you can serve with a little rice, too. This is what I do when I've got a foster dog who I haven't transitioned to raw, or a dog with a health concern that precludes eating raw meat.

Anyway, it's a sin to waste food, and a double sin to waste the meat of an animal who dies to give it to you, so I always feed stuff like this to the dogs rather than waste it.

 

[lovehouse]

such an American thing not giving chicken bones to dogs... Totally not true... Dogs do great just like humans with chicken necks, cooked, chicken feet, cooked, large chicken bones, legs, thighs, breast bones, all cooked....... There are some of those sharp bones that are like needle looking on the leg bone that you could remove, but you have to realize it would be a 1 in 10 million chance your dog would hurt itself with a chicken bones and cooked chicken parts...... Also, This may be a decision for the pet owner seeing the habits of the dog.. Does the dog swallow whole gulps of any food without chewing? Does your dog chew the food it eats? This would be the only concern about bones piercing their neck with brittle bones. I really can't believe and vets preach this is an issue.. Only in the US as I see it. unlike a pig, a domesticated "pet" dog will do much better if you separate the options.. and pick the meat off the bones so they see the bones they have to chew and the meat they can eat whole... This is a good idea.