raw turkey carcasses

[puppytoes]

I just got my hands on some raw turkey carcasses and i noticed that the wish bone seems big. Has anyone fed these to their dogs? Should i remove it or is turkey like chicken - they can chew through it no problem?

[Chesney's Girl]

The only parts I worry about on the turkey is the legs and the wings. The leg bones shatter sharp when the dog breaks them because they are pretty dense for a bird since the turkey is very heavy. The wings are mostly bone so there isn't much nutritional value in them. How much meat is left on the turkey? if its mostly bone then I would consider it recreation for a small dog or puppy. otherwise you run the chance of having a constipated dog from the bone to meat ratio

[Bill Fosher]

I have a couple of dogs (one Border collie and one guard dog) who can handle drumsticks just fine. (They can also handle lamb and deer leg bones.) For the others, the rest of the carcass is fine.

[Chesney's Girl]

Wow Bill. Tough bite! My boys are just softies

[bcnewe2]

So Bill do you just give a whole deer leg minus the skin? Do you mean the skinny part too?

I just switched a few weeks ago to raw breakfast, SIL got a deer yesterday, he field dressed and skinned it. gave the rest to me for dogfood, minus the good parts. I was going to take it and have it ground up. I just can't see giving the whole leg but I'm not scared of bones, just didn't konw if they could handle the long skinny bone.

Mine eat wings. backs and any other parts of a chicken I can think of. But haven't tried turkey as we cooked it first! I had a vet along time ago recommend frozen chicken wings to help clean teeth of cats and dogs. I've been doing that forever. Just never made the big switch.

Am I wrong in thinking chicken bones, any parts are fine unless they're cooked?

Raven let me know today that she doesn't like chicken livers. She didn't even like it in her mouth to take it and bury it. She carred it 5 feet and dropped it like it was poision. wouldn't pick it up again. The others thought she was nuts!

 

I've been adding organ meat as treats on top the other meat they get. I was afraid it would be to rich as the whole breakfast.

Can't go to total raw, I like the ease of traveling with kibble but they sure are up early and waiting at the door for breakfast!

[sheepandakom]

I don't know what Bill does, but when I feed my dogs lamb, they get the leg above the knee. I don't think there is any meat below the knee. My old neighbor would always throw the lower leg/hoof into the woods after he cleaned a deer. My dogs would always find them and drag them around the yard and chew on them.

 

My boyfriend got a big buck today. He was supposed to be saving it for my dogs, but ended up giving it to Hunters for the Hungry. Apparently he didn't clean it himself and the guys from his hunt club took 5 or 6 deer to the group today. He promised that the dogs can have the next deer he gets and reminded me that the season is still early.

 

When I do get a deer, I plan on giving the dogs almost everything. If my end up with a bone that's too much for them, they will pick off the meat and leave the bone. Two of my dogs have broken teeth, but neither was from bones.

 

Emily

[Bill Fosher]

Ralph the guard dog could probably grind up and digest rebar. He found himself a dead deer last winter (took it away from coyotes) and I found him gnawing up what was left of a lower front leg. He eventually even ate the hoof. He buried parts of the deer in the snow all round the sheep enclosure, and would occasionally dig one up when he tired of whatever I was feeding him at the time. I think he even ate the skull.

 

For less determined and semi-feral, you could treat the lower leg bones as recreational bones -- just something to chew on to pass the time of day. Tweed and Ralph will definitely eventually eat it all, but the others will leave shards around, and I think that's dangerous and needs to be supervised. (Shards should be taken away.)

[Chesney's Girl]

Kristen, to help with the non liver eater in your pack, try quickly searing (like seconds on either side) and then give it to the dog. Sometimes the texture is a bit weird to them, after a few times eating like that and they find out that liver is really tastey you can stop searing it.

[bcnewe2]

OK

I will try searing it but I'm kinda like Raven and think it's all a bit gross. I can handle most meats but I really hate cutting chicken bones up and liver of any kind makes my gag. I think it's the smell pluss the texture.

I've taken several deer leg bones away from the pack. I have a bit of a wanderer in Raven and I think she finds hunter or coyote leftovers. She brings things home that I have no idea where they came from. She doesn't wander close to the road, it's always to the back where we're surrounded by pastures that go on forever.

I"ve let them chew on the leggs for a while but then get nervous when they start breaking the tiny bones apart. One of them chews the ends like a raw hide which seems to be fine. the others treat it like a chew toy. They're just learning the art of eating raw anything.

[juliepoudrier]

I just recently tossed a bunch of deer parts to the dogs, including the backbone (to the LGD) and the legs to the border collies. Someone told me they'd chew on the hoof and everything. Some folks find it disconcerting to come in the yard and see deer legs lying there, but the dogs did strip the meat off the bones, and so far the lower leg is just sitting there. I imagine they'll chew on it eventually. Other big hunks of meat and bone just disappeared, including whole slabs of ribs (like half a ribcage). The dogs were a bit gassy after their deer-fest, and there are still some smaller rib and leg bones lying around that I see them chewing on when they're out in the yard. If the legs aren't gone by spring, I'll toss them down in the woods....

 

Even the chickens got in on it!

 

BTW, my 28-lb Lark can chew through a turkey drumstick without any problems.

 

J.

[bcnewe2]

So do you just leave the deer carcus whole? I have onein the back of SIL's truck still. I didn't know what to do with it. I'm' sure they could cut it in half for me but then you just let the dogs chew on it?

[juliepoudrier]

Kristen,

I didn't leave it whole--it was in large chunks because originally it was going to go to someone who had the means to cut it down into smaller parts. When that person didn't get the deer and I didn't have the means handy to cut it into smaller pieces, I just went ahead and fed the bigger pieces. I wouldn't try to feed a whole carcass because I'd worry about fights breaking out among the dogs. As it was, they each got their own piece(s) that they could take to various "corners" of the yard to work on. They were just rather large pieces.

 

J.

[bcnewe2]

Thanks Julie

That makes since. I'm still trying to get the hang of things. This was a deer carcass hanging in a tree with all the good parts cut off. I think I can get them to cut it into smaller parts but still bigger than what I'm used to feeding. I can rotate dogs while they're eating it. I do that already after they eat, Mick comes in so Jazz can do her walk about without worrying Micks going to snark her for fun/play she doesn't like him and isn't happy if they're out together. So the shift thing is doable.

What other farm parts do you feed? I have the neighbor's chicken houses to pick from but I can't imagine feeding dead whole chickens with the feathers on. Would you or anyone else here do that? I also have a friend doing some butchering during deer season. What would I ask him to save for me? I have a small freezer that I'm not using and a reg. fridg in the garage that has it's freezer empty so could store some. I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what size I want to freeze things in. I'm trying to do a breakfast at a time and get out 2 on one day so they'll be defrosted. I'm still having a hard time getting it right. But the dogs are loving it!

Thanks

Kristen

[Bill Fosher]

Hi Kristen,

 

I guess my only concern about the dead chickens would be what did they die of and what's the risk of that same issue making my dogs sick? I'd have no problems feeding the feathers, and I would be very eager to figure out the disease question if I had a source of free meat. With my pack, I need to portion the food out, though, and a whole chicken would be too much to feed at a single sitting. I'm shooting for .75 to 1.25 lbs of meat per dog per day (depending on the dog).

 

With sheep, I've been advised to freeze the meat for a week to 10 days before feeding it raw to the dogs because of the possibility of encysted tapeworms in the muscles and organs. I am taking the same precaution with deer, based on the fact that they are in the same environment with my sheep and share the same basic physiology. If sheep can be an intermediate host for tapeworms, I'd guess that deer can too, but I don't know that for sure.

[bcnewe2]

I can talk to my neighbor about why the dead chickens die. She wins all kinds of awards for her houses. It's still chicken houses but I think they are some of the best (if you can say that in the same sentence) out there. They would probably be young chickens. They trun them over about evey 10-12 weeks, sometimes even earlier, being weight related. So I'm sure they're loaded with growth hormone but it's the same that we buy in the store. I think it's a tyson run farm. Tyson provides all the chickens and the food for them. All they do is provide the houses, elec. and the man power.

Now I'm' know I'm reaching but if I'm handing them what looks like a chicken what will they do when they see a live chicken? My working dogs don't see chickens when we're working. I've had them work my own chickens when I had them but they were always reluctant to do so. I'd hate to encourage chicken killing. But I'm not of from the camp that once they taste blood they will turn to killers. IMO that couldn't be farther from the truth.

So...guess I'll go have a talk with my neigobors.

Thanks for the advise about freezing anything for the controling encysted tapes by freezing. That's the one parasite I seem to always battle. With my sheep and dogs. Drives me crazy.

All that I've been feeding has been from the grocery or out of the freezer from my own personal meat supply. So not a problem yet.

 

Now for an off the subject question, What do you or anyone else think of using chicken litter as fertilizer? I did it for a few years and my fields being rather small (10-13 acres) yielded 3x's more hay than when I first got here when nothing was being put down. I kept the sheep put up till we'd get a good rain and the stink would clear but the LGD's would always bring chicken parts up to the house. Feet, heads and other assorted parts. For some reason the bc's didn't play with them but they were treasures to the LGD's.

 

Thanks for the advise.

[Bill Fosher]

Chicken litter is a great source of N (which is why your hay grew so well) and a reasonable source of organic matter. I've been told that over the years it can accumulate copper in the soil. Hypomagnesemia, aka grass tetany, would be the main worriy I would have in grazing sheep on land treated with such rich fertilizer. Additionally, if the fertilizer is applied at a time when the grass isn't growing, such as a drought or dormancy, and then it suddenly starts to grow again it can take up so much nitrate as to become toxic.

 

I wish I had a few 10 to 13 acre fields. I only have one that big.

[stockdogranch]

My pasture is across the street and on the downhill side from a very large egg ranch. I sit in the flood plain. They run a mist system on the chickens in the summer to help keep them cool. I get a lot of runoff from that, and also when we get rain. Anyway, I have some lovely little rivers of chicken-crap water running through my pasture on occasion, and have always jokingly said that the chicken ranch is flood irrigating my pasture. The whole north side, running the full length, tends to really turn into a lake at times with this stuff. The water is really nasty smelling and a really icky dark brown color, but it sure helps the filaree grow nice and lush in the areas where that water flows and/or sits. And the dogs and stock have all been known to drink it, and no one seems the worse for it. I've had sheep and cattle on this pasture for over 12 years now with no bad effects yet. It greens up my pasture, and it's free, so it's OK by me. As for whole chickens with feathers, the coyotes will grab a chicken from across the street, and bring it into my pasture to eat it, leaving a few feathers and the occasional wing behind. I would assume the whole thing would be fine for the dogs, too.

 

A

[bcnewe2]

Sorry Bill I must have typed it wrong. My 2 fields add up to about 15 acres. I have almost 40 acres but the other parts are woods and tiny bits of pasture in between. Plus I have no interior fencing so rotational grazing is out.

Actually I don't have my sheep now. I'm still waiting to sell the farm. I sure wish I'd have waited to sell the sheep. It's been 6 months. I'm about to borrow my good friends young open ewes. We need an LGD first (my 2 went with my sheep) cause I can't stand to not have sheep.

I guess I should be happy that I sold the sheep that long ago cause after this long I've realized I can't live without them. I was going to try to settle for a few years of living with no sheep. I now know that if I can help it, I WILL have sheep. I've made the best of it and realized I train way more without owning them. I have to make every minute count when we get to sheep. I've also learned how much real life chores help a dog to learn it's a job not a game. Dew has really come on since selling the sheep. But she has not had the advantage of having to do chores. Best I can do is when I farm sit have her help me do chores. She seems to be missing the point of it's a job. Maybe it's just her age. Mick on the other hand raised and trained on his own sheep understands without words what chores need to be done and just goes about his business.

 

The neighbors with the broiler houses raise cattle. They've been spreading chicken litter forever and their cows look healthy.

 

Anna, I have egg laying houses on the other side. Laying houses don't clean out the houses near as much as the broiler houses. I would bet it's only once or maybe twice a year. When that happens I like to be out of town! It's more a litter sludge. It's dry when they spread it here. This spring my grass came up the most beautiful dark bluish green. Compared to the neighbor who hadn't spread in a while looked reg. green.

I had quit using grain almost at all. My sheep had never looked better. But my friend who I do the farm sitting for won't use litter for the worry about disease. I went with the idea that if the neighbor chickens were healthy then the poo should be pretty clean too.

 

It was the cheapest way I've ever found to fertilize. I think each time I spread it cost about $150. Plus they did the spreading!

Either side of me use the same cooling method that Anna described. But I'm not in the run off area. I can just imagine the nice rain run off chicken poo trickles. EWEEEE!!

Thanks for the chicken feeding advise. I plan on talking to them soon.

[Bill Fosher]

The neighbors with the broiler houses raise cattle. They've been spreading chicken litter forever and their cows look healthy.

 

Cattle have a much higher tolerance (and need) for copper than sheep. Like 100X, if I recall correctly.

 

As with any manure, you need to be careful about excess _anything_ building up in the soil. With dairy manure, which we have access to around here, the main concern is phosphorus. But taking hay off a field and not returning organic matter is just gradually selling your topsoil; you have to do something. I would not turn down chicken manure as a fertilizer; I'd just monitor the forage to make sure that things were okay, and perhaps discontinue its use if I started to see excessive accumulation of nitrates, copper, or whatever.