Agreed. Any risks of bacteria in raw chicken are far lower than the risks of cooked bones
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We found out the hard way with our Westie which loved cooked chicken wing bones, up until her stomach was punctured by the splintered bones, thus resulting in a $1,500 operation around 30 years ago.
My sister who has retired after a long and very distinguished career and who has a very extensive knowledge of medical procedures does not believe that the small bones in chicken necks are at any risk of splintering, unlike wing and leg bones, and she has been feeding cooked chicken necks to her dog since she read the ABC News article last February.
In any case, I do not believe our puppy does any more chewing than what is required to separate the chicken necks into individual pieces so as he can devour them as quickly as possible. The neck is done and dusted in less than a minute.
I have to buy some more chicken necks today so I will cook two necks this afternoon, peel the meat off the second one, and experiment by breaking the individual bone sections to see if there is any splintering.
I buy them from Lenard’s as they are very fresh, very small, and I can purchase whatever weight I want, unlike the pre-packaged trays at other retailers.
I have also been considering trying some lamb riblets as recommended by the RSPCA, but they are only available in pre-packaged trays, and after the problems our previous dog, a miniature poodle, had with any form of lamb which affected her liver and caused her to go into a trance like state, I have not done so as yet.
I have shown Belgian Shepherd Dogs - Groenendaels longer than anyone else here in SA which is over 35 years and have only just recently retired from the Show Ring.
All of my Belgians were raised on raw chicken necks (purchased direct from the Chicken Processor) and a quality freeze-dried kibble, ie. Ziwipeak, or Ziwi as it is now called.
I have only ever had a problem once with the raw chicken necks in that after the dog ate them, around 5 hours later he would vomit up very tiny pieces of undigested bone. As with people, all dogs are different and this dog had difficulty in digesting the tiny bones, even though the necks were fed raw. To solve the problem I simply changed him to raw lamb flaps, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He only ever suffered that issue again if he somehow managed to find/steal and eat a chicken neck. I have attached his picture for those who may be unsure what a Belgian Shepherd Groenendael looks like.
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An interesting article regarding dog breeds’ personalities.
I have always been amazed as to how the different breeds of dogs automatically have certain traits without training or experiences.
Border Collies with their instinct to shepherd anything without having ever been in a paddock.
Terrier breeds strong aversion to being bathed or getting in the water.
Poodles natural love of water.
Retriever breeds automatically raising a front paw without ever having been hunting.
Even though all dogs can be interbred, the offspring of purebred dogs automatically have certain behavioural traits.
The above article certainly seems to explain why.
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As I mentioned in my post on 05.01.2018, I did purchase more chicken necks and I cooked 2 of them separately for a minute (2 x 30 seconds) each.
As shown in the photo below, the internal temperature of the test one was 87 degrees, and chicken is safely cooked for human consumption when the internal temperature reaches 74 degrees.
I removed the meat and separated the bones and allowed them to cool.
I then crushed the bone pieces with a pair of multigrips and checked the pieces. There were no sharp fragments and nothing was protruding for more than a few millimetres.
Whilst the chicken meat was safely cooked, it was still hard to remove from the neck bones, and the bones had not started to turn brittle.
The neck bones from a roast or BBQ chicken could well be a different story.
I also bought a tray of lamb riblets.
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Whilst searching for information on chicken necks this morning, an ad appeared on the right-hand side of the page which was a link to this item.
It appears to solve any problems with both uncooked and cooked chicken necks.
Pity it is around 5 times the price of fresh chicken necks.
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“If the animal is perfectly healthy … then I don’t see any special reason for buying a more expensive food than a much cheaper one, from a nutritional point of view,” Professor Fraser says.
This seems like an odd statement to me. How many other vets agree with this opinion? I work with vets and I’m yet to meet one who believes that. Actually forget vets, I can list a few reasons myself, such as reduced feeding guides (and therefore reduced poops) and increased preventative nutrients that aren’t classed by the AAFCO as ‘Essential’ (eg joint support)
It makes me wonder if there was more to that quote that was cut out.
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When my cat was 6 months old, i had to fed her milk, meat and organic cat food.
A detailed and interesting article regarding pet foods.
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Our puppy seemed to be a bit off-colour the other afternoon, and after he had eaten his cooked chicken neck, he regurgitated it around 10 minutes later.
He brought it back up on his beanbag and it appeared to be in one piece as though he had simply swallowed it whole.
However, when I picked it up with a piece of paper towel, I found that the whole thing had been thoroughly minced, and there were no noticeable bone fragments.
Powdered glass would also not be noticeable due to the fine nature of it but it is still dangerous to be consumed. The sharp fragments of bone (not noticeable to ordinary inspection) are still an irritant (at the least impact) to the osophegus and gut and the warning as previously noted and stated is to avoid feeding cooked bone of any variety to your pets.
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An article regarding bacteria found in frozen raw dog meat.
I’d like to see a similar study in Australia before I came to any conclusions, but it is certainly true that raw food manufactures can cut corners in the exact same way dry food ones do.
Having said that, a pre-prepared frozen and vacuum sealed raw food would always be better than a raw home prepared one I would have thought.
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An Australian updated version.
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Update to the Hill’s pet food recall. More SKUs have been added for existing recalls, and a few more products have been added (mostly prescription) https://www.hillspet.com/productlist
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An interesting article regarding feeding dogs and cats vegan diets.
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Another article regarding feeding dogs raw meat.
