I believe that Chicken by-product meal is quite close to in nutritional value, in terms to digestable and complete animal  protein, to chicken meal.

I think the reason to the contrary is not logical.

So some feather is included, so what. Why aren't immature eggs and feet very good sources. I think it may be better sources than chicken meal or chicken, more varied. egg has DHA.

If a food has little to no corn and no soy, and high total protein, then nearly all of the protein is from the chicken-by-product meal. Rice has little protein. There is a process of illumination. A matter of mass balance.  For example, if the food has only chicken-by-product meal, rice, and chicken fat and minerals and vitamins and some minute amounts of supplements, and it has 27% total protein, then nearly all the protein is from the chicken-by-product meal, and the food is high in good animal protein.

Soy and corn are high crude protein grains. Rice is not.  If a food does not have corn or soy, where is the protein (just nitrogen) coming from.

This is not a raw-food vs commercial food discussion. It is intended as chicken-by-product meal vs chicken meal vs chicken disscusion among those who accept commercial dog food.

Thank you

Chicken Meal is what is swept up off the floor of the butchering room and chicken by products are the nasty remains of what ever they dont want to serve for fda approval including diseased parts...

We have board members here on this site, who have worked at commercial dog food producers and for commercial meat producers and butcheries...so dont tell us , its an attitude...you need to read further...we dont buy that excuse..

A bag of commercial dog food is like feeding a dog like you get your child a : "GRAB BAG" AT THE COUNTY FAIR...

Read the ratings on dog foods.....

MEAL , and by products have no nutritional value.

CORN IS FOR HOGS,  NOT FOR DOGS.

Kyle is correct.  From what I know, by-product meal is the processed chicken by-products - this could contain some meat, but is mainly guts, skin, feet, beaks, heads, etc - the stuff left over from the chicken meat being processed.  No, I would not consider a food with chicken by-product meal to be a quality dog food (probably why it is cheaper).  Chicken (not meal) is as Kyle says, an advertising trick that Purina is famous for - listing chicken as the first ingredient sounds good, but in reality the body is 80% water, and a good part "byproduct" before you get to the meat.  Chicken meal is the processed chicken - therefore this is what you should look for, it is the meat processed down.  Quality dog foods will list meat meal as the first ingredient.

molly

I don't understand why people can't do a bit of research and see what is in there dogs food.

When I see people talk about how good RC, Nutro, Pro plan ect are, I just don't get it. If they new of the poor quality ingrediants, I would like to think they want better for their dogs.

Uglydog I think the reason wild candids eat the stomach is for the enzymes and also the food in the stomach is pre-digested. Not sure about the loin area, that would be just muscle I think. Also in the gut cavity are all of the organ meats. I guess my take on the OP's question is by- products of chicken are fine for dogs to eat. The problem is the term is to vague and you don't know what the quality or quantity's are. Meaning how much feathers, feet,beaks vs digestible protein? Also when a bag of food listing grains  says the protein content is 27% (or whatever) part of that percentage comes from the grain not the meat. Rice as stated is not a form of protein but some dog foods do include wheat or corn etc. I would have to say just because it says protein one has to ask how much is digestable .I feed RAW but I ad leftovers, and some grains, yogurt, canned fish etc. all these things aren't raw obviously. I think dogs can handle small amounts of them w/o problem and they ad variety to the diet. JMO It is sometimes a PITA but I at least know what they are eating...

"From what I know, by-product meal is the processed chicken by-products - this could contain some meat, but is mainly guts, skin, feet, beaks, heads, etc - the stuff left over from the chicken meat being processed.  No, I would not consider a food with chicken by-product meal to be a quality dog food (probably why it is cheaper). "

I disagree. Chicken by product meal must contain a  rather high percentage of digestable animal protein. Not quite as high a chicken meal or chicken but still rather high. It is a matter of mass balance.

Mass balance! Where is the nitrogen coming from? A food contains Chicken-by-product-meal, rice, and chicken fat as the top three ingredients, and then just minute vitamins and minerals, can have crude protein of over 27%. Where is the nitrogen coming from? Rice has a little protein. Beak and parts of feet are non-digestable protein in chicken-by-product but should only be a small fraction. Where are the beaks and feet from? each chicken has one and two. Much of the rest in chicken by product meal is digestable animal protein. Why aren't gut, head, neck digestable?

Chicken by product meal has more bones you say, but bones itself has little nitrogen and bone itself will not be a part of the crude protein. Other than beaks and feet, name the nitrogen bearing component in by-product meal that is not digestable animal protein. I can't think of any. Even some of the partially digested grain (corn) in chicken guts is digestable to a fair degree.

I would agree that the composition of chicken-by-product meal is not necessarily uniform, but it averages out. As in the wild not every prey is as thin or as fat.

I think pound for pound chicken-by-product meal likely has no less than 80% digestable protein than in chicken meal, may be even over 90%. It is academic, which is richer,and often better everything else the same, 27% crude protein with chicken-by-product, $25 a bag, or 24% crude protein with chicken meal, $40 a bag?

"Sweep from the floor" "nobody wants"! Come on. Nobody means few human beings in the USA wants. 

Some immature eggs must be good (DHA), better than all skeleton meat in fact. 

Please refer to this web page for the most complete readable (as in by us commoners) info about protein

http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=protein

Read the whole web site. Especially Label Info 101.  You will become quite knowledgeable.

as far as wolves eating the stomach contents, here is a good articel about it....rawfed.com/myths/stomachcontents.html

This is what the AAFCO defines as chicken byproducts: Consists of the dry, ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines -- exclusive of feathers except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices.

Nothing wrong with dogs eating this. Mine eat it (necks,backs, feet & eggs) every week. The problem with it in dog food is that there is no consistancy with it and that the source can come from anywere, and that ususally means the cheapest source they can find.

Unless a dog food company can state were their sources come from, I wouldnt trust it to put into my dogs.

Someone had mentioned that their dogs had blown their coats on a better food. This is not uncommon and is known as detox. When stepping up to a better quality food, dogs can do this amoung other things. gunk in the eyes, hair loss, coats smell. This is the body pushing out all the crap that they have in their systems. It can take 4-6 weeks or more for some dogs, less for others. Not every dog goes through it that drastic but it does happen, especially when switching to raw.

My shepherds eat raw & evo, my apbt's eat raw & totw but they only get kibble 2 meals a week. All the dogs look great. Their muscle tone just pops, energy levels are high, nice shinny coats that hardly ever shed, bright eyes and nice white teeth. I also found it cheaper to feed raw then kibble, a bit more time consuming with packaging it up but for me, its well worth the hour or 2 to do so.

Arguement on how to feed can go on forever, some buy and show there love by feeding human grade food which is fine but if we see how wild dogs eats we will see that they will eat anything that they get there hands on even what we call by products. There is a saying that goes one mans rubbish is another mans gold. These wild dogs have been there from the beginning and they do well.

I am not from a developed country and I have seen dogs doing well on much less than by products.

If i owned a feed company or was to right a book i would say that the by products are not good for so many reasons - but this is the marketing side of me trying to tell you why I am good.

So from my experience, br products are OK on moderate ammount and maybe benefiacial. I have also come to conclusion that a dog need 40% by product in a daily diet to replica the wild.

If you are talking about grains, you should note that without boiling rice or corn it becomes alomost inedible even for us humans and pass out whole. Wild dogs have no way of cooking them, so I personally dont think they ate them.