Feeding live chickens - Page 1

I am new to raising chickens and wondering if anyone feeds them to their dogs and is there any harm in it?

I never fed them live chickens on purpose-it was always an accident and usually happened at a friend's farm. She had too many chickens anyway, and an occassional dumb one who would come too close to the dog. Other than eating a lot of feathers (a useless type of protein) and a liver (the body's filtre for nasty and toxic things) I guess there is no issue other than the chance of a pecked or scratched eye, which would be a serious matter. The bones would be soft enough to pose no problem as they are not cooked. If you have "game" chickens who can fly, it may not be much of an issue. And you can break them from catching chickens. I have seen people feed their GSD a freshly-killed chicken that is fully intact. I just never did it because my wife is a strict vegetarian and I am sure that I would be in much more trouble than the dog. I limit their chicken to the occassional package of chicken necks that I sneak into the kennel. Bob-O

Chicken is a very good source of protein and it can be used as dog food, yet we must take care because the bones of chickens as well as the rabits are empty inside and when they brake they can become sharp sticks that can even kill a dog. If you got it at a good price use it, but do not give the bones to your dogs.

Please humanely slaughter the chickens then feed. Thank You!! Tammy

Amen to that, Hundguy.

all of our dogs eat chickens, cornish game hens and rabbit. Only one of our dogs likes to "wrangle" his own. He likes to catch them and bring them in the doggie door and let them go in the house to rile the other dogs up. None of my dogs have an issue with eating chicken bones, rabbit bones, or any other bone as long as it is raw. Thick turkey bones, I grind. We make a practice of killing them ourselves, and then the dogs each get one. Knock on wood, as long as I have fed BARF, I have not had any issues with any of my dogs.

That's gotta be a riot having a chicken running through the house with GSDs in chase. I'm glad someone spoke up for the chickens Tammy. Yikes that sounds brutal!