chicken bones and rib bones?

[Michael C.]

Is it okay for a dog to eat these. I have on occasion given Sasha the bones when we had chicken or ribs for dinner. Obviously she loves them.

[LJSmith]

As long as they are not cooked. If they are cooked you run a very high risk of jacking your dog up. They are much better nutrionally raw regardless.

[samanthac]

ABSOLTUELY DO NOT EVER GIVE ANY KIND OF COOKED BONES.

Was that emphatic enough? Cooked bones dry out and become very brittle and can splinter causing very sharp shards that can cause punctures of the esophagus and intestines (try breaking a cooked chicken bone in half). In addition to the dangers, cooking the bones changes them and they are not nearly as nutritious as RAW bones are.

If you are going to give any kind of bones give RAW bones. These bones are softer and crushable by their teeth and can be injested safely. You can give her whole raw chicken wings, chicken necks and chicken backs. You can give her raw turkey necks and raw turkey wings. Also raw rib bones, knuckle bones, femur bones (sold as soiup bones) and oxtail.

Only RAW bones! She'll love them, they are VERY healthy for the dogs and they are safe.

HTH!

[Michael C.]

Yikes !! I didn't know that about cooked bones.

The reason I was asking about bones is we used to give Sasha Marrow bones, I would let her chew on them in the house. Now we have new carpet and I have not given her any. Her teeth are getting very yellow now and I figured is was becasue of not getting any bones.

where do you get your bones from ?

[moondog]

Bones should NEVER be cooked when given to your dog.

As samantha said, there are many kinds of raw bones you can give her but I don't go so far as to deem them universally "safe". There have been dogs that have received serious internal injuries or even died from consuming raw bones and that's something anyone feeding them needs to consider. I know an argument can be made that the number of dogs injured is in the minority which makes it an acceptable risk, but when it's YOUR dog that it happens to the statistics become meaningless pretty darn quick.

You need to watch your dog and make sure she knows how to thoroughly chew the "consumable" bones such as chicken or turkey wings and doesn't just wolf them down. If she's a gobbler and you still want to give them to her, make sure you pound them well or grind them. :)

[Michael C.]

yeah, she is a gobbler for sure. Maybe I will just stick with the marrow bones. She does good with them.

[samanthac]

Yes, I tend to stick to the marrow and knuckle bones, although I do give raw chicken backs and necks. The only fatalities I have personally heard of have come from turkey bones. But I am sure that there are other cases I have not heard of.

You can get marrow/knuckle bones from the grocery store or local butcher..you could even try the local meat packing plant.

TIP: Freeze them. They last longer and they end up being like giant marrow popsicles...great during summer.

Also, if you are worried about your carpet, you can give them outside, in her crate or like me, train them to stay on their mat while chewing.

[chivas]

I got Chivas's raw beef bones from the local organic farmers market. I would give them to her frozen and for the next 4-5 hours, all you could hear was lip smaking and gnawing!! :)

[Cassandra]

I never fed raw bones before so I asked my husband to pick some up as I have a new dog in my home that is a manic chewer . He asked the butcher and bought soup bones. The butcher told him to boil them about twenty minutes to kill any bacteria. That doesn't sound like that's what people do here.

Do folks here that feed the bones just take the bones right out of the package and give them to your dogs?

[rottnkidd]

Originally posted by Cassandra
[

Do folks here that feed the bones just take the bones right out of the package and give them to your dogs? [/b]

Cassandra - I have fed right out of the package, but do what makes YOU comfortable! ;)
kathy

[Luvs]

I usually buy buffalo bones from the breeder I get the rest of the dogs food from. The buffalo bones are GREAT! They last for a very long time, even for Keil who demolishes most bones he is given very quickly! I bought some beef soup bones for the first time two days ago and fed them right out of the package. Akasha ate hers in the first hour. Usually Keil is done first but Akasha's was alot smaller so she got another one;) There are a couple small pieces of the soup bones floating around here somewhere. I am going to get some more buffalo bones hopefully Saturday. When the puppies don't have good bones to chew on they start on other things, like my window sill (Keil! ). I am still waiting for my husband to notice that one

[samanthac]

Originally posted by Cassandra
I never fed raw bones before so I asked my husband to pick some up as I have a new dog in my home that is a manic chewer . He asked the butcher and bought soup bones. The butcher told him to boil them about twenty minutes to kill any bacteria. That doesn't sound like that's what people do here.

Do folks here that feed the bones just take the bones right out of the package and give them to your dogs?

Well, dogs aren't susceptible to the same germs we are. Their systems are designed to eat RAW foods so they are not affected by the same foodborne illnesses that we are and do not require their food to be cooked like we do. Their digestive systems are shorter and the food passes through faster which in addition to special digestive enzymes prevents them from getting diseases like e coli, salmonella, etc. Our digestive system is much longer and the food sits in the intestines, a warm dark moist environment that breeds bacteria and gives these foodborne diseases time to take root and make us very ill. This is why we need our food cooked.

When you cook the food or boil the bones, it changes the properties of the item and makes it harder for the dog to digest because they are simple not equipped to digest cooked food in the same way that we are. Yes, they can digest it, but their body has to work harder to do it and they get very little nutrition out of the food.

One thing to note though is if your dog is ill or has some kind of immune disorder, they generally tell you to stay away from raw foods as the body is not as equipped to digest/fight off germs when this is an issue.

Many people I know freeze the bones and give them that way. Just pull them out the of freezer and voile....giant bonesicle! :)

[moondog]

Off-topic, but needs clarification.......

Originally posted by samanthac
When you cook the food or boil the bones, it changes the properties of the item and makes it harder for the dog to digest because they are simple not equipped to digest cooked food in the same way that we are. Yes, they can digest it, but their body has to work harder to do it and they get very little nutrition out of the food.

This is not true! Cooking begins the process of breaking down the food and makes it EASIER to digest. This is the primary reason that a bland, cooked diet is recommended as the first step in clearing up gastrointestinal upsets. The bacterial content is secondary in consideration, but not insignificant. To avoid re-hashing that which has already been said, please see:

http://www.rottweiler.net/forums/sho...5&pagenumber=1

[spidey]

Without starting another debate:

Their systems are designed to eat RAW foods so they are not affected by the same foodborne illnesses that we are and do not require their food to be cooked like we do.

Humans' digestive tracts are "designed" to eat raw foods as well (I think a more correct word is "evolved"), humans don't require their food to be cooked for digestion (although it's easier to digest for both man and beast if it is - the denaturing of proteins which cooking causes is the same process as happens in stomach acid). Just because animals don't usually have access to cooked foods in the wild doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with their eating cooked foods. Since dogs have been domesticated for almost as long as Homo sapiens has been around, odds are good that domestic dogs have been eating cooked food for as long as we have. And it's disingenuous to state that dogs aren't affected by the same foodborne illnesses as humans, they most definitely are. They aren't as susceptible to most strains, but they can most certainly get salmonella, E. coli and other bacterial poisoning just like people do, sometimes seriously or even fatally (and let's not forget that these bacteria can then be transmitted to humans). I have no problem with feeding raw, I agree that many dogs do very well on it, but the above statements simply aren't true.

[samanthac]

Originally posted by moondog
Cooking begins the process of breaking down the food and makes it EASIER to digest. This is the primary reason that a bland, cooked diet is recommended as the first step in clearing up gastrointestinal upsets. The bacterial content is secondary in consideration, but not insignificant.

I see where you are going with that. Bland diets are good for clearing up digestive upset and for immunally challenged dogs. Perhaps I was not clear in my phrasing...what I really meant was not harder to digest but rather digests differently as cooking changes the properties of the food and the nutrients bind differently in the body.

However, dogs do not get as much viable nutrition out of cooked foods as they do out of a raw diet. They can survive and do well on a cooked diet, but studies showed that they truly thrived on a RAW diet wherever possible.

I used to have a whole slew of studies on this when I worked in the industry, but my last machine crashed and I lost them all. Now I backup everything. :(