Got Chicken? ~or~ the ethics of feeding raw?

[Novel]

---oohhhh--- I am so mad , I just lost a really good thread beginning, and now I don't feel like retyping it, so here it is in a much abbreviated version. Darn!


I feed raw.

I raise my own veggies, chicken, duck and now rabbits for my dog's diet. I pluck some feathers from the chickens, to use in other hobbies, but otherwise feed completely whole. The rabbits will be fed completely whole minus the pelt. I have many uses for the pelts.

What other additions could I make for the dogs?

Being in the public eye with the dogs very often, I'd also like to hear from anyone that finds what I do distasteful or offensive. I do not pretend to always know all possible views of any given situation, and would love to hear what others think. This way I can either adjust my practices or prepare to defend them.

Finally... Alley from this morning.

Got Chicken?

She actually found this feather while outside sniffing around. But, I thought it was cute! Think I have a new advertising campaign to go against Purina?

[richnrissa]

do you feed only what you have there, or do they get turkey, beef, buffalo or other stuff on occasion too? Do you vary the veggies if you find a good farmers market or rare find at the store? or do you rely totally on what you grow?
no i dont think its offensive, i think its responsible. You made a healthy choice for your animals, and youve also taken responsibility for ensuring their food source is clean, organic and readily available.

and when youve had a break......i'd love to hear what else you may have 'lost"

[Novel]

The slaughter house down the way has pretty fresh lamb and turkey so they get that occasionally. I also feed the fish I catch that are too small, and all the carcasses. As of yet Alley is the only one that will eat the fish whole, but Topper and Laney will eat the filets.

In my original post that is in cyber land, I mentioned how I've begun plans again for raising earthworms. They thrive on rabbit leavings. I wouldn't feed those, but rather use those as an additional income.
I'm still looking for anything else I can raise or grow here that I can use completely, but not sure what else is feasible.
I used to have sheep, but felt the pasture area would be better used as dog area. I sheared my own sheep, but just 4 sheep can produce a large amount of wool for 1 person to work. Also, I kind of messed up there, because they were purebred registered sheep, which are more condusive to resale then actual butchering, but with just a few like that, you just don't have the means to produce the best. In dogs when you need a particular trait you can find a stud that has it, finding a ram for one particular ewe is not economical or usually even possible.
I'd like to get an Angora rabbit, but again, that's for the fiber, and wouldn't be part of the dog's diet.
I'd also like an alpaca, but also for the fiber.
We have pear, apple and cherry trees, but they were only planted a few years ago, and are not yet in production. I don't feed much fruit to the dogs, because of the higher sugar content, but they like them as treats.
At the auction where I purchased the bunnies I could have gotten a goat for about $20, but I really dislike goats. They're just smart enough to be problematic in just about every situation, but they are much better foragers than sheep.
I try and vary the dog's veggie intake as much as possible, but it's usually leftovers from whatever I prepare in the kitchen. Broccoli, carrots, potatoes, celery, cauliflower, yams usually come across the dining room table and into the dog dishes through a week, and salad greens too, as we have 'em.
The thing is I truly care for each and every living thing on the property, and everywhere else too for that matter. I do not relish killing things, but the alternative, like buying dog food, or the same thing from the store just won't work with me. As far as ethics, the humane killing of the animals I raise is of my utmost concern, and make sure they are well cared for up to the time that they fulfill their purpose. On another forum someone said he lets his GSD catch his own meals, which sometimes ends up being neighborhood cats. I found that repulsive and exceedingly unethical, and can only hope he was embellishing the truth.
I could go on all day, so I'll end to await other comments and questions.

[sammy]

I think it's pretty cool-- sounds like an awful lot of work to me-- but if you enjoy it and have time then more power to you.
For me personally-- I could not raise a bunny and kill it. I just couldn't. If I had to butcher my own food I'd probbaly be a vegetarian (or starve).
I have a long standing joke with a cattle rancher friend of mine that the meat I buy actually grows on a beef tree. (yes I am a dork)
I used to feed a really great commercially prepared raw diet for my dog and found that was not going to work if we have another baby-- I still *could* do it-- just don't want to be phobic about bacteria when I'm living on no sleep for months. I used to be very strident about not feeding my dog kibble -- but I have mellowed (and realised that my diet is not perfect either) so I'm taking a different approach: giving Innova kibble and adding cooked veggies and meats and fish oil etc
I am a total dog food freak though and have been able to get some friends to stop feeding Iams and other grocery crap. It's funny how they change foods just to get me offf their backs and later see the difference in their dogs coats and general health.... ok just rambling now

[linnie]

everything raise on our property dies of old age but I do have friends in the industry that allow me to buy beef from them and also turkey so my girls have that and vegetables.

Interesting point about feeding totally raw that I have found in small breeds.
Many of them get itchy has anyone else noticed this?? or is it just peculiar to the breed line I have as they are all related although in different homes.

I know do a mixture of cooked and raw.
Novel I love that picture

[Crossfire Bulldogs]

Novel I just LOVE that pic!

I have to say that I am totally for feeding raw although I have yet to have the time or freezer space to make the big "switch." I do add many things to the bullies diet rather than just feeding kibble and who knows, maybe with the new job switch I'll have more time and can actually give raw a good go!

[doberkim]

if i could do what you do, novel, id be doing it in a heart beat! sadly i have no farmland at this point and cannot do it - but i would LOVE to raise my own food for my dogs.

how many chickens do you have, and how many do you go through in a week? others i spoke to (Regarding raising your own chicksn AND rabbits) - said that in general, you have to have a fairly large facility and lots of rabbits/chx to have enough to maintain feeding 2-3 each a week, at least. and you end up paying a lot more per lb, because you have to take into account how much they eat and how long they have been there...

[GreenleafGreyhound]

Oh dear gawd, if I *tried* to raise chickens, rabbits, and ducks, Giselle would consume my whole "farm-zoo" before dinnertime She once tore her way into a Durian. I have no doubt in my mind she could tear her way through a chicken pen.

So obviously, you can see that we don't raise our own food. However, I think you've got a greyt thing going on and if we lived closer, I'd buy my pup's food from you (also, this might be a way to boost your income).

Just out of curiousity, your pups must eat around 3 carcasses total, daily. How do you keep up with their appetites? In a way, I mean, how many animals do you raise per species? Tell us more!

[Mom2Many]

I have toyed with the idea of raising my own rabbits but since I have three that are pets I just don't have the heart. But I did find a great source not to far away from me and it is really a great deal. I don't add any veggies to my dogs RAW so that isn't an issue from me but you seem to have a great variety going on there.
I don't really know how you could improve what you have going on. It seems they get a nice variety of meats as well.

[Cassiepeia]

I think it's a great idea, Novel. I don't think I could do it myself (although I raised and killed chickens in highschool) but like Greenleaf, if I lived near you I'd buy from you.

Jesse isn't fussed by a completely raw diet. He's a bit snobbish when it comes to food although he does get a wide variety of left overs and very rare meat along with his commercial dog food.

Cass.

[WingedFoal]

Ah, I wish I could do it too, but I'd probably cry at every animal I had to kill! In other words, I couldn't trust myself to handle it. I can happily and guiltlessly eat chicken, beef, turkey, whatever, without seeing the actual animal alive, but for some reason it makes that difference to me. Maybe illogical, but still how my crazy little mind thinks.....

Basically, I don't find what you do distasteful or offensive. I respect you more for it!!

[Liz]

I agree with everyone else-what a great idea, but unfortunately I don't have the time, space, nor the energy to do it. I do admire you though for taking such extra steps to ensure your dog's health. If I ever did decide to go raw, I would be worried about not giving my dog enough calories though. He's a high energy, high metabolism dog. With packaged dog food, the measuring is easy to make sure they get the right amount of claories, with raw, I'd probably end up underfeeding or overfeeding him. How many chickens/rabbits/etc do you go through a week? And how often do you feed them on a daily basis?

[Novel]

Sorry, everyone. I found an opportunity to get some good sleep! LOL!

It seems the big question is #'s. I wish I could say that my production was able to entirely feed my three, but not yet, but hopefully soon. Maybe this makes me a bad parent, but since I am most concerned with Topper's health, he eats entirely from the farm. I have enough to feel Alley some days, and then Laney. I'm always concerned about toxins with Alley because she is a Boxer and they have such a high likelihood of cancer.
So, Topper eats one whole chicken 5 days a week. He's actually still gaining with that intake, and I'm going to have to cut him back a little especially as we hit the colder months, or feed him smaller chickens. Right now he is eating 4.5 month old cockerels from a batch of 50 that I bought in March. I also have hens that I bought at that time that will be egg layers eventually. Right now I can feed him completely from the farm, but my #'s are going to dry up again soon. The idea is to get the hens producing eggs, incubate those eggs, and always have some chickens growing up. It's a cycle that takes some time to get going, and we're just about there. If the critters hadn't gotten all my hens last fall, I wouldn't have had to start over.
So, Topper should probably be eating 20 or fewer chickens a month. That means a replacement of 20 or more each month with incubated hatchlings. That's not hard to do since a hen can produce an egg 2 of every 3 days, or about 22 eggs by herself. If I could maintain a flock of about 25 hens, and raise about 75 chicks a month, I would have more than enough to feed all the dogs. Now that's about 300 chickens alive at any one time, and I really don't want all that many, so I also have the ducks and the rabbits. The ducks are very similar to the chickens, but take a little bit longer to mature. I've fed a few of my culls to the dogs now, but am waiting for that cycle to begin.
With both of these I could just buy day old chicks and ducklings, but, I don't mind incubating, I can't really eat all those eggs and it's even cheaper than having them delivered.
So, if I reduced it to 150 chickens and 150 ducks, I'd have more than enough, because the ducks are heavier, but slower to mature and reproduce.
That's why I've added the bunnies too. They take up space not being used by the chickens and the ducks. They can be housed in hutches that are up off the ground. The average adult doe can produce 4 litters a year, with about 6-10 kits per kindle. Those kits are ready to be fed by about 10 weeks. With 12 does in production, thats 300 kits produced per year, or about 25 kits a month. That would reduce the numbers of chickens and ducks needed again. Again, I am working off of one carcass per feeding, duck, chicken or rabbit.
These are kind of rough numbers, and now I'm going to sit down and do some calendar work. LOL. You wondered why I have two calendars, because I think in time often! With gestations and maturation, a calendar comes in very handy!
I'd never considered expanding my operation to make food available to others. One of my good show friends sells Solid Gold to support some of her hobby, and I've always wanted to do that, but won't feed kibble and wouldn't make a good salesperson. Hmmm.... I wonder how many people in the area would be interested, and how many chickens, ducks, rabbits I can realistically raise (area, cost, zoning).
Later when I crunch some hard numbers, I'll come back and post them.

[bigdoglover]

I have looked into raising my own food for the pups for a long time. I have the space and time. But in my research, I came across some things that said feeding veggies isn't all that good. They said animals in the wild (wolves) don't eat veggies, and the grains they do eat are what was left in the stomach of the prey. What have you found? Other readings say to cook the veggies thoroughly....but doesn't that rob the nutritional value? I would love to feed raw, but there are so many conflicting stories, it leaves me confused

[Mom2Many]

Wolves are oportunistic eaters and will chomp on some fruits and scraps of veggies if they are handy. They do not usually eat the contents of the preys stomach, (too high in acidity to be yummy) the contents are shaken out before consumpution. They do not require those "nutrients" because the animal they are eating already carries them from constantly eating that food "grass, etc.". It is a personal decision to add these to your dogs food. Dogs that have been fed straight RAW (which means without the veggies and fruits) do just fine as do dogs fed a mix of meats, veggies, and fruits, as long as meat makes up the major portions of the meals.

One thing I would ask Novel, you admit to feeding a large amount of chicken to one of your dogs. Is he sensitive to red meats? Red meats are a vital part of a healthy raw diet, a lot different in makeup than chicken. A wide variety of red meats with occasional chicken is generally the optimal RAW choice. I know that there is more reason that what I listed but I can't remember it all right now. I will have to check one of my links to a RAW feeding forum but there is a woman on there who has been feeding RAW for about 30 years now, constantly doing research into the best way to feed RAW and it was from her experience and research that I learned that chicken should not make up the majority of a dogs diet. I am not picking on you or trying to start an argument. Just trying to share some information you may nor maynot have been aware of.