Can Dogs Eat Raw Chicken Feet and Legs?
Some dog owners wonder if their dogs can eat raw chicken feet and legs. Do you fall into that category? If so, this is the post for you! We are going to take a deep dive into why you may want to consider adding raw chicken legs and feet to your beloved dog’s diet. We will also look at some reasons why you may want to proceed with caution!
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Before we start, I want to clarify a couple of things.
First, make sure you do your own research any time you are considering adding something new into your dog’s diet. Whether it’s the dog food you are considering, a tasty treat, or any raw foods. A lot of disturbing news has come out in recent years about harmful things found in pet and livestock foods. If you’re interested, Petful has a detailed list of all United States pet food and treat recalls in recent years.
Second, I don’t routinely give my dogs raw chicken feet. Instead, I prefer to roast the chicken neck and feet with my roast chicken and then add the necks and feet into a large pot along with the chicken carcass for making chicken bone broth. I wrote a post on how I roast our chickens with the neck and feet, if you’re interested.
After getting as much collagen and essential nutrients out of the bones as I can by making bone broth, I give the scraps to my dogs along with some of the bone broth. That way everyone can have the health benefits of chicken feet!
Our guardian livestock dogs deserve the best diet we can give.
Our guardian livestock dogs save us a lot of money and stress on our farm and they have earned the right to be fed the best diet we can give them.
I wrote an entire post on how we are able to save a ton of money on chicken and turkey feed simply by letting our chickens and turkeys range freely. That means they are 100% free to go wherever they want whenever they want with few exceptions. They lay their eggs in nesting boxes (usually) and they forage for all of their food.
Our chickens scratch around in the woods looking for bugs, worms, and seeds. They scratch through the cow patties in our pasture making sure to get any flies or larvae. Chickens are our pasture sanitation team and they keep our pastures and yard looking good and relatively pest-free!
Free-ranging our chickens would be impossible without our guardian livestock dogs constantly monitoring, patrolling, and protecting them.
When they all start barking in the middle of the night, I rest soundly knowing that they’re preventing an attack.
We actually have video footage from one of our outdoor cameras where a fox stalked one of our layers without her noticing. The next thing on the screen was the fox jumping over a fence and grabbing our chicken in his mouth while she screeched.
Fortunately, he couldn’t find a quick way to get back over the fence with the chicken in his mouth and within 15 seconds, Sadie (one of our furry friends) ran like lightning towards the sound she heard. The fox panicked and ran away, and then we saw that little chicken run quickly back to her coop. The dogs haven’t been able to save everyone from the occasional predator, but we’ve only lost one or two in the last 6 months.
I hope that lays a good foundation for why we treasure our dogs. That’s also why I want to make sure they get good, high-quality food and natural treats. That includes raw chicken legs and chicken feet! I wrote a post on why we give our dogs raw pig feet, if you’re interested in reading it. I also wrote a post on why we give our dogs scrambled eggs and milk!
Can Dogs Eat Raw Chicken Feet and Legs?
Yes, dogs can eat raw chicken feet and legs but source your chicken with caution.
First, I wouldn’t give my dogs any food that I didn’t trust.
Most of the time, our dogs get high-quality dog food. However, we do like to give them occasional healthy treats in the form of raw food from the farm.
Since we raise and harvest our own chickens, I feel comfortable giving our dogs the chicken legs and feet that we produce here.
For starters, we raise our chickens in a very healthy and natural way.
None of the chickens have been sick because they get all the sunshine, exercise, clean water, bugs, and other forage they desire. Their feathers are very shiny and their combs and waddles are all vibrant colors. I know that when we go to harvest our chickens, they are all extremely healthy and none have symptoms of illness.
Next, we harvest our chickens in a very clean way.
I am meticulous about cleanliness when we harvest our birds but it’s not rocket science. We harvest our chickens one at a time (in an assembly line), scald them at the proper temperature, pluck them quickly with our feather plucker, eviscerate, and then rinse them inside and out very well before putting them in a cooler full of ice water. From start to finish, each bird only takes us about 7 or so minutes from harvest to chill tank.
After the chickens have sufficiently cooled down in the ice water, I use high-quality shrink bags and a clean pot of hot water to shrink-wrap the chickens. Then I weigh and label the bags and put them in our chicken freezer. Again, it is a very clean process.
Healthy and clean chickens are not necessarily a guarantee if you buy your chickens from the store or elsewhere. So proceed with caution.
Benefits of Giving Dogs Raw Chicken Feet and Legs
Dogs that eat raw chicken feet and legs have better health.
Feeding your dog chicken feet can improve your dog’s health. The benefits of giving dogs raw chicken legs and feet include shiny coats, healthy skin, dental health, and more energy.
Feeding chicken feet to your dog also provides a good source of protein. One ounce of chicken feet has approximately 5g of protein!
Raw chicken feet and legs are a great substitute for dog chews and chew toys. Plus, they are a great way to keep your dog’s teeth clean! If you have a dog that loves to chew (or gets bored easily), giving them a chicken foot will keep them occupied.
Similar to pig feet, chicken feet are also high in collagen. Feeding your older dog extra collagen will help lubricate and strengthen the connective tissue between their joints and that might help ease arthritis and joint pain if they’re battling any joint problems or joint stiffness!
If you have reservations about giving your dog raw chicken feet, you can also make or buy dehydrated chicken feet as a dog treat. Check out pet stores for the dehydrated snack or buy chicken feet from grocery stores, your local butcher shop, or place an order for organic, frozen chicken feet from Azure Standard.
Risks of Giving Dogs Raw Chicken Feet and Legs
Dogs that eat raw chicken meat may get food poisoning.
The risks of giving dogs raw meat include possible foodborne illness like salmonella, E. coli, and listeria to name a few.
While I don’t have any reservations about feeding our dogs raw chicken or other raw products that we produce here on our farm, I would not feed them raw food from anywhere else.
A small dog may have trouble chewing and swallowing raw chicken feet.
If choking is a concern you have because you have a smaller dog, you can cut the chicken feet up with a butcher knife or you may want to avoid it altogether.
The size of your dog doesn’t always have to be a factor, but to be on the safe side, the best thing is to observe your dog and don’t leave them alone with their treat until you determine that there is no choking hazard.
Small bones from raw chicken feet may break off and puncture your dog’s mouth, throat, or elsewhere during digestion.
Consider how fast or slow your dog eats other treats before giving chicken feet. Some chicken bones are hollow and could potentially lodge tiny bones in your dog’s throat when eating.
Our dogs have never had any issues chewing and digesting chicken feet in the past, though. Especially bones that have softened because they were used in making bone broth!
When you have chicken feet to spare, why not share them with your four-legged friends! (Sadie may not look happy in the above photo but trust me, as soon as I quit bothering her with my camera she was acting like a puppy playing with it!!)
And just in case it crossed your mind, No, feeding our dogs chicken feet will not turn them against our flock of chickens and turkeys. They don’t associate that piece of foot with what they see walking around all day.
Leave a Comment!
Do you give your dogs a raw diet? Leave a comment and let me know!
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Such great information! We have always fed our dogs the chicken feet while butchering our chickens they go crazy over them!
Thanks, I’ve been wondering about this as we will be raising 40 of our own meat chickens this year. I will use some for making bone broth, but I think the dogs will love the treat too.
Great article! We have always been feeding raw chicken feet to our dogs. Even though it looks a bit creepy when they eat them, they’re so good for them!
Really great way to use every part of the chicken. Great article.
Very informative post!
I have honestly never considered this question. We have had dogs, but never had chickens and honestly have no idea where you can even buy chicken feet locally! But I hope to someday homestead so this is great information for future!