I know I'm going to have to arm wrestle the Wife, but I'm switching to raw when I get home.

What do you think of fresh killed whole animals? I'm an avid hunter and I regularly take quail, pheasant, duck, goose, pond fish, squirrel, rabbit, deer, and I could probably shoot 15 - 20 raccoon a night during season. Maybe throw in a turkey or two as well.

I have a big freezer, a spare fridge, and all the butchery skills necessary to handle this stuff myself. I also am getting a meat grinder when I get home.

What, out of that list, could you feed, and how would you prepare it for consumption?

Sounds awesome to me. Remove buckshot and fish hooks. Skin or pluck. Butcher into meal sized portions.

The only item on that list I'd want to learn more about is raccoon. It might be fine to feed raw, I just don't know. There are some omnivores (bear, for example) that are often infected with trichinosis.

I'd also avoid feeding brains to minimize the risk of prions.

Any of those game birds would be fine food.

I feed my dogs whole animals. They eat meat, intestines, hide and the smaller bones. The large bones are broken up so that they can eat the marrow. Hide is cut off with the carcass with the meat. They eat it all and poop out the hair.

The smaller birds can be handed whole to the dogs, they will pluck the feathers as they go. Turkey can be cut up into reasonable sized portions.

My dogs will not eat fish unless they are really hungry and the fish are desiccated/stinky.

Rabbit have tapeworms in the intestines and liver, we burn the those parts. The dogs get the heads and feet, we eat the rest.

Squirrel - our dogs eat them by the whole or half (lay squirrel on log, chop somewhere between the back and the front).

Deer have tapeworms encysted in the liver, so I freeze it for 30 days before feeding. The ribs can be fed whole or chopped a few times to make smaller pieces. Fresh leg bones chopped several times can be eaten by my beagles, old dry leg bones are too hard and you risk tooth damage if aggressive chewers attempt to eat them.

Raccoons/opossum/rats can carry trichinosis. I won't feed it to my dogs, and they don't have any interest in eating them. If you want to cook the carcasses before feeding go right ahead (I refuse to cook them in the house and I'm not going to build a fire under a big pot to do it outside - so we put them out for the eagles in the winter).

I don't grind anything for my adult dogs (Chihuahuas, Beagles and Foxhounds). If the bones are too big to be consumed with the meat I add calcium.

Road kill deer are great free meat for the dogs (be sure to get permits from the game warden). Several people bring us their deer scraps for the dogs.

Squirrels, rabbits, deer and all manner of birds seem great to me: I personally do not permit the consumption of coons, possums, woodchucks, badgers, moles,snakes.
My dog eats a ton of mice, especially during haying season.

When I saw this subject, I don't know why, but I had visions of a live goat being tethered out, like in Jurassic Park

I think the Boerboels would happily chow down on the animal in it's post mortem state, fur/feathers/heads/hooves the lot!

I've seen a Hunt Master chuck a whole skinned young deer to a pack of Foxhounds, primal doesn't even begin to cover that scene!

I would give everything on that list with a caveat to pond fish. Not sure what those are and they're in your hunting sentence. Do you shoot them?

We don't hunt birds or the small critters you mentioned so our boys aren't really exposed to them. Echo ambushed a grouse once, gosh those are stupid birds. They all got a piece on that hike. And I got them a road kill pigeon. That's all the feathers they've really had with the exception of the tail Echo snatched off a magpie.

But they get pretty much all the smaller critters they catch. They're allowed to hunt in certain areas but we always take the kill before chow down. Lots of mice and a small rabbit. No squirrels. The marmots are out right now. Boy those things are fast.

Moose and deer are the only big game we hunt and not one iota of those got to waste. If it's a good year, two for them one for us. We often butcher our own, did the deer last year, but the butchers are set up so much better. They squawk about the bone grinding but they do it for us. I like a bit added to their ground meat.

Hunting season is a prime time for training opportunities for us. We totally allow them in and around when we're skinning (which they get a large portion of) but no mouths near it. Noses are okay but a nice down a fair distance away is rewarded. When the head comes off though, separation is a must.

Caution: Dead dear head

http://i684.photobucket.com/albums/vv210/wolfpup2227/DeerHead2011002.jpg

Echo has an excellent "Leave it" and is really a good boy but notice the e-collar. I've never had to use it in this particular scenario but aside from off leash hiking, it's one time I don't want to take any chances with giving a command that I may not be able to reinforce.

Vince isn't much of a recreational chewer but he's got a real passion for the heads too.

They both get a couple good meals off it. Garrett gets a couple of go's too but he doesn't devour nearly as much as they do.

Here's a video of Echo chowin' down. Not the best, it was a cold morning so I just gave it to him and went back in with the other two and supervised thru the window.

Caution: More dead deer head

http://s684.photobucket.com/albums/vv210/wolfpup2227/?action=view&current=CIMG0144.mp4

Anytime I introduce my boys to something new I pay a little closer attention to their output for the next couple of days. The boys I have now have all been on raw for over 3 years and can pretty much handle anything I throw at them as long as it's balanced. Fecals every year haven't turned up any parasites yet but it's interesting, there’s the odd critter they have no interest in eating.

Have fun "shopping" for your pup. The great outdoors is one market I have no problem frequenting.

I think David meant fish he fished out of a pond with a fishing rod...... though shooting them would be pretty funny!

Hee, hee. That's kind of what I figured, but you know me and those dangling inquiries.

You never know what people are into, I just had to ask.

You are not wrong there!

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Edited by tracey holden (05/12/2012 10:53 AM)
Edit reason: duplicate