Gibbs meets a turkey wing

[urge to herd]

Gibbs has a little tartar build up, and I 've been following a thread about teeth cleaning. Couple suggestions for turkey wings. I go buy a package.

 

Step 1: (human) unwrap turkey wings. Try to break wing, (which is slimy and cold) apart at the joints, using only hands.

Step 2: Wipe hands off, wash turkey goo off, open knife drawer, find only small knives and realize this human does not own a meat cleaver.

Step 3: Pick out sharpest small knife. Grab bandaids while my hands are still turkey-goo free.

Step 4: Try to remember what my parents taught me about cutting up a chicken. Can only remember the part about finding where the bones connect with each other, and cutting through that.

Step 5: Try to find a place to safely insert point of small knife into joint of wing. Minimal success, but success it is! Continued poking, sawing, and re-asserting my greater intelligence and opposable thumbs results in both turkey wings de-articulated.

Step 6: (dog) Sits down a foot or so away from the rubber-lined sheet I placed a section of turkey wing on. Looks at human. Looks at turkey wing, sitting there helpless.

Step 7: Dog stands up, carefully steps onto rubber-lined sheet, which he has slept on, chewed other chewy things on, but which is now evidently treacherous. He successfully reaches the wing, which remains lifeless.

Step 8: Dog cautiously sniffs wing, then backs away a couple steps. Just in case it explodes.

Step 9: Dog licks wing, sniffs again, licks again. Dog looks at human. Human says encouraging things.

Step 10: Dog leaves the surface of the rubber-lined sheet, lays down with his back to the turkey wing and stares at human for several minutes. Human refuses to get involved in dog/turkey wing dialog.

Step 11: Dog stands up, returns to turkey wing, nibbles on skin at one end. Chews thoughtfully, considers the implications. Backs away a step, looks again at human, hoping for clarification. Human remains unhelpful.

Step 12: Dog throws caution to the winds, picks up whole wing segment in his mouth, lays down on rubber-lined sheet and proceeds to gnaw on wing. Careful but definite gnawing occurs.

Step 13: Turkey wing is demolished by dog, or most of it. A small portion has been retrieved by human and saved in freezer.

 

Quite a page turner, huh?

 

Ruth and Gibbs

[teresaserrano]

Epic

First time I gave my last dog Sara half a chicken, I ended up keeping her in the yard with said chicken for a couple of hours so they could get to know each other. They did become best friends. Then Sara ate her friend.

 

Why did you de-articulate the wings? Was a whole wing too big for him? I usually found a turkey wing was the perfect size.

[amc]

OMG what a wonderful picture you painted! I hope Gibbs finds his new 'friends' appealing now!

 

 

Amy

[waffles]

That was fun to read through. Glad to hear he enjoyed it finally.

 

I wonder though what you were cutting off and why? Turkey wings are pretty small and all I do is hand it to the dog. I don't want it to be any smaller than it is (usually 6oz or so). Even if I were feeding kibble as a main diet, a turkey wing isn't that large of a splurge and I would just cut back maybe 1/2 cup to compensate, if at all. The smaller the piece of meat/bone, the less work the dog has to do to eat it, which is less benefit to the teeth, and easier for the dog to choke.

[D'Elle]

funny.

The first time I gave a raw bone to each of my small dogs, I expected the terrier, who will eat almost anything and is very enthusiastic about food, to tear into it, but he was cautious and took a very long time to decide to eat it. The little fluffy white number, who is picky as all get out about food, and who I thought might not even eat it at all, turned instantly into a mighty predator and demolished it with alacrity, warning off anyone who came within 10 feet of his bone. I ended up deciding not to continue to feed raw bones, but it was fun for them the few times I did it.

[Gideon's girl]

I cut off the first joint. That section doesn't have any meat but is fatty and extra bone. I also give more meat, if the wing is supposed to be a meal, because that's too much bone for the amount of meat for my dogs. They get constipated.

 

I just got a meat clever this time last year and I LOVE it. I can take a Turkey apart in about 8 minutes.

[simba]

SEQUEL, SEQUEL! Bravo!

 

Yeah, I don't actually have a useful contribution, I just enjoyed reading.

 

I want a meat cleaver but considering the culinary uses to which I have put an axe*, I am not sure I should own one.

 

*Can be used as a handy-dandy tin opener if you are careful not to make a mess, also good for chopping up frozen bones for stock (what? It's going to be boiled for eight hours!)

[Alchemist]

Meat cleavers rule. I use them for chopping turkey necks in half - nothing else (not even a chef's knife) compares in any way, shape, or form. Forget about vegetable cleavers!!! Just keep your fingers clear...

 

If it's chicken carcasses I'm dealing with, a good pair of kitchen shears (I swear by OXO) works just fine.

[GentleLake]

Count me in as puzzled why you'd cut a turkey wing into sections, unless maybe you were worried that feeding too much raw to an otherwise kibble fed dog might be risky and wanted to work up to it.

 

Otherwise I'd worry that a wing tip alone would be too great a choking risk, so wouldn't be inclined to remove it from the larger portion. The dogs need fat and the bone (as long as it's offset by an appropriate amount of meat either in that meal or the one prior or afterwards) so I see no reason to remove it at all.

 

I bought a cleaver once with the intention of using it on bones. I bought a good one that said it was capable of bones and had a warranty. The first time I used it the edge dinged and warped. IIRC I think I was using it on something like pork or deer neck bones, nothing like femurs of any species. Needless to say I took it back.

 

Now I use either a hatchet or of all things a larger set of garden lopping shears. The lopping shears work really well on ribs and neck bones if you work between the joints on the latter. And I have a great set of Fiskars kitchen shears that I love for poultry and cutting organs.

[urge to herd]

Here's the update - gave Gibbs the biggest part of the turkey wing, (approx. weight 10 oz) He ate all the softer stuff - meat, skin, fat. I got nervous with the size of the bone that was left and took it away from him.

 

Poops were fine yesterday, a little less than I expected. This morning he had a large, very green very slimy poop. Appetite and energy levels good. Is this normal? Should I have let him have the bone? It was larger than a chicken leg bone, probably 2x or more.

 

Thanks for all the further info!

 

Ruth and Gibbs

[GentleLake]

Dogs new to raw often have changes in their stools. It can temporarily cause looser stools, which is why many people recommend feeding a greater than usual ratio of bone to meat when introducing dogs to raw feeding. I'd guess the what you saw in his stool was a reaction to the fatty turkey skin with little lean meat and no bone to offset it. I'd have let him have the bone to figure out how to eat it.

 

A lot of people switching over to raw like to start with whole chickens, which are about 35% bone total, more than optimal for a total diet (though many people feed that much bone routinely, but I wouldn't recommend it) and meat that's not too fatty and pretty easily digested. When I switched my puppy over at 11 weeks old, I started with the bonier backs with some breast meat and then worked through the rest of the bird. A little bit of organ was introduced a a couple weeks in. He had no trouble transitioning other than some soft stools and one or two with some mucus. That was totally normal as his system adjusted . . . and he'd had mushy stools on kibble anyway. In just a week or two, his stools were consistently firm and I can even feed him organ meals without affecting them negatively. (Don't you love poop talk?)

 

In general, raw fed dogs' stools are smaller than kibble fed dogs because they're not passing as much useless vegetable matter that they can't digest. And they're not nearly as odiferous. I can't stand having to clean up after kibble fed dogs.

[urge to herd]

Thanks for the explanation, GL. I'm not switching to raw, I'm wanting to supplement w/raw meaty bones for dental health.

 

And yes - you can tell the REAL dog lovers by their willingness to talk about anything and everything that comes out of the precious pup. Any opening - front, rear, eyes, ears, wounds, skin eruptions, thing that happen in the very personal area of a dog. Does anyone remember the 'lipstick' thread from a few years ago?

 

Ruth and Gibbs

[GentleLake]

But even if you're not switching completely to raw, the adding the meaty bones can have the same same effects . . . . especially if he's not eating the bones!

 

If you're only adding bones for teeth cleaning though, I'd be more inclined to look for poultry backs, turkey necks or split lamb, venison or pork necks rather than turkey wings. Smaller necks wouldn't have to be split. They've got more surface area for the teeth to come in contact with. I'd feed them frozen for maximum chewing. I even feed meat chunks frozen for that reason; otherwise they just get gulped down.

 

You should be able to get any of these items through supermarket meat departments, butcher shops or wholesale meat purveyors (except probably venison necks -- I get them from deer processors during hunting season). Just ask if they can special order them, though most likely you'd have to order a case. Turkey necks tend to store more compactly in a freezer if you're limited for space and most of them don't have skin, so they're an excellent choice. I'd definitely choose them over wings. Hen necks tend to be smaller. Tom turkey necks can be huge.