# Deer as part of raw diet



## Daniel Cox (Apr 17, 2006)

Ok..
I feed a mostly RAW diet of chicken quarters and livers and hearts. It cost me about 47 cents per pound. I currently feed two dogs but will be adding two more puppies tomorrow.

Here is my idea.
Continue feeding chicken but start adding deer too. I have the ability to shoot several doe on my friends farm. Here in KY deer are very large and are easily had early in the morning.

Here are my questions.

My plans are to kill two doe, field dress and grind up and make hamburger. I will package them in zip lock bags and deep freeze all the meat. I plan to feed the raw deer meat 2-3 times weekly and chick 3-4 times weekly.

Any diseases to look for and suggestions on how to feed the deer are welcome.


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

I feed deer meat quite a bit, as well as various other wild game meat. 
Since I have a good supply of organ meat, I do not use the organs. (this we leave out for the coyotes and such to eat)

The only thing I would recommend is to freeze it for 10 or more days. This will kill any bacteria or parasites the deer may have. 

I also cut up the carcass except for the weight bearing bones and feed that as well.


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## Howard Gaines III (Dec 26, 2007)

When I can get deer, I feed it to my dogs. It is no less healthy and most butchers will inspect it for prior body shots or highway trama. It is safe for humans and animals. It also makes great BBQ food, call me when it's ready! :mrgreen:


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## Lynn Cheffins (Jul 11, 2006)

We feed lots of deer trimming we get during fall round-up(hunting season ). I don't get enough to make it a major part of their diet for any length of time but bag up meat trimming for snacks and extras when we start to up the mileage. Don't forget the parts like heads that the dogs like also - great things to keep a puppy amused for while. ( I like deer legs for puppies also)


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Lynn Cheffins said:


> ( I like deer legs for puppies also)


Personally, if your dog is a methodical chewer (like all mine) and does not try to crack the bones open, weight bearing bones are okay. 
If your dog is one that tries to crack these types of bones, they may end up cracking or breaking their teeth instead. 

So I use these bones carefully and even though my dogs are not hardcore chewers with bone, I do not give them very often. 

Also, I scoop out most of the marrow since marrow is really rich and could cause a bad case of the runs if the dog is not used to it.


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## Geoff Empey (Jan 8, 2008)

Deer heads and rib cages are lots of fun for my dog. I just freeze the heads and cut them length-wise with a sawzall. She will eat everything including the skull the only thing she leaves behind is the jawbone with the teeth. She drags them all over the yard and protects it from crows who want to steal it from her. So it's just like National Geographic in my backyard! 

She will eat the whole ribcage (bones and all) it is best again if you use a sawzall to make them into more meal sized portions. I left an approx 12 lb ribcage with her and she was poking and prodding it for awhile. So I went inside for 20 minutes and came out and she had eaten the whole thing! She is barely 50 lbs herself so I was a bit shocked to see she consumed the whole thing. Outside of the long nap no ill effects to gorging herself. 

Deer is good but you have to have the room to deep freeze it. I tried to keep some in the garage in a cooler. It didn't go above freezing but the meat really started to get a rancid smell. To bad as I had to chuck it.


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## Donna Rednour (Feb 12, 2008)

Deer meat & bones are great! I fed whole rib cages to them, yes gorged and then it was perfect for a fast day after that! Daniel, I'm jealous that you have that opportunity. My dogs never looked better than during hunting season and I could get 'parts'! Hope your adding other meats besides just the deer and chicken.... variety is the key to raw, as I'm sure you know.


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## Dan Long (Jan 10, 2008)

My brother is a hunter who also has a "nuisance" permit where he is allowed to hunt out of season on private property, so I regularly get deer for the dogs. Rib cages, shoulders/front quarters mostly, but it's all good. I'll section the ribs into 2-3lb chunks, cut some boneless meat off of the front legs, and cut the shoulders into 2-4lb chunks, so each chunk is a complete meal, bone and all, for my GSD and Dane. I will use the boneless meat along with other meaty bone sources like the usual chicken legs.

Daniel Cox, I hope you are feeding more variety than what you listed in your post. Chicken is good as a foundation but our dogs need as many meat sources as we can provide. Pork, beef, deer, lamb, turkey, duck, rabbit, fish. Whatever you can get, the more variety, the better off your dogs will be. I typically rotate chicken leg quarters and pork shoulder with the bone in as my boney meat sources, and use boneless pork, beef, beef heart, turkey and fish as muscle meat sources. I use beef liver and kidney and chicken or turkey giblets as organ meat supplements. I also use fish oil capsules, yogurt, whole eggs including the shell, and cottage cheese as supplements. When I can get turkeys cheap, I'll feed those, I'll do whole chickens a lot as well, a broiler makes a great 4-5lb meal for my Dane. Rabbits, pheasant, deer- whatever my hunter friends can get me I take as well.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Carol Boche said:


> The only thing I would recommend is to freeze it for 10 or more days. *This will kill any bacteria* or parasites the deer may have.


It will kill a lot of parasites (but not all, apparently) and it will NOT kill bacteria. Only heat like in cooking kills bacteria. Freezing does not. In fact, scientists who wish to have bacteria samples in stasis will freeze them. In addition, freezing and cooking does nothing for prions that causes chronic wasting disease. If it was endemic to my area, I'd be extremely cautious about feeding it. If I was feeding wild game, it'd be in my freezer for 3-4 weeks first.


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> It will kill a lot of parasites (but not all, apparently) and it will NOT kill bacteria.


Oops my bad, for saying that (not sure why I typed bacteria to be honest).  my apologies
We had CWD here but it was concentrated in the Whitetail population. 
Muleys were safe with no reports of CWD at all. 
Thus, this year I stuck to hunting Muley meat and carcass only. 

So Maren, 
With brucellosis, which is found in Buffalo I know, what would you recommend? 
I feed buffalo from a local herd that is negative.


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Crap, I misses the edit....just wanted to add that I KNOW store bought buffalo is tested as well, but when you have someone you can get buffalo from, do you recommend asking if they have their herd tested first before accepting the offer?


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## Geoff Empey (Jan 8, 2008)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> It will kill a lot of parasites (but not all, apparently) and it will NOT kill bacteria. Only heat like in cooking kills bacteria. Freezing does not. In fact, scientists who wish to have bacteria samples in stasis will freeze them.


Remember as well that the K9 digestive system is a heck of a lot different than us humans. Bacteria in a RAW meal for dogs including salmonella will be killed by the acidic properties in a K9 stomach. Just because there maybe bacteria on some meat that is given to your dog doesn't mean it is bad for them. They can handle it .. YMMV.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Dan Long said:


> ... Chicken is good as a foundation but our dogs need as many meat sources as we can provide. Pork, beef, deer, lamb, turkey, duck, rabbit, fish. Whatever you can get, the more variety, the better off your dogs will be. I typically rotate chicken leg quarters and pork shoulder with the bone in as my boney meat sources, and use boneless pork, beef, beef heart, turkey and fish as muscle meat sources. I use beef liver and kidney and chicken or turkey giblets as organ meat supplements. I also use fish oil capsules, yogurt, whole eggs including the shell, and cottage cheese as supplements. ....


Yes, while poultry is an extremely convenient and inexpensive source of digestible RMBs, it's best to add variety in the muscle meat that you supplement the RMBs with.

I'd probably skip the cottage cheese (which is unfermented and high in sodium; dogs generally deal well with fermented milk products -- like plain live-culture yogurt -- and sometimes not so well with straight milk (which cottage cheese pretty much is, besides having such a high salt content). 

Of course, dogs are scavengers, and cottage cheese is very unlikely to cause any kind of problem as an occasional menu item, but I'd probably skip it for the regular rotation. 

Your variety list is very nice, Dan. Are you ever able to get green tripe?


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Geoff Empey said:


> Remember as well that the K9 digestive system is a heck of a lot different than us humans. Bacteria in a RAW meal for dogs including salmonella will be killed by the acidic properties in a K9 stomach. Just because there maybe bacteria on some meat that is given to your dog doesn't mean it is bad for them. They can handle it .. YMMV.


In general, yes. Their stomach acid is far more caustic than our own, and their short digestive system allows for far less colonization/reproduction of food pathogens than the loooooong human system.

Dogs can and do get sick from food pathogens, but on a tiny scale compared to humans. (There have been several kibble recalls triggered by salmonella outbreaks.)

You're certainly right about the difference between canine and human ability to handle pathogens.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> .... prions that causes chronic wasting disease. If it was endemic to my area, I'd be extremely cautious about feeding it. If I was feeding wild game, it'd be in my freezer for 3-4 weeks first.


I'd be checking with local fish and game too about prion diseases in the area. I believe that there has not been documentation of species jumps of prion diseases to dogs, but I think the jury is still out on whether it's possible. Mule deer and some elk have much more prevalent CWD in some areas than, say, cattle with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (mad cow), a prion disease.

So my two precautions too would be freezing at zero for parasites and finding out about prion diseases in the area the game meat comes from.

Is that what you have learned too, Maren?


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## Daniel Cox (Apr 17, 2006)

Connie Sutherland said:


> Yes, while poultry is an extremely convenient and inexpensive source of digestible RMBs, it's best to add variety in the muscle meat that you supplement the RMBs with.
> 
> I'd probably skip the cottage cheese (which is unfermented and high in sodium; dogs generally deal well with fermented milk products -- like plain live-culture yogurt -- and sometimes not so well with straight milk (which cottage cheese pretty much is, besides having such a high salt content).
> 
> ...


I usually mix in some honest kitchen
I use the preference and mix it with chicken and beef. Honest kitchen is expensive and I have thought about making my own mix. Green tripe sounds good but never got any. I believe I could get some and should.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Daniel Cox said:


> I usually mix in some honest kitchen
> I use the preference and mix it with chicken and beef. Honest kitchen is expensive and I have thought about making my on mix. Green tripe sounds good.


The Honest Kitchen is a very good product (IMO). I know several people who use it the way you mention -- as a produce-containing supplement to a raw diet. The fully balanced THK recipes (Embark, Thrive, Force) will also work very nicely as a source of variety. (Preference, for readers who aren't familiar with THK, is the one recipe they make that has to be fed with meat. All their varieties give suggestions for adding meat, however.) I use it for travel and to keep in the house for empty-freezer emergencies.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Daniel Cox said:


> Green tripe sounds good but never got any. I believe I could get some and should.


I can't stand the smell, but I do think it's the perfect form of produce for dogs. So I bite the bullet every now and then and order some. Most of the time I just give very tender low-sugar low-cellulose green vegetables in small amounts. (THK would work, too, as a form of produce that canids can probably digest almost as easily as they can digest the stomach contents of small prey.)

The occasional very low-sugar fruit that timber wolves eat (like blueberries), in small amounts, is another form of variety that I add in season.

The Yellowstone Project videos showed Gray Wolves eating young tender green fern shoots, fallen ripe berries, and the entire intestinal contents of small prey like rabbits and rodents (although not the entire stomach contents of large ruminants), even in times of plentiful prey.

So while the ratio of produce to the overall diet is very small, they do choose to eat it. So I try to replicate that to a reasonable extent.


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## Geoff Empey (Jan 8, 2008)

Connie Sutherland said:


> You're certainly right about the difference between canine and human ability to handle pathogens.


I know just a lot of the John Q Public just humanize everything about dogs including diets ... 

I have been getting my RAW from my herding instructor and offering it to people in my French Ring club. Well this one guy had a GSD X and the dog got diarrhea starting out on the RAW. So he goes running to his vet, the vet asks what did he feed her. Well once he told her he got the speech and the fear of god as only a "professional" can preach about being anti RAW. 

So he came back to me freaking out, asking if the meat was tested for bacteria etc etc threatening me with legal action etc etc ... :-({|= Anyways it worked out in the end. Now the guy doesn't come to train anymore as his dog didn't have the drive to bite and was dog aggressive anyways. 

For some people ignorance is bliss! I don't know why I try to help sometimes. =;


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Kind of off topic, but, I was explaining Little Embers attitude as far as coming after me when I would tell her "no" and the "trainer" I was talking to told me that it probably had something to do with her all raw diet....#-o#-o#-o

And she told me to get her onto a balanced kibble like Pro Plan and that would help. UGH!!!!

She also said that I need to get her vaccinated because all dogs should be vaccinated for the first four years of their lives and then you can stop. Kind of like children, she said. 

Needless to say, Ember is doing great with training and we have not switched a thing as far as diet and not getting vaccinated. I keep everything motivational and the "tantrums" are few and far between now. 

I hate getting the "speech" about raw from people who think that raw diet is tossing them a chicken and a knuckle bone daily. 
BUT, I love to get the 

"Oh your dogs look great, what do you feed them?" 

"I feed raw diet"

"OH" and the look on their face is priceless since you know they are thinking how terrible I am for giving my dogs the DREADED BONES....geesh


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Carol Boche said:


> So Maren,
> With brucellosis, which is found in Buffalo I know, what would you recommend?
> I feed buffalo from a local herd that is negative.



Keeping in mind I know very little about bacteriology yet... 

Looking in the Merck manual, it appears that _Brucella abortus_ that causes brucellosis in cattle, bison, elk, and caribou is not the same organism that causes brucellosis in dogs (_Brucella canis_). It looks like both have zoonotic risks.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Geoff Empey said:


> Remember as well that the K9 digestive system is a heck of a lot different than us humans. Bacteria in a RAW meal for dogs including salmonella will be killed by the acidic properties in a K9 stomach. Just because there maybe bacteria on some meat that is given to your dog doesn't mean it is bad for them. They can handle it .. YMMV.


Geoff, a gentle reminder that I'm likely going to specialize in holistic nutrition (and behavior) when I'm a vet, so yes, I'm quite aware of that. :wink: And no, salmonella isn't necessarily killed in the stomach. You can certainly culture lots of salmonella in the feces from dogs who eat raw, but they usually have no clinical signs of salmonella "food poisoning." There has been numerous articles in peer reviewed journals about the presence of salmonella in the feces raw fed dogs.

I just wince sometimes when raw feeders (keeping in mind that I've been a raw feeder for about 3 years and I'm the only one in the vet school who does) go on about the magical acidity of the stomach. That's helpful, but not the end all be all. My original point to Carol was to not assume that freezing bacteria kills them, which it often does not. Not whether or not they can handle it or not. 

As far as prions go, they are proteins with extremely strong structures that resist denaturation by heat. This is why cooking contaminated meat will not harm them. Freezing them would not hurt them either.


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## Geoff Empey (Jan 8, 2008)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> Geoff, a gentle reminder that I'm likely going to specialize in holistic nutrition (and behavior) when I'm a vet, so yes, I'm quite aware of that. :wink: And no, salmonella isn't necessarily killed in the stomach. You can certainly culture lots of salmonella in the feces from dogs who eat raw, but they usually have no clinical signs of salmonella "food poisoning." There has been numerous articles in peer reviewed journals about the presence of salmonella in the feces raw fed dogs.
> 
> I just wince sometimes when raw feeders (keeping in mind that I've been a raw feeder for about 3 years and I'm the only one in the vet school who does) go on about the magical acidity of the stomach. That's helpful, but not the end all be all. My original point to Carol was to not assume that freezing bacteria kills them, which it often does not. Not whether or not they can handle it or not.


No worries Maren, My comment was sure not meant as a shot at you. I've learnt a lot from your posts on nutrition I always look forward to reading them. Like I stated in my original post in this thread.



Geoff Empey said:


> I know just a lot of the John Q Public just humanize everything about dogs including diets ...


When they hear things like there is e-coli, salmonella or dreaded bacteria in dog feces from RAW fed dogs on top of all the fear mongering that goes on from non holistic nutrition advocates. People who maybe not be educated on a holistic diet get these preconceived notions and head stuck in the sand beliefs. Hearing stuff like that just puts them all into a tailspin. Unless it is put in some sort of perspective that they can understand. That's where I was coming from thats all.


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Geoff Empey said:


> ... When they hear things like there is e-coli, salmonella or dreaded bacteria in dog feces from RAW fed dogs .....


As Bob Scott and I have both pointed out more than once, those owners should NOT eat dog poop. 

Raw-fed or kibble-fed! :lol:

See? Old people have wisdom.


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## Dan Long (Jan 10, 2008)

I've never been able to find green tripe around here, but I'm sure I could if I really looked. I hear it's nasty!

I think the salmonella deal with raw food is mainly a risk for the humans preparing the food. You need to take precautions and make sure you clean up thoroughly, and make sure you wash your hands well to minimize the risk.

You ever notice how the dogs who eat poop are ones who are fed lousy food?


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

Dan Long said:


> You ever notice how the dogs who eat poop are ones who are fed lousy food?


My husband's labrador eats our other dogs' poop constantly - he and my other dogs were fed California Natural Lamb and Rice until about a year ago when I switched to a raw diet. He still eats poop whenever he gets the chance regardless of my attempts to stop him. So, it doesn't always relate to lousy food.


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## Konnie Hein (Jun 14, 2006)

Connie Sutherland said:


> As Bob Scott and I have both pointed out more than once, those owners should NOT eat dog poop.


In these discussions about bacteria/Salmonella and raw food diets, I always like to break out this article that I think Connie posted a while ago:
http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/schwarzengrund.html

"_llness related to this outbreak has not been reported in pets. However, the outbreak strain of Salmonella Schwarzengrund was isolated from fecal specimens from two dogs that ate dry pet food in the homes of two of the ill persons._"


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