We are interested in Natural feeding approach to dogs as recommended by Dr Ian Billinghurst and I have a query re: puppies. We are hoping to take on a puppy soon - 9 weeks old and the breeder has been feeding minced up whole chicken (bones and all) - he does this with his own mincer. We are committed to Dr Billinghurst's approach but are not sure about our ability to get bones minced up for the pup - we don't really have facilities to do it ourselves and I have asked in several local butchers - all negative response - they won't do it!!! Would anyone know when it be safe (i.e. age range) to give puppy whole chicken wings for instance - any advice would be helpful.....
Regards
Emma

Most suppliers do chicken mince with bone and do offer a delivery service. whereabouts are you and I may be able to put you in touch with a supplier who covers your area. I gave wings to our pups at about 15 weeks but we have a large breed.

Thanks for your reply - have now joined so I can reply to you. We are in Woking so if you can point me in the direction of a supplier that would be brilliant. We did find some frozen stuff in the Pets at Home superstore down the road which I think is called Nature's Choice, which is supposed to be minced chicken etc but we weren't sure if it had enough minced bone in it. Hubbie spent the weekend bashing up chicken wings with cleaver, mallet and food processor - the kitchen looked like a bit of a mess when he had finished but at least we have a supply now for approx 1 week which we can guarantee is 100% raw meaty bone! Mind you it took about 3 hours to clean the mess up so would prefer not to do that every week. We are getting a small breed dog - Frenchie (French bulldog) - so I guess 15 weeks would be too early?? Any advice would be gratefully recieved. Many thanks.

You can start giving whole chicken wings for now; if you wish you can bash them with a cleaver etc but all of the raw fed pups I know have eaten raw chicken wings from day 1!

you should register, then you can post answers etc....there are a fair few raw feeders on the board.

I fed my 6 week old lurcher pup raw from the day i got him home, he could manage whole chicken wings by nine weeks, and he was tiny!!!!

Em

Thanks for your reply - have now joined so I can reply to you. We are in Woking so if you can point me in the direction of a supplier that would be brilliant. We did find some frozen stuff in the Pets at Home superstore down the road which I think is called Nature's Choice, which is supposed to be minced chicken etc but we weren't sure if it had enough minced bone in it. Hubbie spent the weekend bashing up chicken wings with cleaver, mallet and food processor - the kitchen looked like a bit of a mess when he had finished but at least we have a supply now for approx 1 week which we can guarantee is 100% raw meaty bone! Mind you it took about 3 hours to clean the mess up so would prefer not to do that every week. We are getting a small breed dog - Frenchie (French bulldog) - so I guess 15 weeks would be too early?? Any advice would be gratefully recieved. Many thanks.

My puppy was eating whole wing tips at 8 weeks when we got him, no problems. You can always bash them up a bit if you are worried.

Hi Gibbsy
Thanks for your reply. We spent wicked mashing up chicken wings with cleaver, mallet etc so it is pretty minced but we are going to try giving him whole wing next week - will be nine weeks + then so I hope he will take it!! Did your dog retch or choke at all - did he /she try and gobble it whole???
Thanks

hi emma,
i have bought my own grinder which i use to mince up things like chicken wings and breast of lamb. my lot are gulpers and tend to swallow things whole before the others can take it off them :) cost about £90ish you could also buy ready prepared minced products from places like amp, albion, landywood, babmbers. pets at home stock amp range, which does have bone in some products, and there are quite a few companies starting to do raw foods as they are starting to realise more and more people are wanting to feed their dogs a natural diet. have you joined "britbarf"? it is a yahoo group message list which is very useful. i can send you links for some websites if you like, or look in the back of the dog papers, a lot of companies advertise in there,
hth,
kelly