Beef Feet

[BlueCoyote 0]

they were on sale for . cent a pound.... so i bought several packages - would have bought them all ... but i was already getting funny looks from everyone in the store lol (i'd filled the cart with chicken quarters and beef liver and was eyeballin the tripe.... passed it by this time)

 

anyway my question is how often should/could you feed a dog beef feet? hooves and all....? i was thinking a hoof/ankle once a day with some of the chicken and a small piece of liver.. but then i got to thinking the hooves themselves might cause some blockage........

 

any experience in this area? should i just chop the hooves off and keep them as a rare treat?

and same with tripe. how often can i feed that to my dogs? and um... whats it good for anyway?

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

Interesting and ~ to 'us' ~ probably strange question too. See; 'over here' we just don't see cows feet, unless they're supporting cattle.

 

 

" Hoof and Horn " has, traditionally, only been used, in britain, for rendering down and making glue from. I used to live within a good walk of such a plant. Pass by there on 'melt down' day and the stench was Just In F*cking Credible! (As an aside; Rabbit skins were also made into a glue. Still used by artists to this day, actually).

 

Now, that - the Glue Factory - was all about thirty five years ago. So this was before the days of " Complete Dog Diets " in greasy sacks. Not too long before though. And that place shut down.

 

Point number one; With such glue factories shutting down and yet people still eating beef, there must have been a shit load of cows feet building up somewhere, just looking for a profitable route of disposal.

 

Low and behold; It wasn't long before " Beef Recipe " carcinogenic crunch hit the markets. Chock full of " Animal By Products " of a bovine nature.

 

Ok. Let's put two and two together: Cattle hoof glue is superseded by some better product, so making the old, tucked away, city outskirts rendering plants redundant. The basic waste product is still being generated though, big time as ever. Suddenly we're told this 'new' "Food" is the way to treat our Dogs. Uh huh. Ever heard about lorry loads of cows feet being delivered to land fills or incinerators? ..... Nor have I. They started putting that shit somewhere else. * Cough! *

 

I wouldn't personally, for myriad reasons, put that " Dry " shit in front of my animals. Period. Nor would I put cows feet before them.

 

Why not? Because I'm 'well read' enough to have 'listened' to a top, Professional 'yote trapper when he described what a pack of hungry 'yotes had did to - and left of - a calf they got hold of. They left barely a bone of it. Just some bits of spine and skull fragments really. And the feet.

 

Those predatory, scavenging, wild Dogs ate every scrap of flesh, guts and hair. Licked up every trace of blood. But they left the hooves laying there. Think about that.

 

Liver? If I ever get given - and accept - liver amongst my Dogs feed, I'll allow them only a small handful, in with their usual flesh and bone, once or twice a week. Frankly; I can't wait to see the back of the damn stuff. Because it turns my Dogs usually hard and cream coloured (soon to dry to white) shit into a tarry, very dark brown mess. Besides which, liver ~ in any amount ~ is widely reported as being bad for a Dog. Just consider the amount of liver, as compared to flesh, bone and other organs to be found - per ratio - in a prey animal. Dogs don't naturally get to eat that much liver.

 

Tripe? Interestingly enough, an older english saying is variants of, " That's a load of old tripe! ". As in, eg; " That book? The author hasn't a f*cking clue what he's on about. He's talking a load of tripe! ".

 

I guess that rather nicely encapsulates the 'national' view of tripe? It compares favourably with terms such as " Shit " and " Rubbish ". I feed my Dogs neither.

 

But then, we all owe it to our Dogs - ourselves even - to study such things and so become able to make informed personal decisions regarding what we put in front of our Dogs. Offer them Glycol and they'll readily enough take it. And it's cheap.

 

But would that make it Right?

[BlueCoyote 0]

humm.. well... that explains why no ones answered till now!

 

maybe i should have come here first instead of the butcher lol

 

I know they've used hooves for glue, but around here they sell the cows feet and ankles skinned and cleaned up for stews. they also sell ox tails, pigs feet and tails, chicken feet and necks, turkey necks, pig ears, all of that... on the shelf in the meat section because people eat it. oh and pig snouts too, right next to the pork chops and T-bones.

when i was a little kid and saw those things on the shelf i freaked.... but in the south (and other places too i'm sure) its a big part of the diet and as ordinary as .. well... chicken breast lol but usually among a different class of people.

 

So what i bought is quality human grade... not covered in crud, mud and maggots, fresh from the feedlot floor. still, you have given me something to think about in regards to the hooves themselves.

when i lived on the horse ranch the farrier would come out to trim hooves all the dogs would line up for the clippings. those things smelled awful too after rolling around in a dog's mouth for about an hour....

 

as for the liver, yeah i dont give much of it to them for the reasons you stated. one piece of liver will last a while. i chop it while its frozen then package the smaller pieces with each daily ration. havent noticed ill effects from it. i see more damage done with the kibble than the liver. if my bulldog bitch has kibble for more than a day at a time she automatically gets the runs that will last a week..... not to mention her coat looks like hell, dries out, and she sheds badly. the others dogs seem to happily go from one to the other. but the bitch needs a more strict diet.

 

anyway thanks

I'll see what i can do with the feet tomorrow. if nothing else its something for her to worry for a few hours after she's eaten the chicken quarters.

Edited July 25, 2008 by BlueCoyote

[Stabs 3]

I've fed beef feet to my bulls for years and had no dramas.

 

One thing is though, a well chewed hoof absolutely f*****g stinks :sick:

[BlueCoyote 0]

I've fed beef feet to my bulls for years and had no dramas.

 

One thing is though, a well chewed hoof absolutely f*****g stinks :sick:

thats what i imagined too. a little piece of horse hoof no bigger than my index finger stunk up the house - didnt know the dog had it when i let him in for the night - cant imagine a whole foot :sick:

Edited July 25, 2008 by BlueCoyote

[johnk 0]

most of the feet and other parts that dont get used over here get burned and turned into fertiliser.so if the butchers dont want it i wouldnt give it to my dogs

[Stabs 3]

I feed my dogs on the stuff the butcher throws away and have done for years.

I used to get boxes and black bin bags full of steak off cuts, trotters, hoofs, pigs heads, chicken carcasses, sausages, bacon, pigs tails, lamb ribs, lamb spines etc

[threbb 0]

they were on sale for . cent a pound.... so i bought several packages - would have bought them all ... but i was already getting funny looks from everyone in the store lol (i'd filled the cart with chicken quarters and beef liver and was eyeballin the tripe.... passed it by this time)

 

anyway my question is how often should/could you feed a dog beef feet? hooves and all....? i was thinking a hoof/ankle once a day with some of the chicken and a small piece of liver.. but then i got to thinking the hooves themselves might cause some blockage........

 

any experience in this area? should i just chop the hooves off and keep them as a rare treat?

and same with tripe. how often can i feed that to my dogs? and um... whats it good for anyway?

I used to know a top greyhound trainer.Hes gone now but he won everything in his time including the English derby. You can learn a lot from people like that who train performance dogs.He was a great believer in tripe.Not as the main diet but to add to a meal.Because its a stomach it contains good bacteria.It also contains a lot of fat which dogs love.If you have a billious sort that easily gets the runs give him tripe to settle things down.Dogs also love tripe.The smell drives them mad,and as the old timer used to say a happy dog runs faster.Liver and kidneys lights are fine in small amounts as are bones but more than once a week is a no no.Offal will cause the runs and worse in time and bones block the system.

 

I dont know anything about beef feet but I do envy you living in a place where all these things are on sale.Our society as become far to plastic and as a result we are loosing flavour and nourishment.You cant beat pigs trotters for flavour and they are a good treat for dogs to.I used to help out on a shoot where one of the keepers would give all the dogs who were present a pigs trotter.It would keep them quiet all lunchtime and they seemed full of life after.We used to have a shop near to where I lived that was called "The tripe shop" and as well as tripe it sold chittlings brains and testicles which I think are known as sweet breads.They did a thriving trade until BSE came along but thats another story.

[BlueCoyote 0]

i didnt know that about the tripe, if the dog has the runs. i may get some next time. i have the one that is having trouble keeping her weight on - even after a worming - i know she's getting old but i'm having a fit keeping her looking healthy. she's perked up a lot since the diet change, but i cant convince anyone around here of that! if i showed you a picture of her from last march you would have sworn she was one of those starving dog abuse cases.

so if what you say is true about tripe then i'll add some of that to the diet. not to often of course. but i am trying to find any and everything to fatten her back up! anything but the corn.

i cant convince my husband of that..... i told him if she eats the dry kibble its the same as taking the bucket of it and dumping it on the ground... her body just doesnt absorb an ounce of it!

Edited August 5, 2008 by BlueCoyote