I stopped feeding my dog raw chicken a couple of months ago when the latest wave of bird flu hit Taiwan - I didn’t find any specific info about this strain’s effect (or lack of) on dogs, but as the general advice to humans was “cook it well and you’ll be fine”, I thought it would be wise to apply that to the pup too. I still occasionally feed her cooked chicken breasts & eggs, but no more raw bones.
However, when I look around at what other dog owners or rescue associations are doing, it looks like i’m the only one worried about raw chicken - am I being overly cautious?
I would like to go back to feeding her mainly raw chicken, as it’s cheap, easy to find in any and every market, and the bones are much easier for her to chew (she doesn’t have all her adult teeth yet).
Thoughts?
Was always taught to never feed chicken bones, particularly leg bones, to a dog. Could be an old wives tail though.
That’s true for cooked chicken bones: cooking makes them brittle, which can be dangerous. Raw, they’re perfectly safe, provide plenty of nutrients and are good for their teeth.
No mention of bird flu when it comes to dog related zoonosis.
Thanks for the link Hansioux. I was actually more concerned about the virus making my dog sick (tbh I hadn’t even thought about dog-to-human transmission).
I did find some info about one of the bird flu viruses being transmitted to dogs in Korea a couple of years back, where they found that some dogs had been infected and developed antibodies, without getting sick. It was a different strain though.
It doesn’t seem like there is much to worry about, other strains haven’t made dogs sick in the past, this strain apparently doesn’t affect humans (at least not if the meat is cooked)… I was just wondering if there were other dog owners here who fed their pets raw meat, and how they viewed raw poultry at the moment.