Crunchy, delicious and nutritious, our dried chicken feet dog treats are just one of the pawsome meal toppers that you can incorporate into your dog’s daily feeds. Adding dried treats to raw food meals can be extremely beneficial in supplementing your doggo’s nutritional intake, with just a few small additional ‘bits’ providing many significant key nutrients. Being low-temperature dehydrated means that these treatos are full of vitamins, minerals and healthy fats. Plus don’t forget that extra flavour and satisfying crunch!
Dried chicken feet for dogs and dental health
A chicken foot is a natural edible toothbrush for dogs and is great for cleaning teeth and maintaining dental hygiene. The crunching action of your dog chewing on their healthy snack scrapes away built up food and plaque. With healthy gums and teeth comes better breath, so dried chicken feet for dogs are the perfect solution if your doggo’s licks and kisses are a getting a little pongy. These crunchy treato delights also have fewer calories than other meat products while still being a good protein source.
If you’re looking for a dental chew for dogs our naturally shed deer antlers are also great for dental health – read more at ‘All About Antlers for Dogs – Source Story, Benefits & Doggo Dental Health’.
Dried chicken feet as a joint health supplement
Chicken feet are high in glucosamine and chondroitin which are important nutrients for promoting good joint health (these are the active ingredients that can be found in many canine joint supplements). Glucosamine and chondroitin provide the building blocks for joint cartilage and therefore help improve overall joint health and are particularly important for arthritic dogs or dogs with joint conditions such as hip dysplasia.
Therefore, these tasty little morsels are a great natural alternative to other supplements and are a perfect treat for older dogs. It’s been suggested that each foot is packed with approximately 450mg of glucosamine. To put this in perspective – when compared to the average joint supplement, that’s a daily dose for a medium-sized dog.
Are dehydrated chicken feet safe for dogs?
Yes! Unlike cooked chicken bones which should be avoided at all costs, our low-temperature dehydrated chicken feet are perfectly safe for dogs to munch on. This drying process leaves the bones soft and brittle as well as ensuring that all of the nutritional benefits of key vitamins and minerals are retained in the icky chicken foot. Not only are these treats incredibly good for dogs, they are full of flavour too!
How to feed chicken feet for dogs
This article is all about meal toppers (read on for more suggestions) so we love to stick an icky chicken foot – leg first – in Bach’s daily raw food meal. This VERY creepy looking addition to your dog’s meal is a nice little crunchy entrée and removes dental plague and food build up as your dog eats. Alternatively, chicken feet can be fed on their own as a daily health food snack – did we mentioned they’re low in calories? Perfect for those doggos that are packing a bit of a puddin’. Cough. Bach.
Can dogs eat raw chicken feet? Yes, chicken feet can be fed raw. However, the advantage of the dried variety is that they are much easier to handle and store, plus generally have a shelf life of 6 months in an airtight container. They are also low-odour, so are great for snacking inside the house or while travelling. We recommend feeding between one and two feet per day (depending on the size of your dog) as part of a balanced diet.
Dried Chicken Feet for Puppies
We recommend choosing a slightly softer treat (like Tasty Fish Twists or Weenie Peenies) for very young puppies up to 16 weeks, however chicken feet are perfectly fine to feed to older puppies and mature dogs.
Chicken Bones for Dogs
We can’t stress enough, while fresh and low-temperature dehydrated chicken bones are safe for doggos, cooked chicken bones are a big no no. Cooked, boiled or fried chicken bones become very hard (almost like glass) and break into sharp and pointy splinters easily. This means that cooked chicken bones can that they can cause significant damage to your dog’s digestive system and big vet bills (or worse).
Our other favourite meal toppers for dogs
Stinkin’ Sardines
Poking a sardine into your dog’s daily meal in the same fashion as a chicken foot is a great way to include important additional nutrients in your dog’s diet. These ultra tasty (and deliciously pongy) treatos are jam-packed full of Omega 3s for skin, coat and digestive health.
Cartilage Crispies
These crunchy flavour bombs are high in glucosamine and chondroitin like chicken feet but also have the added benefits of Omega 3s. These sustainably sourced shark cartilage pieces are a real powerhouse meal topper with considerable nutritional value. Just a couple of crispies are enough to add a stack of important nutrients to your doggo’s diet.
Beef Liver Jerky
Beef offal (or beef organs) are jam packed full of nutrients and is an important part of a balanced diet for dogs. If you don’t want to feed the raw version, adding offal to your dog’s diet in dried form is perfectly fine too. High in omega 3s and packed full of vitamins A, B, D, E and K as well as iron & taurine – our beef liver jerky has been low-temperature dehydrated to preserve these nutrients. Being grass-fed, it contains also higher levels of nutrients than grain-fed animals (your standard beef liver treatos). Therefore, Gully Road Beef liver is incredibly nutrient dense.
A small amount of beef liver on top of your dog’s meal will do the trick – as a guide, a 10kg dog should be fed no more than 2 x postage stamp sized sections of dehydrated liver per day, A 20kg dog should be fed no more than a palm sized section of dehydrated liver per day.
Read more about beef liver for dogs at ‘Beef Offal for Dogs – Weird Wonderful Bits and their Nutritional Benefits’.
Whole Green Lipped Mussels (NZ)
These tasty little treatos are ideal for scattering on top of your doggo’s meals – like sardines, mussels are packed full of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, beneficial proteins, amino acids and Vitamin D. These nutrients are essential for early development for muscles, eyes, heart and brain tissue and then later in life for joint support and teeth health, making them great for young and old doggos alike.
Cat Bag
Our cat bags are a mixed selection of iddy biddy, crunchy cat-sized treato bits, which incidentally are the perfect meal topper for your doggo too. So, if you’ve got canine and feline siblings that are complaining of a lack of treato equity in the household, here is your solution!
Wabbit Wafers
Rabbit ears are a great way to introduce fur into your dog’s diet, which is important for digestive health. Read more about animal for dogs at our ‘Hairy scary furry bits – animal fur dog treats and digestive health’ article, with a short excerpt below;
Natural animal furry treats are an important of a balanced diet for dogs and promote optimum canine digestive health. In the wild, your pampered pooch would eat their prey . . . Fur and all. These ethically and sustainably sourced products are also jam-packed full of essential nutrients and healthy fats.
One of the major benefits of fur dog treats is that they act as a natural de-wormer for dogs. As your dog chews and consumes fur, the hair sweeps the digestive tract. Along the way, the pesky worms get trapped in the hair and leave the body in your dog’s faeces (you know, out the other end . . . Poo poo caca)! This might mean some weird bits in your doggo’s do-dos, but we can assure you it’s perfectly natural!
Happy snacking!
About Gully Road treats
All of the natural dog treats mentioned in this article form an important part of our nose to tail, ‘nothing is wasted’ philosophy and are all a by-product of meat processed for human consumption. Gully Road dog treats are all 100% Australian made and hand packaging on our little farm in Western Victoria.
