# turkey wing bones do splinter!



## Elisabeth (Jul 18, 2011)

The chicken drumsticks and wings are fine, but the turkey wings were splintering as my dog was eating it. I was really shocked as I was sure this would not happen since this is what I learned here, as long as they are raw. So much for that theory. I could tell Piper was not feeling well either after eating. Something clearly was hurting her gut and the next morning there was dark brown slimy poop with blood mixed in. First I thought I fed her too much but the next time whenI fed her the bigger part of the wing I took a look when she was crunching the bone and sure enough there was a splinter. Needless to say I took the rest away. No more turkey bone for her.


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## Tobi (Mar 18, 2011)

They splinter to a point, they are after all... bone, and the heavier poultry bones do act differently than say, a chicken or a cgh. how long as your dog been on raw? was she digesting the chicken bones fully? I've never had a problem at all with turkey and my dog, sure they have some sharp points, but so do tortilla chips, i have cut my gums countless times on them etc. but we can digest them like a healthy dog can digest the bones. If your not comfortable with it by all means don't feed it, but just remember, that when they are fully transitioned there will be next to nothing biological that they cannot breakdown (so long as it's animal tissue). Do you have the pictures of these splinters? when we first bought turkey drummies i broke one apart with a hammer to see what it was like and there were shards, and splinters... the only difference is that they were bigger than chickens.

The dark slimy bloody mixture was probably due to not being able to break down the bone fully, and her digestive tract reacting to it. Again that comes down to how long she's been eating raw, and how much bone she's getting. When we first started Tobi onto turkey wings, and drummies we were giving about 11oz of them instead of his normal 26 just to make sure he could process them properly.

ETA: Cooked bones will never break down because the structure is different after cooking, and raw bones are much softer, and digestible. That is what makes cooked bone splinters soooooo much more dangerous.


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## shellbell (Sep 24, 2011)

I know of a few people who don't feed turkey wings since they do splinter more than other bones. I feed turkey necks and don't really have a reason to need to feed the wings...


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## tem_sat (Jun 20, 2010)

My Doxie is very smart and always shows signs when a bone seems to be too sharp when eating a turkey wing. I likely won't feed turkey wings again, however, do not let that make you afraid to feed bone-in turkey completely. Turkey necks are no problem at all and are super great for teeth cleaning.


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## catahoulamom (Sep 23, 2010)

Turkey bones are much more dense than chicken bones, which is why I don't recommend anything other than the necks for newly transitioned dogs. The neck bones are softer, easier to crunch up and digest... while the drumsticks and wings are much more dense. I don't feed them now for this reason, but I have in the past, and my dogs digest them fine. In the beginning, my dog Topher would hork up a small piece of bone with some bile early in the morning after having a turkey drumstick for dinner, but now that his stomach is used to digesting more "dense" bones (been on raw for a couple years now), we have no issues. No bones in poop, no puking up bones. 

Raw lamb femurs also tend to "splinter", but this is much different from how a cooked bone splinters. In my experience, they will break up into large semi-sharp pieces, but the bone is still very soft and easy to crunch up and swallow.


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## Kat (Jul 12, 2011)

I feed pork and chicken bones. I dont feed turkey bones because I find Ruby ends up hunger puking a shard of turkey bone in the morning if she had it for dinner the night before. We have been on raw for 13 weeks now, she can digest the other bones fine, but I just dont like the turkey bones.


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## Liz (Sep 27, 2010)

We don's have a problem with turkey. I don't feed wings a lot because they just don't have enough meat. This time of year I break down whole turkey so my guy will get a partial wing with some breast meat for balance. Through out the year we feed alot of turkey necks and they love them.


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## pogo (Aug 28, 2011)

I have fed alot of turkey to my dogs especially the wings and have never had a problem, yes they are more dense then chicken bones, turkeys are ALOT bigger animals and yet the bones have never particually splintered that i have ever noticed.


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## xellil (Apr 4, 2011)

I think all bones "splinter" in that if you break them they will break into shards. It's more obvious with larger bones. I couldn't imagine digesting what my dogs eat. 

Rebel has pooped out pretty large bone splinters. I couldn't figure out how it got through his body without poking something, but it never seemed to bother him.


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## naturalfeddogs (Jan 6, 2011)

I have never fed turkey wings, but I have drumsticks. Our save-a-lot has some that are on the smaller side, but still big considering they are turkey. The dogs love them and have never had a problem. I'm planning on getting them some for Thanksgiving.


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## Elisabeth (Jul 18, 2011)

Hi Tobi, I've been giving Piper RBM's since August. I feed Acana in the morning though and yes, the chicken bones have been fully digested. No bone pieces in her poop. No pictures of the turkey bone splinters, they went into the garbage right away. Yesterday I gave her a beef rib bone and it went fine. It also kept her busy for a long time. Even if she was all raw fed I would be scared to give turkey bones again. Just thinking about splinters going down the esophagus and poking something is not worth it to me. 
Thanks for the comments from everyone.


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## whiteleo (Sep 7, 2008)

The splinters shouldn't puncture anything! However I DO NOT feed anything but turkey necks from the turkey as a couple years ago I had a horrible experience with turkey drumsticks, they also splintered badly and my Leo puked blood but nothing was ruptured, just irritated.


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## magicre (Apr 7, 2010)

Kat said:


> I feed pork and chicken bones. I dont feed turkey bones because I find Ruby ends up hunger puking a shard of turkey bone in the morning if she had it for dinner the night before. We have been on raw for 13 weeks now, she can digest the other bones fine, but I just dont like the turkey bones.


kat, that's mostly because she is still new to raw...those shards she pukes up....it should pass as the months go by. 

i really think it takes a full year to transition.....

we don't feed much bone in turkey, like necks simply because it takes up too much nutrition real estate....duck necks have worked out best of all for my kids....

but turkey necks are great for a dental workout..


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## Dude and Bucks Mamma (May 14, 2011)

We feed turkey successfully as well. What I learned from DFC was that, with turkey, it kind of depends on the individual dog. Some dogs can digest it better than others but I think they are all about equal once they have been on raw long enough. 

We bought 2 turkeys for thanksgiving and are going to break the second turkey right down the middle and do a small gorge meal for the boys on Thursday night since it will be much more than what they normally get.


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