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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

My Pack Eating Whole Prey Chickens

I fed my pack whole bantam chickens for breakfast this morning and then took photos to show how they did with them. Please do not look at them if you are squeamish. 



I laid all the frozen chicken out and gave the pack the "leave it" command. Daisy appointed herself the guard. 

The rest of the pack sitting nicely behind Daisy.

Huey & Cooter waiting nicely for their chickens.

Cooter with his chicken's head. 

Daisy waiting nicely for her chicken.

Daisy waiting after the "leave it" command.

After I gave her the OK.

And she takes her chicken and moves off to a spot she feels comfortable. 

Cooter waiting nicely.

Cooter getting his chicken.

Jesse & Huey waiting. 

Huey demonstrated amazing control on the Leave it command , he is waiting nicely even with 2 chickens laid right in front of him!

He would not touch it even after I gave him the OK, I had to hand it to him. He is very soft & gentle:) 

Huey about to leave with his chicken.

Jesse was a little more impatient, he would sit & leave it, but when I tried to back up to take a photo, he  would get up and run around me, he never  attempted to touch his chicken though! 

Jesse heading off with his chicken.

Huey 

Jesse.

They each find their own spot where they feel comfortable to eat. they had to work quite a while on these, because they were mostly frozen & completely whole, including all the feathers.

Daisy

Cooter

Cooter.
This shows how those back teeth get cleaned when you feed large pieces or whole prey.

Cooter



Huey preferred to stand up almost throughout his whole meal. This may be because he is the lowest position in the pack and felt someone might come to take his food & he would have to run for it. 

Huey standing and about 6-8 feet back Jesse is laying down eating his  meal.

Huey moving to a different location when some workmen can around the corner of my house.  They did not come near him, but he must have felt uncomfortable with them so close.  

Daisy ripping off the long feathers from a wing.

Daisy

Daisy

Close up of Daisy dealing with the feathers.

Cooter


Cooter being Alpha feels comfortable laying the closest to the house and  he eats laying and standing. 

Cooter getting the meat off the base of the feathers he ripped  out. 

Cooter (and all the other dogs) ate their chickens from head to tail. 

Daisy

Cooter with a wing.

silly boy! 

Another good thing about feeding whole prey or large chunks is they exercise their whole body(and mind)  when eating.

You can see Cooter really tugging. 

Huey 

Huey

Jesse

Huey

Cooter cleaning his front teeth. 

every muscle is involved.

Huey

Huey

Jesse

Jesse kept his chicken partially buried in the leaves while he was eating.  He is usually a slower eater than Huey . 

Cooter

Daisy

Cooter

Cooter.You can see they don't make too big of a mess with whole chickens. 

A shot of how they spread out to eat. Cooter, then Daisy, Jesse is off behind that tree to her left, and Huey  you can see off to the right. 




Daisy, you can see she pulled off all the long feathers and, like Cooter was chewing the bits of skin & meat off the base of the wing feathers. 



Daisy eating the last bit, the chicken foot. 


Daisy crunching the chicken foot

Cooter is a slower eater and was only about 1/2 way through his chicken when Daisy got done. 

Cooter

A close up showing how Cooter goes about eating the whole chicken.

Cooter ate the wings, then started with the neck, down the belly and left the back portion for last. 

This chicken had eggs in her when frozen, so Cooter got an extra flavor bonus. 

Cooter licking the egg yolk out.


a cross section shot of Cooter's chicken


Jesse

Jesse growling a warning at Huey(who was done with his chicken) to stay away. 

Cooter is still working on his meal. He was the last to finish.