Even though I don't eat meat, I accept that dogs and cats do (although they can thrive on veggie diets if carefully prepared for nutritional content). Here's my question - when I finally get my homestead together, I will most likely have a milk animal of some sort (probably sheep or goat), maybe some wool breeds, and definately chickens or ducks for eggs. As you all know, animals die - sometimes of natural causes and sometimes as a result of milk production there are "extra" animals that have to be killed, or sold to be killed. Sometimes animals die of diseases, injuries, and other misfortunes as well.

Since I don't eat meat, I would be saving what little meat I will be generating to feed my dogs and cats. If an animal dies of a species-specific type of illness, is it safe to feed the meat to other animals (I'm not talking other herbivores, which is how the whole mad cow thing got started)? I know that carnivores have very strong stomach acids just to protect against this sort of thing, so how bad is too bad when it comes to figuring out whether or not to feed the "old gray goose", which has died of something "goose-y", to the other animals (who, left to their own devices, might have killed and eaten her on their own anyway).

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), September 05, 2001

Answers

Well....:) Who is going to diagnose all of these diseases for you when you do have death? It is going to take years for you to be able to tell what you have wrong, and even in the case of milk, you will be probably be drinking milk from a sick animal before the sickness is diagnosed. Vets unless they do a necropsy are guessing at best. I only feed my dogs, animals in which we have butchered, now that isn't to say that they don't go feed on an animal that is dead out in the woods. Butchering day ond stock, and canning or freezing is fine for dogs or pigs to eat. Thinking back the only times we killed sick stock and fed it to the dogs, is when we were early into goats and had that mysterious diarrhea, that we now know is cocci, when the babies would get such severe diarrhea that their was blood in the stool, I knew that treating them would save them, but that they turned out to be horrid little creatures, so yes we did butcher them then. Guess it is going to boil down to whatever you are comfortable with, and I wouldn't be comfortable letting my stock eat diseased animals. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), September 05, 2001.

Soni, I was brought on a farm that had a lot of animals and quite a few dogs and as I recall no matter how sick the herbivore was if it was still standing it was considered fit for 'dog tucker', otherwise they were consigned to that greatest advance in modern day farming, known as 'the dead sheep hole'.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), September 05, 2001.

What are your cats and dogs eating right now? If it is commercial cat or dog food, it probably has a lot of very diseased animals that were pumped up with chemicals to keep them alive until they finally pooped out. In the wild, aren't dogs mainly scavengers that eat whatever they can find? Even well fed pets are not averse to gnawing and rolling on week old roadkills. Felines in the wild play an important role in preying on the weak, old, and diseased herbivores, thus ensuring that only the strong will live and reproduce. I think I'd cook the meat though, just to be sure and kill any parasites.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), September 05, 2001.

i have an old pressure cooker that isnt fit for human food its a large one i use it to cook dead rabbits /ducks/chickens and parts from butchering and cook thoughly i do a quick necropsy myself but death is usualy obviouse causes drown in waterer/crushed by feeder or piling up of birds so disease isnt a factor in those deaths ocasionaly a sick bird is put down because its safer and more economical than nursing them back to health and risking a spreading disease and they are worth as much for dog food as can usualy be sold for and its easyer than burial then the dogs dig them up if i dont do it myself ...i cook feathers and all and my pups eat the bones too when i butcher i keep the trimmings and tye them up in plastic grocery bags and dole them out so i have no waste or stink . some people used to use hogs as a disposal for deceased animals

-- george darby (windwillow@fuse.net), September 05, 2001.