Chicken Necks for Cats
Otis came to us with quite a bit of plaque on his teeth (pretty normal for a cat that only eats kibble) and during his dental cleaning, the vet noticed that he has a few abnormalities in the design of his mouth that are causing them to wear away at each other and could cause trouble if not kept clean. So, I’ve been working on acclimating him to having toothpaste rubbed on his gums with the hope of brushing them someday, etc. Another strategy we’ve employed is that we’ve started giving him chicken neck treats and have found it so interesting to watch him process them, as he chews and chews them on both sides of his mouth. Truthfully, I’ve recommended them to my customers, but have never had a cat that I could give them to – our last was in her 20s before we found the neck treats and she wouldn’t have done well with them. I thought it would be interesting to people to see how they process them, so I took this video. It also seems so stimulating for his mind – it takes him a while to figure out how he’s going to pick them up (I edited out a lot of that at the beginning of the video) and you can see him really thinking and giving it great effort, and he seems so satisfied all night on the nights we’ve been giving them. We started at once a week, have moved to twice a week, and probably will up it to 3x a week in a few weeks. I can’t wait till his next dental exam to see how well these yummy meat tooth scrubbers have helped his mouth stay clean.
Feel weird about giving them? I did too a bit at first, but as long as chicken is raw, it can be fed to pets – never ever ever EVER cook poultry bones and give them to pets – cooking makes the bones brittle and very dangerous. Think of all the hundreds of thousands of feral cats out there eating whole mice and birds – crunch crunch crunch! Here’s a video of a cat chewing the head off of a chipmunk:
For those that question whether cats can and do eat larger prey, here’s a video of a cat chewing the head off of a fairly large ground squirrel:
We used to give our cat raw chicken neck bones, and she loved them. However, there was an unanticipated danger that forced us to stop giving them to her. Chicken neck bones are a lot larger than most of the bones in the size bird or rodent a housecat can catch. She got lazy in her chewing, and swallowed one vertebra whole, or nearly whole. We only became aware of it when she started throwing up and refusing to eat. It turned out that the bone went through her stomach mostly undigested, and blocked a portion of her intestine. She needed emergency surgery to remove it. So, alas, no more chicken neck bones for her.
Comment by luella nelson — January 29, 2012 @ 4:15 pm
I’m very sorry to hear of the trouble your cat had with the neck. The unfortunate reality is that every animal is different, and every kind of chew on the market (admittedly there are far more choices for dogs than for cats), both natural (tendons, bones, rawhides, hooves, cornstarch bones, hard-cured cheese chews, etc. and artificial (plastic, nylon, and even rubber chews like Kongs) have some sort of risk and very occasional stories of trouble. I have known many cats including my own that do very well with chicken necks, and though I’m aware that the possibility of trouble can exist with them, I do believe the benefit is worth the risk, and that the risk of gum disease and plaque causing organ failure is a greater risk to my cat. There’s a Holistic Vet down the street that has recently recommended chicken gizzards as a good alternative to necks for cats, and I’ll certainly be tracking those down to give them a try – bone-free yet still tough and abrasive for chewing. I’ll let you know how they go!
Comment by Green Dog — July 22, 2012 @ 6:05 am