I'm new to trapping and mainly have been trapping coon. Now I'm a firm believer in what you kill, you eat but I just can't bring myself to eat a raccoon. I know some trappers do but I just don't have the stomach for it. I do hear a lot about trappers making dog food out of them though and feel like this would be a better way of using the animal. I get a nice fur and my Collie gets a nice plate. Do any of you guys feed coon or other furbearers to your dogs? If so do y'all have a recipe or step-by-step guide? I imagine the simple way is too just cook it over a fire and feed it fresh but if there was any way to dry and preserve like bag food, that'd be even better. Sorry if this sounds dumb, like I said this is my first year and I'd like to not waste anything.

My dogs don’t even like looking at them much less eat them. You need a pet skunk or two their the only animal that seems to like them. Welcome and good luck

I used to have Coon hounds ...when I lived in Wisconsin. For 12 years it was like an addiction... I trapped Beaver and ran hounds for coon. We threw a coon in a big pot on a coleman stove while we skinned our take from the night before. Dogs wouldnt touch coon meat raw But you par boil it for 10 minutes and they'd gobble it up.
Thats all it took.

When I was a kid there was a old timer I got to meet, a houndsmen's houndsmen. That's all he fed his coon hounds. He had a huge couldren pot out in the yard and he would boil them in it. It would be a great resource to use if your not going to eat them.

I always skinned and gutted and cut in half crossways and cook in half a 55 gal barrel. I wouldn't cook til they fell apart, that way I could hang up in a old pest free building and they would keep a few days til I fed them up and cook another batch. My dogs would always start barking when they seen me building a fire under the barrel. I never did have a dog have problems with the bones. Now chicken bones is a different deal, not good!

When we fed 25 - 30 head of coonhounds we used to feed them coon all the time. Just like catch 22 said we had a big pot that we set on the wood stove in the fur shed and we'd throw 3 or 4 coon carcasses in it and boil them till the meat fell off the bone. Then we'd pour the water and meat mixture into 50 pounds of the absolute cheapest chunk dog food you could get and stir it all together until it became kind of a mush. You talk about some hounds liking a bowl clean buddy they loved it! And would get fat and slick and shiny! Been over 20 years since we boiled a coon and I can still remember the smell like it was yesterday.

My carcass piles end up with the coon' being the last to be eaten.

So you would just feed the carcass whole and the dogs would never choke on the bones? Just making sure I read that write

That's a lot of coon dogs to feed lol. I imagine that coon at least helped a little with their grocery bill lol. Did y'all ever have any get sick from them? I know Coons carry some nasty diseases but cooking would eliminate most. Also, how long did the boil usually take

Dang right it's like an addiction. Every time I catch a coon it stills feels like Christmas morning

You must not have otters!! 😃

I never did have a problem over several years.I think boiling the bones maybe softened them. If you are even worried (like maybe the kids pet then I wouldn't feed them any bones) I killed one of my favorite dogs with a fried chicken bone. So I do know bones will kill a dog. Sometimes if I over boiled and the meat fell off I would pour it on 1/4'' hardware cloth that was off the ground for ventilation and it would keep several days if the air could get around it. Also as Davisfur would do I ground my own hog feed and would cook the juice with the ground corn and bean meal, but I didn't mix any bones in it cause they weren't careful about eating and would just gobble it up. They seemed to be more careful eating the bones when it was just the cooked coons, and each dog was tied separate so they didn't gobble it to get it before another dog did. I also cooked beaver and all the bones out of deer. Those they would eat raw, but that fresh meat would go right thru them where the cooked didn't, plus like you I was thinking safer for disease.

I just have two hounds now that's just pets and right now they get a gallon of fresh gravy every day plus any vegs and meat scraps I have left over. In summer they go on a diet and get cheap dry dog food.

Another thing I always cracked the skulls and got the brain out and didn't feed them the skull or teeth, no reason just didn't do it.

If I had an expensive and much loved pup then I'd feed him the best dog food barring no expense and would feed the carcasses to the buzzards.

They never choke...No...

Either do Fox, yotes and Wolves that eat carcasses.

my mountain cur will lick my beam clean after I do a coon and wants the fat as well

I have literally fed our dogs five gallon buckets of chicken bones from a friends resturaunt we have never kept any kindof bones from our dogs over my whole life. Beagles ,coon hounds ,bird dogs,blue healers ,yorkies, and great Pyrenees with no problems . If your dog cant eat chicken bones you need to take the pink bows out of their hair . I can see keeping them from one that dont have any teeth . If they cant figure out how to eat a bone without hurting themselves one of the most basic k9 instincts they probably need culled for low intelligence.
My great Pyrenees would come in the fur shed and pack out big chunks of coon fat and hide them to eat all spring .

I never had a dog that wouldnt eat a beaver carcass. I fed them to my hounds. They could hunt hard on beaver carcass for feed. Only had one that would eat coon carcasses. A black and tan and he didnt eat a lot of it. I never tried boiling it first.

I had a female walker hound that had been raised by a guy that ran a fish market. I didn't know she ate fish til one day I went fishing and brought 4 nice bass in a 5 gal bucket. Set it down in the yard , went in the house for a while and came back and she had ate 2 fish and would have ate the other 2 if I hadn't caught her. She caught them in a half bucket of water. Them fish bones never hurt her, never seen a dog do that before or after. Wonder if the guys that feed their dogs salmon feed the bones?

the only threat ive heard of from eating bones isn't choking. a lot of bird bones are hollow, and will splinter into very sharp shards when crushed. these shards can get lodged in an intestine and could cause a puncture before they have time to digest. I think the chances of this happening would be slim, but I never took the chance with my dogs. ive always fed any other bone, just nothing from a bird. the most risky bones would be the wing and leg bones.

The only thing I've ever known to eat otter is shrew they eat anything!

If any bones were dangerous to dogs it would be fried fish bones raw fish bones are soft .we never kept them away from our dogs . If a bones to big and sharp they just cough it up crunch it up some more and swallow it again