I just bought Mia her first whole (well, gutted) chicken and I HAD intended to carve it into 2 or 3 portions as it was a bit of a beast of a thing. However it was much harder than I thought it would be . I do have good quality, sharp knifes but they just weren't doing much and it felt like they were making sharp edges of the bones . I just ended up giving her the whole thing .

On the plus side she seemed/seems (she hasn't finished it) to have really liked it and she gave it a really good chew, although her technique isn't great! She ate 2/3 of it and has left the rest... who knew a dog could have portion control !

Cut off the wings at the joints, then the legs at the joints then put the chicken on its back and slice the breast carcas off (you can either give that to her whole or slice down lengthways to give her two pieces) - there you go those sizes should be okay for Mia.

I might have to do some exploratory chicken anatomy investigations . What do you mean slice the breast carcass off? Do you not feed the spine/rib part then? She has eaten 2/3 of the chicken and is now curled up on the sofa looking stuffed, I'm surprised she knows when to stop... she can have the rest tomorrow.

Lie the chicken on the table on its back then take your knife and slice through from neck to rear right through the centre so that the top (breast) part of the carcas comes off as a whole piece.

Yes they can eat all of the chicken - Denver takes approximately 2 mins to finish that bit!

Ok, thank you I will give that a go when she gets another one although she did seem to enjoy dismantling it herself, it was just too big a portion size.

I must admit if i'm feeding whole chicken I literally give them a whole chicken each or just cut it in half down the middle if i only have one.

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Harvey - staffy
Chance - american bulldog (rescue)

19 snakes, 5 geckos, phibs, T's, inverts, fluffies and hedgehog.

What sort of knife do you use to carve? What if you are carving bigger things like lamb ribs ?

My tools of the trade include a cleaver (when i'm feeling civilised), a woodsaw and a hammer!

When I used to cut chicken carcasses up I just used to give them a good old chop with the cleaver. Now I cant be arsed!

I either use a very sharp cleaver or my trusty pair of poultry scissors as they cut through a whole chicken like it's nothing!

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Harvey - staffy
Chance - american bulldog (rescue)

19 snakes, 5 geckos, phibs, T's, inverts, fluffies and hedgehog.

I may need to invest , I've just been using a generic kitchen knife (albeit a very sharp one).