Can Dogs Eat Turkey? Yes, But Not the Skin, Bones or Slices

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Quick Facts

This is our own research, not veterinary advice. For nearly every food there are many sources, and they do not always agree with each other. We check each claim against the veterinary and poison control sources, and we say plainly where they disagree. Even so, if you are in any doubt, contact a vet and do your own research before you feed anything to an animal in your care.

Turkey is a lean protein and it is good for dogs in small pieces, provided the skin, the bones and the seasoning are out of the equation. The skin is where the fat lives, and it comes off. The bones follow the same rule as chicken, because cooked bone splinters and never belongs near an animal. And the seasoning a bird gets roasted in is the part that actually causes harm.

The only time I have fed a dog turkey was in slices. The kind you put in a sandwich. I had a bit left over that I was not going to use, and the dogs absolutely loved it.

That is the experience, and it is worth saying that the advice is a bit stricter than what I did. Slices are a processed product and plain roast turkey is the better version of the same food. If I were doing it deliberately I would cook a piece of breast plain, cut it up, and skip the skin and the seasoning entirely.

The rest of what is safe is on the safe food list, and the chicken page covers the bird this one is judged against.

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Can Dogs Eat Turkey? Yes, White Meat and Plain

It brings B vitamins, zinc, selenium, choline and magnesium, and the breast is a little higher in protein than the rest of the bird. That is why it turns up as a main ingredient in a lot of complete dog foods.

The preparation is the whole job. It has to be fully cooked, because raw and undercooked poultry carries bacteria. The skin, the fat and the bones come off. Nothing is added. And it gets cut into pieces about an inch across, which is the published size and a sensible one.

The slices I fed that once are a good illustration of where the line sits. Deli turkey is not the same food as a roast breast: it is salted, it is seasoned, and it frequently carries preservatives. The dogs loved it and nothing went wrong, but it is not the version I would recommend, and the sources are explicit that lunch meat is one to avoid. Plain roast turkey does the same job better.

While we are on it, a dog with a sensitive stomach or a history of pancreatitis should not have turkey at all. This is a rich food even when it is lean, and the same rule applies to dairy for the same reason.

The Skin Is More Than Three Times the Meat

This is the number that makes the whole page. Cooked turkey meat is roughly 147 calories and 2.1g of fat per 100g. Cooked turkey skin on its own is 482 calories and 44.5g of fat. Three times the calories, and more than twenty times the fat.

So "a bit of turkey" means two completely different things depending on whether the skin is on it. A piece of breast is one of the leanest meats you can hand an animal. A piece of skin is close to pure fat, and it is the part a dog will usually go for first.

The dark meat in the legs and thighs sits between the two, and it is much higher in fat and calories than the breast. That is why the guidance is white meat only rather than any part of the bird.

Fat in one go is what gives a dog an upset stomach. Fat over months is what contributes to weight gain, arthritis, diabetes and pancreatitis. Pancreatitis is the serious one, and the signs are a dog that has gone off its food, is vomiting or has diarrhoea, with a painful abdomen and sometimes a fever. If that turns up after a rich meal, it is a vet call rather than a wait and see.

Portion control is its own subject, and feeding the wrong amount on a sit covers the wider version of it.

Bones Are Bones

The rule for turkey bones is the rule for chicken bones, and there is no reason to make it more complicated than that. Bones are bones. Once they are cooked they go brittle, and brittle bone breaks into shards.

A shard can lodge in a throat or perforate something on the way through. That is a genuine emergency rather than a stomach ache, and it is one of the few things on this site where the advice is absolute.

So the carcass does not go to the dog, and it does not go to the cat either. This is the part people get wrong at Christmas, because the bird is finished, the plates are cleared, and the carcass looks like exactly the sort of thing an animal would enjoy. It is not. It goes in the bin, and the bin lid goes on.

If a bone has already gone down, what to do when a pet eats something dangerous covers the sequence, and it is a phone call rather than a decision to watch.

The same logic is why tinned sardines are the fish I would give first: the bones in those are soft enough to eat, and they are the exception rather than the rule.

The Seasoning Is the Real Trap

When you roast a chicken or a turkey you add salt, garlic, herbs and spices. None of that is good for a dog or a cat, and garlic and onion are actively toxic rather than merely unwise. Butter and salt are the lesser problem, which still makes them a problem.

So the turkey itself is rarely what causes trouble. The way it was cooked is. A plain roast bird, carved and with the skin taken off, is a different proposition from a supermarket rotisserie one that has been brined and glazed and salted through.

If a dog is given a taste of a seasoned bird, it does not need to be a catastrophe. The guidance is a small amount of the white meat, with the skin off, because the seasoning sits mostly on the outside. What I would not do is hand over a big piece of a seasoned roast and assume the meat underneath is clean.

The version to aim for is straight up basic turkey. No salt, no garlic, no herbs, no butter, and cooled down before it goes anywhere near an animal. That is the whole recipe and it is not difficult.

Mince, Necks and the Rest of the Bird

Ground turkey is fine if it is plain, unseasoned and thoroughly cooked. What you gain in convenience you lose in leanness, though: a 93% lean mince carries four times the fat of breast meat, at 8.3g per 100g.

Turkey necks are safe if they are cooked through. Raw necks carry salmonella and other bacteria, so the cooking is not optional. If you would not eat it yourself, it is not a good idea to hand it over.

The rest of the turkey products are all no. Turkey bacon, sausage, burgers and jerky are high in sodium and preservatives, and they routinely contain garlic and onion. Smoked turkey is the same story, because the smoking process brings a great deal of salt with it.

It is the same principle that makes dried coconut and coconut milk a bad idea: the more processed the product, the less you know what is actually in it, and the more likely something on the list is wrong for an animal.

One myth worth clearing up while we are here: turkey does not make dogs sleepy. It contains tryptophan, which is involved in sleep, but the amount in a piece of turkey is far too small to affect anything. The drowsiness after a big meal is the size of the meal, not the bird.

How Much Turkey

Treats of every kind should stay under about 10% of a dog's daily calorie intake, which is the standard most vets and the literature give. Turkey is lean enough that the portion is generous compared with a fattier food.

The published portions are counted in one-inch cubes of cooked white meat, with no skin and no bone.

Those calorie figures are our arithmetic on the published energy value of 147 kcal per 100g cooked turkey meat, with a one-inch cube assumed to be about 6g. The cube counts are our reading of the published guidance.

If a dog needs a leaner treat still, green beans fill a bowl for almost nothing, and plain rice is the usual partner if you are putting together a bland meal.

On a Sit: Permission, and the Day After

Turkey mince is the kind of thing that turns up in a fridge on a sit, and it is lean and cheap and tempting. My rule is that I would only cook it for an animal if the owner has given me permission. It is not my pet, and I do not want to experiment on it. I would rather avoid a problem than try to work out what caused one, especially if I am the cause.

The other situation is the one that actually happens at Christmas. The owner feeds the dog something special just before they leave, and then they are gone. In that case the animal is probably already used to it, or it is about to have diarrhoea.

What I would do is keep an eye on the animal, and tell the owner if its stomach turns. Not as a problem I created, but as information they need: the dog had the turkey, the dog had a bad night, and this is what it looked like. That is a message they would rather get early than come home to.

The habit underneath all of it is asking before you improvise, and the pre-sit question list is where that starts.

Where This Research Comes From

The sources behind this page:

Conclusion

Turkey is one of the better meats to share with a dog, and the three things to get right are all about removal. Skin off, bones out, seasoning left in your own kitchen.

Do that and a piece of white meat is a lean treat that costs almost nothing. Skip any of the three and the same food becomes a fat load or an emergency.

Caro and I have completed 20 house sits across 12 countries, driven 19,000km across Europe in our 1998 VW T4, and saved over $26,500 in accommodation costs over three years of house sitting.

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Frequently Asked Questions

• Can dogs eat turkey?

  Yes, cooked white meat, plain and boneless, cut into one-inch pieces. It is lean at about 147 calories and 2g of fat per 100g, and it brings B vitamins, zinc and selenium.

• Can dogs eat turkey skin?

  No. Cooked turkey skin is about 482 calories and 44.5g of fat per 100g, which is more than three times the calories of the meat and over twenty times the fat. It is the part most likely to cause an upset stomach.

• Can dogs eat turkey bones?

  No. Cooked bones splinter into shards that can lodge or perforate, and the rule is the same as for chicken. The carcass goes in the bin, not to the dog or the cat.

• Can dogs eat turkey lunch meat?

  No. Deli turkey is salted, seasoned and often contains preservatives, and the sources are explicit that lunch meat, jerky, smoked turkey, burgers and sausage should all be avoided.

• Can dogs eat ground turkey?

  Yes, if it is plain, unseasoned and cooked thoroughly. It is about 150 calories and 8.3g of fat per 100g for a 93% lean product, so it is fattier than breast meat but still reasonable.

• Does turkey make dogs sleepy?

  No. Turkey contains tryptophan, but the amount in a piece is far too small to affect energy levels. Any drowsiness after a big meal is the size of the meal rather than the bird.

• How much turkey can a dog have?

  One to two one-inch cubes for a small dog up to six for a giant, cooked white meat with no skin or bone, and inside the 10% of daily calories that treats are allowed.

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