Chicken by-product meal in dog food is a cost-effective source of concentrated protein. This article will explain what it is and why it’s in your dog’s food.
Contents
What is Chicken By-Product Meal?
Chicken by-product meal is a type of rendered protein meal
Chicken is a popular ingredient in dog food. And chicken by-product meal is also a very widely used source of poultry protein.
It is made by rendering, a process that applies high temperatures and pressure to remove moisture and separate protein from chicken fat.
The resulting solid protein fraction is then ground into a powder, which can be used as an ingredient in dog food.
The raw materials that go into chicken by-product meal are various types of slaughterhouse waste materials.
In theory, this includes heads, bones, beaks, necks, feet, meat scraps, undeveloped eggs, viscera, or whole carcasses[1].
Viscera are the organs found in the body cavity, such as the heart, liver, spleen, stomach, crop, gizzard, intestines, and undeveloped eggs.
While fresh by-products can not include animals that have died by other means than slaughter, rendered meals can do so under certain conditions.
Chicken by-product meal recycles animal leftovers into usable ingredients with nutritional value.
Chicken slaughter by-products may not be the most pleasant materials but are a cost-effective source of reclaimed protein.
But chicken by-product meal is, of course, not the same as fresh chicken meat or fresh chicken giblets only.
Chicken By-Product Meal Nutrients
The quality and nutritional value of any by-product meal can vary greatly depending on raw materials and processing methods[4,5].
Samples of pet food-quality chicken by-product meal tested in 2015 had about 2.4-4% moisture with 13.2%–16.6% crude fat and 61.2-70.7% crude protein and a mineral content of about 10.5-15.4%[6].
Since renderers can use lots of connective tissue from cartilage, beaks or feet, some inferior grades may provide lots of proteins but from collagen or elastin fibers with low biological value for your dog.
Chicken by-product meal may also contain lots of bone material and is on average higher in minerals compared to just chicken meal.
Chicken by-product meals with a high mineral content may incidentally show lower total protein quality as they tend to contain many non-essential amino acids from cartilage[3].
The poultry by-product meals used in pet food typically contain less than 14% of crude ash (i.e., inorganic minerals)[2].
And poultry meals and poultry by-product meals used for pet food are often of higher quality compared to “feed grade” meals used in livestock nutrition.
According to the AAFCO guidelines for ingredients, chicken by-product meal “shall be suitable for use in animal food” and its calcium-to-phosphorus ratio shall not exceed 2.2:1[1].
By the way, the only real difference between a chicken by-product meal and a chicken meal seems to be that the latter does not contain heads, feet, and viscera[1,2].
Both products can be highly variable.
It’s not always correct to assume that all chicken meals are better than all chicken by-product meals! If you think about it, the main difference is that “by-product” sounds more unpleasant.
But the dog food label does not provide any information on the quality, composition and nutritional profile of ingredients. So there’s no way of knowing what all of these meals are actually made of.
But overall, there seems to be little difference between the nutrient content of chicken meal versus chicken by-product meal.
Chicken By-Product Meal in Dog Foods
Chicken by-product meal contains lots of parts of the chicken that are not consumed by humans, such as viscera and bones which helps to make it affordable.
Chicken by-product meal is a protein-dense and low-moisture ingredient. Meaning, a small quantity of this meal is offers the same nutritional benefits as a larger quantity of fresh chicken by-products.
But it’s not the most premium ingredient and can contain lots of inferior protein sources from connective tissue.
So if you have the choice, maybe opt for a dog food that uses chicken (by-product) meal as a backup ingredient and not as its main protein.
Most poultry by-product meals typically contain mostly chicken or turkey but can also include duck and goose or basically any other bird commonly used for food.
From a nutritional standpoint, there’s probably not that big of a difference between poultry or chicken and between a meal or a by-product meal[4].
But if you’re like me, you probably prefer a properly named ingredient like “chicken” so you have a little more transparency about what’s actually in your dog’s food.
Further Reading
[1] AAFCO Official Publication. Chapter 6. Free Access.
[2] Aldrich: Rendered Products in Pet Food. Published in Essential Rendering (pdf). 2006.
[3] Shirley & Parsons. Effect of Ash Content on Protein Quality of Meat and Bone Meal. Department of Animal Sciences. University of Illinois, Poultry Science. 2001. https://doi.org/10.1093/ps/80.5.626
[4] Hillary Watson. Poultry Meal versus Poultry By-Product Meal. Dogs in Canada. 2006.
[5] Volpato et al. Characterization of the variations in the industrial processing and nutritional variables of poultry by-product meal. Poult Sci. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psj.2022.101926
[6] Gray. Evaluation of Oxidized Rendered Protein Meals in Pet Foods. Master’s Thesis, Kansas State University. 2015.