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Dear Abby, My Hounds Refuse to Eat Store-Bought Carrots

 
master pollinator
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No, really! When offered, they will chew them to pieces, spit them out, and look at us with a disgusted-dog expression that says "That ain't food. You can't con us." (We occasionally buy locally grown commercial carrots when making big holiday dishes, to stretch out our supply of hand-grown scarlet nantes.)

I should mention that our hounds are far from starvation. They love peas beans and peas and garden carrots, sliced fresh potatoes (toot, toot), berries and fruit of all varieties. They are also not fussy in many areas, raiding kitchen compost left unattended and scouting for buried cat poop. So, not delicate.

Do they know something I should know?
Signed,
Perplexed


 
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Some brand name carrots have orange colour that rubs off on the skin.  Most loose carrots don't.   This seems to be the deciding factor if my chickens will eat them or not.
 
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Some carrots are also more bitter.
 
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I think the point here is folks are giving pets, especially dogs more vegetables and fruits which is a good thing ...
 
Steward of piddlers
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When my Plott hound first discovered carrots, she had a two stage consumption system. First, she would use her front teeth to chunk the carrots into pieces. After she made a pile of carrot pieces, she would vacuum them up like a little piggie.

She now has developed a more graceful technique, but I do miss her initial chewing.

I'm 'bougie' and try my best to obtain organic or better carrots for my household. I find that they tend to taste better for whatever reason. I love finding carrots that are colors other than orange because they tend to be especially delicious.
 
pollinator
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I have to buy my carrots because I just can't grow them (not for lack of trying), and sometimes I get ones that taste like motor oil or gasoline.  I try to get Canadian when I can, because I've never had a bad one from a bag that came from Canada.  I suspect it's heat and water related; US and Israeli carrots generally don't taste as good, and I'm guessing it has to do with heat stress and maybe the irrigation water used on them.  (No idea about Mexican or South American carrots because our local grocers only carry US, Canada, and Israel-grown ones.)

 
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Different varieties of carrots will have different flavour profiles. I would have thought that how and where they are grown, as S Tonin suggests, also affect the flavour. Commercial crop varieties are probably selected more for storage and uniformity rather than flavour too, whereas if you are eaing your own carrots fresh from the garden the storage ability is less importat.

My dogs also love vegetables (broccoll and kale stalks are their favourie, also neeps (rutabaga). I have customers who buy carrots especially as healthy dog treats; I expect it goes striaght through, but doesn't rot their teeth or make them fat!

You could try peeling the carrots before you give them to tthe dog - I gather that much of the bitterness is in the skin (also more of the nasties they may have absorbed from chemical farming if you haven't managed to get organic or better...)
 
Anne Miller
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Carrots make good chew bones.
 
Douglas Alpenstock
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Anne Miller wrote:I think the point here is folks are giving pets, especially dogs more vegetables and fruits which is a good thing ...


My hounds, through their many generations as they come and go through our lives, have always been omnivores. Much more like black bears than the meat-eater-only myth. Introduce them to country snacks early and they "get it" for life.
 
Carla Burke
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Mine are also omnivores. I introduce them to a raw or mostly raw, omnivorous diet as soon as they come home. If they've been eating other stuff, they start with a mix, and as quickly as possible, watching them for and issues, they are moved toward the diet I believe us better for them. And, fresh veggies are a favorite treat. I cut them up very small, to use as training treats.
 
Anne Miller
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My dogs have always loved any food I give them.

As far as I know from experience all Dachshunds are on a See Food Diet.

If they see it they eat it.

Our newest one loves carrots, the store bought kind because I have never been able to grow carrots.
 
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I have a Welsh Sheepdog, who are bred to work and have never been bred for the show-ring so they still have many of their original characteristics.

Welsh farmers are notoriously reluctant to spend money on their animals when the land could be providing it, and many Welsh sheepdogs will feed themselves with whatever they can find. Squirrels, rats, rabbits, fruit, vegetables, poop of all descriptions...

Mine doesn't work any more, and as he lives in Portugal and not Wales these days, he eats a phenomenal amount of scrumped fruit. He's exceedingly fond of oranges. And figs. And olives. And apples. And blackberries. And my strawberries!!! He's not so fond of lemons. Prickly pears if he's hungry and has the time to deal with them. He'd devour rats and mice too but I've attempted to train him that I'll give him a treat if he tells me about them then I quietly dispose of them in case anyone has put poison down. He eats other, exceedingly disgusting things too.



I've never actually given him a carrot, mostly because I don't grow them and feel like he eats quite enough vegetable matter without me giving him anything extra that I've had to spend hard cash on.
 
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