Sprats

Just been shopping, and saw in the reduced section a pack of sprats (the whole little fishes), and thought 'ooh, they're supposed to be good for the dogs coats'. Now we're home, and I've no idea how to serve them...

OH wants to de-head and gut them, then fry (or maybe boil) them. I was thinking more along the lines of letting them warm to room temperature and just handing them over to the girls, still raw with head and everything.

Now I'm beginning to worry about fish bones getting stuck, arghhhhh.

Help please. Does anyone feed fish? Raw or cooked?

Feed them whole - complete with head and innards. Sprats are far too small to mess around de-heading and gutting.

Pereg has whole fish twice a week - three large sardines on Sundays and two small barbounia [I think that is what they are - they are slightly bigger than sardines and with very spiky fins] on Wednesdays.

I buy them fresh, open freeze them on trays, then bag them, and give them to her straight from the freezer without bothering to defrost them, complete with heads and innards, and she eats them head first!

Dillon has them straight from the freezer or defrosted and raw either way he finds them tasty.

I think if you take away the head and gut them you won't have much left.

Yip straight from freezer raw and whole here

Fishy ice-lollies!

Lona gulps down mackerel rather like a sea lion, sprats are so tiny there is nothing to worry about, just feed them. Cariad and Mabs don't 'do' a whole fish so I cut them in pieces and add cottage cheese and bio yogurt and they are eaten in nano seconds

Jeager had, and loved, a tin of Sardines every night. That was his favourite---Tomato sauce his first choice. Then in BBQ sauce second best!

Thanks everybody, I'll try them whole on all three girls and see what they think. Can't put them in tomato sauce though, Willow is scared of tomato sauce!

Do not bother with putting them in anything - just offer them as they are. The first time I offered Pereg a fresh sardine she took one look, one sniff, and chomp chomp and it was gone!

Oh dear, they have not gone down well at all.

Willow took one, went under the dining room table and wiped her face all over it - a bit like rolling in a good smell, but only her face. Totally uninterested in eating it though.

Sky snatched one, ran off, spat it out and then refused to go anywhere near it or any other sprat.

Soso sniffed carefully, took it, put it down and spent ages sniffing before very delicately nibbling. She ended up eating all three, and I didn't want to hand out more in case they upset her tummy.

I'm going to try heating them up in a frying pan tonight, and see if that makes a difference. (Had to wait until OH was out as he hates fish cooking smells).