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[farmer_lew]

Ok, our goal is to have a place in the country and be as self-sustaining as possible. When processing meat birds, what do you do with the remains? Do you bury them, haul them off to the dump, boil them and feed them to the dog, or what? I haven't processed any birds since I was a small boy in Louisiana. I don't remember what we did with the remains, so I am hoping that someone here can help me out.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Feed the insides to the dogs or pigs, compost the feathers.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
first, look up frugals thread on making stock, he uses the feet, the heads, and most of the innards and it looks amazing - very cool thread too.
second, a lot of people use some of the "guts" for cat fish/crawdad bait (and you have a lot of both in those outlying canals and ditches around Sacramento.)
third, compost and fertilizer

 

[Cowgirl71]

We let our farm dogs and barn cats get their fill from all the scraps, and then whatever is left at the end of the day we dump on the far side of the farm on the edge of the woods. Make sure to dump it a long ways away from the chicken coop, because it will attract predators. We make sure it's at least a quarter mile away from the nearest chickens. This is just what we do.

 

[geepy]

We compost the feathers, and bury the innards we don't use for stock. I followed frugals receipe and the stock was amazing. After we pour off the stock we mix all the left overs with cooked sweat potatoes and run it through the grinder and make dog food. The dogs go crazy over it. The only thing I do is remove the onions before I grind the dog food, onions are not good for dogs.

 

[Red&Yellow]

My dog loves the legs, if you don't want to make stock from them.
I *think* she eats the whole thing.

 

[protodon]

I burn everything I or something else won't eat. So feathers, carcasses, innards. This is my preference but I wouldn't feed the intestines to anything because, I mean, they're full of poo and bacteria. You can cook with the feet but I don't' really care for them or too wash them so I just grill them and feed them too the dogs as a treat. One thing I will say is I will never throw any part of an animal I raised into the trash. If it came from my land, it's going right back into it in some form or another.

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
Since I purge the chickens for a little over 24 hours , the intestines are pretty much clear . I feed them to my dogs [ they're large dogs by most people's standards ] raw along with raw shanks and feet , raw skinned heads , and plucked necks [ because I seldom boil necks for soup ] . I usually process in small groups due to physical problems ; but if I had more than my dogs could eat in three days I would freeze the excess instead of refrigerateing them . Feathers are retuned to the soil ; anything skinned with feathers attached [ the heads in my case or sometimes a whole bird ] is burned because I choose not to have my dogs associate featherd birds as food , nor do I want wild animals getting a taste for chicken through a compost pile . Also , while I know they say not to feed dogs cooked chicken bones , I've done it for many years with no problems .