fish bones?

[calamityjane]

i have read in the archives that many people feed their chickies fish "scraps, " and someone feeds whole minnows. i'm very excited by this, because i live in cordova, home to the copper river salmon fishing fleet, and have no limit of sockeye scraps, and even whole silvers.
but i was not able to find in the posts whether the bones are ok. will they choke? i know they're sposed to get calcium, and how handy if they could get calcium, fish oil and protein all in one handy, free package.... but could they 1. eat the bones and 2. digest them?
i would like to put up zip locks of frozen guts, and string the skeletons up to dry for fish scrap jerky, any guess whether this will work? if they CANT eat bones, will they just peck the bits of meat and skin off, leaving a nice clean skeleton i can thro in the compost pile?
now, the other thing is how much fish to feed them. i know it can't be too much, i certainly don't want fishy eggs. say i threw one salmon's worth of bones, head and guts to 6 chickies, once a week. that would be fine right? do you think i could double that?
any suggestions on the fish front greatly accepted!

oh, as far as oyster shell goes, anyone ever try just throwing in whole oyster shells? can they peck them into bits?
thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[tvtaber]

Wow... a lot of unique questions... I would definitely throw those fish carcases out there for them to pick on. They will eat the bones if they want but otherwise will leave them behind. I wouldn't worry about it too much. As far as how much, well who knows! I would not hesitate to feed it twice per week and see how it goes, it being free food and all.

OBTW, fish scrap jerky sounds tempting...