While I have been skinning most the birds I process in the future I plan on skinning the extra barnyard roosters and plucking the Cornish X. I keep the feet for my dog and cat. I'm processing a bunch of quail tomorrow and will have little feet for the kitten. LOL I plan on keeping the necks for the dogs. I know a lot of people feed their dogs organs but its easier for me to pull all the innards out at one time and drop them in the trash. I have been taking the bones after I cook a chicken and using it to make stock. Am I missing any uses? My goal is to get as much out of these birds as I can.
I'm greedy and keep all the "bits" for stock for us That's including the scalded and skinned feet, necks, hearts, livers, gizzards, and if I part out the birds, the backs. They're bagged and frozen now, but will be coming out with one of the old roos in the freezer to star in a large batch of stock, and then the organs and meat will be saved again for pureeing for gravy (homemade gravy from organs/meat is out of this world good ).
I use the feet and heads to make the BEST stock. Stock should be gelatinous once it is done, and the feet and heads have the best cartilage and calcium in them. Soak the entire carcass (after meat has been eaten off it), the feet and the head in water with about 1/8 or 1/4 cup of raw vinegar. Let it soak overnight. This releases the calcium from the bones. Add veggies, a tiny bit of sea salt and simmer for 2-3 days (barely any bubbling). Cool, pour into mason jars and freeze. Use the livers to make pate. The organs for pets. Necks make good pet food too...but I love them for stock as well. When I am done, the bones are so soft that you can crumble them into a small pile...and there's really nothing left.
After you are done processing the pile of bones, bury them in your garden, under trees, bushes, flowers... they will go to feed those plants. In the case of the garden, eventually you.
Once you pull the guts out it takes exactly half a second to separate out the good giblets from the intestines. The only thing that takes an additional second is cutting the gall bladder off the liver. So you are wasting a whole bunch of really good nutritious meat for your dogs. The gizzard also takes just seconds to clean. I don't even peel the lining off since it goes to my dogs. It is good muscle meat for people food if you want to peel the lining out. My dogs get the necks and the giblets and it makes many meals for the dogs. So you are wasting a lot of food by throwing that all away. The dogs could actually eat the intestines, if you want to cook them up. I don't, but it is something that could be used. I throw away the heads. I don't want to pluck them and clean them. But they can be used. I also throw away the feet. But they can be used for making stock if you want to use everything.. Feathers can go into the compost pile. Blood can be collected as you bleed the chickens out and cooked and fed to the dogs. It's very nutritious.
