It's late and I'm not sleepy so I decided to hit the high spots of : Basic meat protein portion of our Chicken diet.
Beef Blood 'Cheese'...Beef blood, poured slowly into tubs of simmering water with salt and spices. I get the blood from surrounding farms that slaughter their own beef. They save and deliver the blood to me in 5 gallon buckets that I provide. Many of the folks hang their beef in my walk-in...certainly no charge. I get roughly sixty 5-gallon buckets of this 'liver-like' stuff that I freeze.
Ground Chicken Carcasses...100 to 145 culled hens, cocks and cockerels. After isolation and restricted diets for two or three days, I grind them whole from beak to feet, pressure cook them and store frozen.
Viande de hachee de cerfs mort...Road-kill deer. I get bunches of them. Cut into large pieces, cooked under pressure then ground...and processed like the chickens.
Beef Tripe...Either the farmer brings the whole-filled stomachs or we go pick them up. We store the 'green-material' in 5-gal buckets and dump one or two buckets, semi thawed as needed in the cold months, at the compost pile...birds love it!
Then we cook the tripe....see above for prep and storage.
Once in a while, one of our friends hits a rough spot and has a downed head of cattle. Dead or alive, we pay 90% of market value, have it delivered when they can/will or we pick it up. Pretty much proceed as above.
This constitutes the majority of 'animal protein' that goes into our production flock. I won't go into percentages of this component of our birds' diet, compared to the dry matter that is also added..like alfalfa pellets, Layena, Fermented-feed, even Calf Manna, etc. Don't want to get into a big discussion on that...There's enough here to pick apart.
And NO...we never eat any of the downed beef.
We raise our own grass-fed Angus and Angus/Simmental-cross steers.
I doubt many of you would do this even if you were set up for it. My grand pap and dad bought a lot of machinery over the years at auctions that makes this process a lot less labor intensive as it first appears but it still requires a bit of effort and simple knowledge of handling overhead chain hoists and....willingness to get your hands dirty once in a while...
Thanks for reading...
RON
Beef Blood 'Cheese'...Beef blood, poured slowly into tubs of simmering water with salt and spices. I get the blood from surrounding farms that slaughter their own beef. They save and deliver the blood to me in 5 gallon buckets that I provide. Many of the folks hang their beef in my walk-in...certainly no charge. I get roughly sixty 5-gallon buckets of this 'liver-like' stuff that I freeze.
Ground Chicken Carcasses...100 to 145 culled hens, cocks and cockerels. After isolation and restricted diets for two or three days, I grind them whole from beak to feet, pressure cook them and store frozen.
Viande de hachee de cerfs mort...Road-kill deer. I get bunches of them. Cut into large pieces, cooked under pressure then ground...and processed like the chickens.
Beef Tripe...Either the farmer brings the whole-filled stomachs or we go pick them up. We store the 'green-material' in 5-gal buckets and dump one or two buckets, semi thawed as needed in the cold months, at the compost pile...birds love it!
Then we cook the tripe....see above for prep and storage.
Once in a while, one of our friends hits a rough spot and has a downed head of cattle. Dead or alive, we pay 90% of market value, have it delivered when they can/will or we pick it up. Pretty much proceed as above.
This constitutes the majority of 'animal protein' that goes into our production flock. I won't go into percentages of this component of our birds' diet, compared to the dry matter that is also added..like alfalfa pellets, Layena, Fermented-feed, even Calf Manna, etc. Don't want to get into a big discussion on that...There's enough here to pick apart.
And NO...we never eat any of the downed beef.
I doubt many of you would do this even if you were set up for it. My grand pap and dad bought a lot of machinery over the years at auctions that makes this process a lot less labor intensive as it first appears but it still requires a bit of effort and simple knowledge of handling overhead chain hoists and....willingness to get your hands dirty once in a while...
Thanks for reading...
RON
