How many on the go at once to sustain your consumption?

[Taranakian]

I'm under the impression that bones left out increase parasites. Which wouldn't be an issue except for the whole meat birds thing

I wouldn't have thought so much about this. Thankfully, the dog will also swoop in and get anything the chooks don't eat. She's a filthy, disgusting, awesome little farm dog who would survive the apocalypse for her ability to scavenge food.

I've been wondering about chicks 'n dip (Ha!). Namely, instead of coffee we have bone broth every morning. We buy from the butcher, but in return we've been able to process and store enough fat to offset hundreds of dollars worth of olive oil and butter use a year. It's been a really financially sound decision for us. At the moment the dog is eating the remaining bones, meat scraps, and any fat that doesn't render - I haven't fed her kibble in months. At some point I'll take her off of it and give it to the chooks instead. I've been curious whether I needed to mash it or if they were going to be capable of breaking down the very brittle bones. Sounds like mashing it up may be the best for them.

Nature is brutal. There's no two ways about it. Incorporating that brutality into any plans trying to work alongside nature simply makes sense.

 

[SnackMeat]

Make sure your dog is getting some of the offal for all the mineral content. I also like veggies, canned, frozen, or fresh for dogs. I do think an occasional foray into diverse nutrition helps offset any creeping deficiencies.

Yeah we render a lot of beef fat as well. Sometimes pork fat but not as much since that's not a preference as the last few years there's been more boar taint coming through the commercial farmed pork.

Definitely check out hot process soap (you can do cold process too but hot process is easier.)

You can do 100% animal fat bar and it creates a hard soap bar. But I tend to like around 10% coconut oil, and 2-3% castor oil because I like lather bubbles.

I've even used tallow for dog nose/feet balm., mixed with other stuff or by itself. And if you or your SO uses tretinoin for anti-aging, tallow as the nighttime face moisturizing has been the best thing for any peeling that I've found.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm under the impression that bones left out increase parasites.

Do you have a link or something where that came from? I've never heard that and am curious.

When I catch a possum, raccoon, rat, or such I slit open the abdomen so they can get to it and leave it out all day for them. To me, that is good protein for them. But just before dark I get rid of the carcass. Same thing for any chicken carcasses or other bones I leave out during the day. That's to avoid attracting predators like coyotes or dogs, nothing to do with parasites.

I'd love to understand if there is a nutritional benefit...? Or is it just that it seems less gross to feed chooks insects instead of animals? I'd love any insight into this.

Chickens are omnivores. They will eat plants or animal materials. Chickens can hunt and get fresh meat or they can scavenge dead meat. I feed mine dead mice as long as the mice were not poisoned. When chickens evolved they were feral. They were able to feed themselves without any help from people. The vast majority of us do not have the land or circumstances where the chickens can free range and feed themselves. I grew up on a farm where they did. I grew up hunting and we ate what we hunted or fish we caught. The vast majority of people on this forum did not. They are much more likely to find things gross that I consider natural.

Also, thanks heaps for taking time to explain the sense behind not having a rolling flock. Reading your reasons makes tota sense, but without any prior experience in animal husbandry it's not as obvious as it might would be to others.

That's exactly why I suggest trial and error. Don't be afraid to try things but if is isn't working don't be afraid to change it. And do not take anything that any of us say as gospel for everyone. We all have different goals, climates, set-ups, experiences, and conditions. What works of some do not work for others. You have to find your own way.

 

[SnackMeat]

I used to feed my dogs raw bones so partially it was the bones drying in the hot summers and then having to do with shards, but in cooler weather it was the stink but I do think I remember seeing worms if one of the dogs badly hid it and it was out longer than normal before being tossed.


It's not even that I object to stuff like flies laying eggs on it and the chickens eating that.

If I remember I will try to look this up. I had my dogs on worming treatments occasionally plus I wasn't worried about eating them and having parasites from them digging in to something bad.

I feed my chickens bits from chickens and ducks I am processing so I don't have an issue with the circle of life or the omnivorous nature of chickens. They also occasionally get leftover BBQ from the neighbor. And everyone can feed their chickens whatever. For me, and this is something I probably picked up 20 years ago as info but would need to go look up support for it, I would pick up bones by the next day. I don't even necessarily care about nighttime predators (yet) so even picking the bones up next day is fine or even in a couple of days. After that though, because I want to eat my chickens (and because I haven't wormed them though maybe I will) I want to keep the chickens from that.

I'll have to try to come back if I can find a source for that.

 

[Taranakian]

Make sure your dog is getting some of the offal for all the mineral content. I also like veggies, canned, frozen, or fresh for dogs. I do think an occasional foray into diverse nutrition helps offset any creeping deficiencies.

Yeah we render a lot of beef fat as well. Sometimes pork fat but not as much since that's not a preference as the last few years there's been more boar taint coming through the commercial farmed pork.

Definitely check out hot process soap (you can do cold process too but hot process is easier.)

You can do 100% animal fat bar and it creates a hard soap bar. But I tend to like around 10% coconut oil, and 2-3% castor oil because I like lather bubbles.

I've even used tallow for dog nose/feet balm., mixed with other stuff or by itself. And if you or your SO uses tretinoin for anti-aging, tallow as the nighttime face moisturizing has been the best thing for any peeling that I've found.

For sure. Right now she gets her choice of all of our kitchen scraps, the left overs from our bone broth making, and some garden vegetables. It's pretty adorable watching her with a turnip. When we're not overrun with things to feed her, her super-special-look-at-how-good-a-dog-owner-I-am manufactured food includes gut contents. She regularly kills and eats possums and eats whatever road kill she can get her hands on - usually hare.

I haven't actually looked into making soap. I knew it was a thing, but this is really well timed as we're starting to get overrun with fat. I figured I'd save it long enough to start giving it to the chickens, and we've got space in the chest freezer, but I'm just simply running out of containers. We do have a jar of tallow that we keep separate that's been wet processed a few times to get it as neutral as possible - my husband uses that for moisturising. I probably should as well, but I'm in my full-on mountain man era.

I have been thinking about making some tallow balms with traditional Māori medicinal plants for cuts and scrapes, bruising, and colds and flus, so soap also fits in with that whole vibe. We also have a patch of bush where English Ivy is starting to get out of control. It's apparently quite good for making liquid soap - so I'd be curious if using the water from leaching the saponins out of the ivy in a hard fat soap bar would give me the lather while also dealing with an invasive plant and limiting the ingredients I needed to buy in. Now I'm going to have to try this. Of course, the minute I do, I'll also have to start making lye from our wood ash...good for my continued path towards self-sustainability, but it feels like a thing I could get stupid involved in.

 

[Taranakian]

Chickens are omnivores. They will eat plants or animal materials. Chickens can hunt and get fresh meat or they can scavenge dead meat. I feed mine dead mice as long as the mice were not poisoned. When chickens evolved they were feral. They were able to feed themselves without any help from people. The vast majority of us do not have the land or circumstances where the chickens can free range and feed themselves. I grew up on a farm where they did. I grew up hunting and we ate what we hunted or fish we caught. The vast majority of people on this forum did not. They are much more likely to find things gross that I consider natural.

I grew up in the suburbs of Fort Worth, myself - moved to Dallas, then San Antonio, then Austin, then Beijing, then Auckland, and now we're quite rural in Taranaki, New Zealand. I suspect at more than one point in my life I would have thought it gross to feed animals to chickens I was planning on eating. I am actively on a path of trying to reclaim what it is to be a happy, healthy human from the modern society I was enculturated into. The further I get in that process, the less grossed out I get by natural things. Thankfully that's come at a time when we have space to raise a number of chickens for company and for sustenance because I don't suspect we have enough space to entirely free range the number of chooks we need to feed ourselves, but I can easily supplement their feeding themselves with protein bombs (read: dead possums and hares and occasionally goats).

That's exactly why I suggest trial and error. Don't be afraid to try things but if is isn't working don't be afraid to change it. And do not take anything that any of us say as gospel for everyone. We all have different goals, climates, set-ups, experiences, and conditions. What works of some do not work for others. You have to find your own way.

Thanks for this. I'm definitely an 'understand the way it's done and then fix it to meet my needs' kinda guy. I want to understand the way things are done, so I can then understand why I should or shouldn't change it up completely. It's definitely getting clear to me - in the hours and hours I've spent reading everything I could search that seemed relevant on this forum over the last week or so that, with chickens, there's no 'the way', so I'll have to make it up as I go. Still, though, it's good to get bits and pieces of how other people manage so I can start to get a picture of what components I want to integrate into my chicken-rearing plans.

 

[Taranakian]

After that though, because I want to eat my chickens (and because I haven't wormed them though maybe I will) I want to keep the chickens from that.

Makes me think I ought to look at plants I can plant now that are natural dewormers for chickens. I know pumpkin seeds help, but there must be a plethora of other things I can get started that will all contribute.

 

[Molpet]

Makes me think I ought to look at plants I can plant now that are natural dewormers for chickens.

A preventative is red cayenne pepper . I use it to help prevent blackhead in turkeys. It went up in price during covid and I skipped it all winter and part of spring. When I started again I had piles with roundworms. First time I had seen worms.

 

[SnackMeat]

You might check out kashmiri pepper at an Indian grocery, hot or extra hot. It's what we use in our curry and I've been trying to get the birds into it. While they don't care about hot food supposedly, mine just don't like kashmiri powder. But I haven't tried for awhile so this was a good reminder.