How to use the whole animal (waste not want not)

[bamadude]

Just wikipediaed soldier fly. Learning is swell

 

[hennible]

Ain't it grand...

 

[vehve]

That's a cool way of "composting", too bad we don't have them here.

 

[hennible]

I did not read all of this yet but it's a thread in a bug forum about raising bug for chickens chicken feed...
http://forum.openbugfarm.com/index.php?p=/discussion/74/farming-insects-to-feed-chickens
There is a bit about raising snails for your chickens and feeding the snails the chicken offal...
This one speaks a bit about raising maggots ( on road kill, so why not chicken guts) but I've read about maggots carrying botulism, so should do some research on that one...
http://theprepperproject.com/feeding-chickens-without-buying-feed/

 

[ozexpat]

some meal worms carry mareks

 

[hennible]

Meal worms and mareks
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/227967/mareks-mealworms
http://animals.pawnation.com/mealworms-good-chickens-9828.html
This second link also mentions meal worms as a tapeworm carrier
http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/feeding-chickens-maggots.html
Maggots as feed and botulism

Looking over the bug feed options a bit, it seems safer bets are snail, black solider fly, worms and crickets... Not sure about crickets but it appears the other three types of critters can be feed offal, with worms producing you the side product of the best dang compost you can get.
Some vernacular links if you interested
http://www.wormpoop.com/Welcome/Welcome.htm
http://m.instructables.com/id/Multi-Layer-Vermiculture-Bin/
http://www.treehugger.com/green-foo...ulture-worms-bins-and-how-to-get-started.html

 

[mymilliefleur]

Hi all,
Interesting thread topic by the way.
When we butcher chickens, we save the liver for liver pate, (yum yum!

) Note: Some of the livers, from old hens, or chickens that have liver problems, will be very pale. these ones we feed to the dogs. the heart and gizzard we save for giblet gravy, if we're going to roast the bird. if not then these go into the chicken broth. the feet also go into the broth, except if they have feathers on they're feet in which case they go to the dogs, as do the lungs.

we have fed the offal to pigs and dogs in the past, but this past year we fed it to our black soldier fly's. the only problem was that two five gallon buckets of offal turned out to be to much for the larvae ( they loved it for the first two days, but the ammonia released by the decomposing guts caused them to climb out of the bin) so we will have to do some thing different next year.

As for the feathers, we always feed them back to the chickens. since they are mostly protein, why let them go to wast? the feathers to big for the chickens to eat, will rot down and fertilize the pasture, or if the chickens are penned up, they will make excellent bedding.

Hope this helps.

 

[hennible]

That's interesting, feeding the feathers to the birds doesn't encourage feather picking?

 

[mymilliefleur]

That's interesting, feeding the feathers to the birds doesn't encourage feather picking?

I've never had a problem with it. feather picking is usually caused by lack of protein or confinement.

 

[hennible]

Thanks for the info!