If you process, what do you do with the parts you don't want?

[EricH]

bury it all in the garden! thats some goooooood fertilizer. or bury it in the compost pile. just dig a hole deep enough the dogs wont smell it!

 

[terri9630]

We use the heavy duty lawn bags and throw away the stuff we don't want. I don't feed anything to the dogs. They love "their" chickens and I'd like to keep them loving the birds ALIVE and not realize that they taste good.

 

[Beekissed]

I wouldn't worry....been giving my dogs the scraps for years and they don't equate chicken parts with the living feather cushions that hog their dusting spots.

 

[averytds]

I double bagged, threw some lime in and secured in the shed overnight. Then out to the trash.

I wonder if DH will let me bury the stuff in his garden being it's fall and all. Probably not, but I'll ask anyways.

 

[NHchicks]

Wow, you all are way over my pay grade, the way you use every centimeter of the chicken!

I'm probably going to skin and throw most of it out. I won't mention it here tho so as not to cause distress.

I don't think I can give chicken heads and feet to my dog. YUCK.

I like the burying idea though. That way it can turn into fertilizer. I don't like to waste things, but I'm not one for getting collagen out of chicken feet.

I bet you all wash and reuse your baggies, too.

Thank you for the ideas! I'm still gearing up for Processing 101.

 

[Kassaundra]

Quote:
I wondered if any could be fed back to the hens, but didn't know if I should ask that question out loud w/ some of the "adament" views of "pet chickens" some seem to have. I am also leaning towards skinning, could the skins also be fed to the girls then put feathers in compost? It is also good to know the dogs can eat the "parts" and still not be aggressive to the birds.

 

[Ariel301]

Quote:
You think they don't put that stuff in dog food from the grocery store? "Poultry by-products" can be all sorts of "gross" stuff.

Organs like the lungs, reproductive tract, heart, and liver, which my family doesn't like to eat, I throw back to the chickens. When I am butchering anything, I have a chicken audience waiting for scraps, and licking up any drop of blood they can get ahold of, they love that stuff! Inedibles are buried in the compost heap. Good looking feathers are cleaned up and saved for making cat toys for my house cats, bad feathers tossed out in the compost. I don't like to let anything go to waste, even if it does mean tossing it down at the end of the property for coyote chow (what happens to goats dead of unknown causes here, it's too hard to bury them in our rocky dirt)

 

[Sundown_Farmer]

Be cautious about burying it directly in your garden. It tends to be a greasy mess until it fully composts. Far better to leave it in the compost pile for a year.

 

[SallyF]

We've only processed once, but I tossed the feathers and entrails in the far corner of the hayfield. The crows and vultures had a "field day". You could hear the squawking all over the mountain top.

 

[joebryant]

I need a barf bag ................ QUICK!