Innards/guts?

[porkchop48]

What do you do with them?

The dog is playing with feet the heads are in a bucket.

But what about all the insides? I see where some people fed them back to their chickens... Can they eat all of them?

 

[chicks4kids]

I freeze individual sized bags of guts to use for bait in the trap. Everything else goes out to the pair of vultures that reside on our property and some (usually heads and feet) goes out in the pond.

 

[Tracydr]

Feet go in the stock pot. I toss the heads and guts in a plastic bag, goes out on trash day. If I had a better compost pile I would compost it. You can feed it to the chickens. I have a stray cat problem so I can't keep things like that down too long. I do give them things like blood when I'm cutting meat (beef hearts for the dogs) or that sort of thing. Its actually a favorite treat for them.

 

[4-H chicken mom]

My DH uses them for coyote bait.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

I put them in the compost bin. Next to the garden we have a compost bin made of old hay bales. I just arrange them to make a large bin and prime the bottom with a layer of hay. Over the season we dump all kinds of compostable stuff in there. A few weeks ago it was the offal from 120 hens, plus the carcasses from 60 that we deboned after we processed them. I covered it with a thick layer of hay and within a day or two it was heating pretty well. Hardly a smell from it...

At the end of the year I will cap it off and start another. By spring the old one will be ready to push into the garden to be tilled in.

 

[Erica]

Chicken gut makes very decent fishing bait.

I wouldn't give them to chickens, though I've got no proof that they'd transmit disease between flockmembers... Just a qualm I have, I guess.

Livers can be put into the freezer until there are enough to make paté (butter, cognac or brandy, salt, pepper, cream, onion, whiz).

Feet, scalded and peeled are great in stock (as others have said), along with heart and cleaned skinned gizzards.

I've usually thrown away the heads, but will see about turning them into dog food in future, only because it seems such a waste otherwise. Maybe that's going out on a limb?

 

[kcfuerst]

I can vouch for the feet thing. Scalded and simmered with some veggies makes awesome soup or stock. Cats get the liver. I usually put the rest out with the trash on trash day also.

 

[starforever61]

if you have a whole lot of chickens then ship the feet to china! they LOVE chicken feet there! or even give them a try for yourself

(omg says the vegetarian!!!)

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
I'm sure your garbage man loves you for that...

We haul our own to the dump, so I hate to keep anything like that around until trash day.

 

[Tracydr]

Quote:
I'm sure your garbage man loves you for that...

We haul our own to the dump, so I hate to keep anything like that around until trash day.

I freeze the stuff I put in the trash.

Forgot, dogs get the livers, gizzards, hearts, kidneys, etc. I should clean the head for them, too but for some reason the heads sort of gross me out.

I like to get rid of the head ASAP.
I've been thinking about composting everything but since I sheet compost in a garden, I don't want to accidentally dig up partially rotted chicken carcasses.

Once I'm done getting all my gardens filled, I'll probably build a proper compost bin.