new life for old bones

[junglebird]

Rather than throw away chicken soup carcasses, I've been looking for ways to make the most of the old bones. Bigger beef bones seem more challenging, but probably contain even more valuable components.

I've read that bones can be burned and ground up to make home made bone meal to fertilize the garden - and similarly, buried with wood ash to break down into fertilizer.

But what about utilizing the rest of the nutrients, like calcium, in those bones?

I've read about people throwing bones in their blenders and food processors, but I'm not willing to degrade mine - I already don't like how grinding egg shells has pitted the plastic top of my old coffee grinder.

Anyone know other ways to grind up old soup bones?

 

[True Grit]

I don't know if this will work on already cooked carcasses but I will cook chicken legs in my pressure cooker for my dogs. The trick is to cook them long enough that you can actually mash up the bones. I usually cook them in liquid for 25 minutes then remove the meat and cook the bones in liquid for about another 45 minutes until they are soft and mashable. Just be careful to have enough liquid so they don't go dry. The bones get to the point where they are soft and cannot splinter and cause problems for the dogs.