processing tomorrow - what do you do with the "extra" parts?

[Hummingbird Hollow]

My conpost pile is right beside the chicken run, and with bears, bobcats, mountain lions, coyotes and other smaller predators in the area, I'd be afraid to put blood or innards in there. I save the big plastic zipper top dog-food bags to use to dispose of what intestines, blood feathers and heads are generated during the butchering process.

However, gizzards, kidneys and heart are added to the stock pot, along with the neck for awesome stock. Liver is sometimes added to the stock or other times kept for grilling or liver pate. Feet are frozen for dog treats. Currently, once the stock is made, the gizzards, heart and kidneys are chopped and frozen for dog training treats, but I may look for some interesting recipies to use them next time. I've put the cooked necks in a food processor with the leftover carrots from the stock (don't use the onions because they are bad for dogs) and ground it up really fine as a suplement to our regular dog food. I've also saved the chicken fat to render down to suplement the feed of my Anatilian Shepherd puppy, but now that he's approaching his second birthday, I'll probably dispose of the excess fat.

 

[wsmoak]

I don't have a secure enough compost pile to want to put chicken guts in it. The raccoons and opossums would be there the same night!

I layer the offal with pine shavings in a big trash can. I can only fill it about half full before it gets too heavy, otherwise I'd worry about the bag ripping when they pick it up. That goes out with the regular trash.

The killing cone is strapped to a tree, and the blood just gets washed into the ground around it, then covered with dry shavings when we're done for the day to keep the flies away.

One day we'll build some big compost bins with lids, and then I'll layer the chicken scraps in there with the horse and rabbit manure.

-Wendy