Salmon Offal As Feed?

[chugachpowder]

Let me preface this with a little back-history. My family and I live in Alaska where subsistence is a large part of how we feed ourselves. Each summer we catch around 50 salmon that we freeze/smoke/can and as a larger extended family that all fishes together we process a few hundred. This is a huge blessing to living in Alaska, but unfortunately on the flip side animal feed is a lot more expensive. I've been kicking around the idea of how to use fins, heads, trimmings, and maybe even guts as supplemental feed for my chickens. I've researched what fish meal is and its essentially just fish offal that's been cooked, defatted, pressed/dried, & ground. My idea is to take what we have left over and simply grind raw, package in 1 or 2 lb burger bags, and freeze. Then on a daily basis pull a package from the freezer to defrost and add it with their feed the following day. Fish meal is about 65% protein, this would be less by weight because it would still contain a lot of water, but in terms of % by solids should be relatively similar. My question revolves around a few points:
-Theoretically, how much could I reduce a commercial ration for fish?
-Has anyone tried this and noticed a change in flavor to the eggs and/or meat of their meat birds?
-Any ideas to improve the process to be more efficient in processing or less expensive storage (freezers cost $$ to run)?

 

[Acre4Me]

How many chickens?
They are omnivores so, I’d try it. Begin with 20% feed replacement and see how they respond. If there is anything in a fish body that is known to be a problem, remove it before freezing. They can still choke on fish bones, so I’d be careful to remove those too. I wouldn’t
Go beyond 50% replacement without some long term observation. Good luck.

 

[gtaus]

I live on a lake, and this past year I would offer some fresh fish remains to the chicks after I cleaned the fish. They would peck at the remains, but I can't say they really ate very much of it. I took the remains out before dark and buried it in the compost bin so as not to attract predators to the chicken run at night. But my chickens were still very young this past summer, and now as adults they eat almost everything. So I hope next summer they will eat more fresh fish when available.

My chicks were not laying eggs this past summer, so I have no idea if fresh fish affects the taste of eggs.

Freezing fish remains seems like a costly alternative to buying chicken feed, but I don't know how much you have to pay for feed compared to electricity for the freezer. Since you live in Alaska, you should be able to freeze and store fish for many months out of the year without needing to run an electric freezer. My grandma would put frozen food out in her unheated front porch all winter long here in northern Minnesota.

I don't think I would want to have to cook fish guts, drying it out, and grinding it up before giving it to the chickens. But I can get feed for a reasonable price and it would cost me more to try to make my own fish meal.

Before you go all in on packaging, freezing, and storing fish remains, I would suggest feeding some fresh fish remains to your chickens to see if they will even eat it. It takes my chickens a while to eat anything new, so it might be a process to get them to eat fish remains. There are certain chickens in the world that mainly live off eating dead fish. Chickens are omnivores and in theory can eat just about anything.

For a special treat in the winter, I have been growing barley fodder for my chickens. That has been working out really good for me as it takes me very little time and the cost of barley for me is very low. Everyday, I give my 10 chickens a half bin of barley fodder grown in plastic dish bins. They eat it all. I turn a 1 pound ration of barley seed into about 5 pounds of fresh barley grass. It's the only greens that my girls will get for the winter. Feeding fodder to the girls reduces the amount of commercial feed they eat, but the main reason I grow fodder is to vary their diet with some greens.

 

[Ridgerunner]

-Theoretically, how much could I reduce a commercial ration for fish?

The general recommendation for any treat is about 10% of their daily diet. They need a balanced diet of many different nutrients. Your fish remains will not provide all of those. If you look on the label your commercial ration should have an analysis that shows certain nutrients they need. Your fish offal should provide a lot of protein and fats but likely not all the others. That does not mean you will kill them or make them sick if you give them more than 10%, it's just not as efficient. You are generally better off doing these things in moderation.

-Has anyone tried this and noticed a change in flavor to the eggs and/or meat of their meat birds?

Not on a daily basis. I feed kitchen wastes, which can contain remains from cleaning salmon but that's more likely to be weekly. I feed back certain remains when I butcher my chickens to the survivors, including guts. All that is raw. When I trap mice I fed them to the chickens and when I get certain larger critters I often cut them open and let the chickens have that fresh food. They tend to like the stuff in the body cavity more than meat but they will eat meat. All this is raw, I don't cook it. But it's also quite sporadic, not on a consistent basis.

In my opinion I think it could affect flavor, eggs or meat. I remember what cows milk tastes like after the milk cow ate wild onions. How noticeable that would be to you and yours is hard to say. We all have different tastes and different sensitivities.

-Any ideas to improve the process to be more efficient in processing or less expensive storage (freezers cost $$ to run)?

Not really. Freezer space is important to me, not just the cost to run one. I can't imagine dehydrating to be any more cost efficient. Not sure how well smoking would work.

 

[centrarchid]

I have a couple 1.5 lb Rainbow Trout that will be put out whole for roughly 20 free-range chickens. The chickens will have free-choice access to the trout, flock raiser and a some scratch grains used to get birds to move out of a pen being cleared for dog. It will take chickens a couple days or so to clean up fish assuming dogs do not steal it. I have not noticed the off flavor in eggs with doing such. Apparently the off-flavor of eggs coming from eating fish oils has a genetic component in the chicken side. You may need to spice eggs heavy to compensate, or not.

 

[gtaus]

I have a couple 1.5 lb Rainbow Trout that will be put out whole for roughly 20 free-range chickens. The chickens will have free-choice access to the trout, flock raiser and a some scratch grains used to get birds to move out of a pen being cleared for dog. It will take chickens a couple days or so to clean up fish assuming dogs do not steal it. I have not noticed the off flavor in eggs with doing such. Apparently the off-flavor of eggs coming from eating fish oils has a genetic component in the chicken side. You may need to spice eggs heavy to compensate, or not.

I can't leave fish remains out overnight without attracting racoons and skunks. They love fish remains and will dig remains out of the ground if not buried deep. What my chickens don't eat during the day, I dig a deep hole in the compost bin and bury the offal in the compost.

I have seen some YouTube videos of people making maggot buckets for remains of fish and meat. They suspend the maggot bucket high enough that raccoons and skunks cannot get to it. After the flies lay their eggs and maggots start to grow, they drop out of the bucket and the chickens eat the maggots. I guess if you can stand the smell of rotting meat, the maggots are very good for the chickens to eat. I have my chicken coop and run in the backyard, and Dear Wife would not be happy with me if I put up a smelly maggot bucket in "her" yard. But it is something I have considered trying maybe in another situtation.

 

[centrarchid]

My dogs getting better a keeping predators out every day.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I would think the salmon would be a nice cold weather dietary boost, assuming they like it and it’s served in amounts that its consumed before dark and doesn’t compromise overall nutrient/dietary needs.

If freezer space is a concern, you could try pressure canning to make them shelf stable.

 

[rjohns39]

Just in the for what it's worth category, my feed books recommend capping fish & crab meal at no more than 5% of the total ration.

 

[centrarchid]

Just in the for what it's worth category, my feed books recommend capping fish & crab meal at no more than 5% of the total ration.

Meal will be dry at about 95% dry matter. The salmon as fed will be 25 to 30% dry matter. So 15% salmon live weight is about the same.