Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net>]

> Harvey,
>
> Why not just let the chickens pick the meat from the bones?    Cut up the 
> dead animals into daily portions, freeze what you don't need, and each day 
> pull out a piece and as it thaws the chickens will eat it?    I don't do it 
> this way ( as I don't have poultry yet ), but, I have some relatives that do 
> it that way.
>  
> Greg H.

I knew I'd get this question eventually. The truth is that I haven't 
always gotten anything like full utilization feeding the straight 
carcasses. With beavers especially, I've offered them to the chooks, 
putting big slashes first through the thick pelts so the birds could get 
to the goodie inside. Have even chopped them into chunks for the birds. 
And subsequently found big swatches of pelt with a lot of uneaten meat 
on them. I don't have an explanation for why the birds fail to eat all 
of a thick-pelted animal like a beaver (or groundhog--have had the same 
results with them--even road-kill squirrel).

When maggots process the carcasses, they convert *everything* but hair 
and teeth and bones to high-quality protein and fats. Interestingly, the 
protein in the maggots is *higher* than in the original meat on the 
carcass. Protein content of fly maggots close to 50%, fat content close 
to 20%. A check of USDA composition of foods site indicates raw beaver 
24% protein. (Of course, I do not know the total weight of maggots in 
comparison to original weight of meat and entrails. Pardon me if I don't 
perform that experiment!) Also, I'm assuming the enzyme content of live 
foods like maggots--like earthworms and slugs as well--is higher than in 
meat (tho raw meat should have plenty of enzymes as well).

I have a neighbor who is rather negligent keeping things in her freezer 
organized. Every coupla years she cleans out, and passes on meats more 
than a year old for my flock. Some of those meats I do not put thru the 
maggot buckets, but just thaw-and-throw. The chooks pick those bones 
clean. For windfall dressed meats like that, feeding straight works just 
fine.

~Harvey
--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us