Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Greg and April" <gregandapril@earthlink.net>]

Let's see if I'm reading this right.

With thin skinned animals and dressed meat you don't have the problem of 
large parts of pelt with uneaten meat on it as you do with thick skinned 
pelts.

Have you dressed the thick skinned animals, removing the skin before feeding 
chunks?

Have you feed your chickens rabbit before?    If so how and what were the 
results?

Greg H.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Ussery" <huboxwood@earthlink.net>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 7:32
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Maggots for poultry feed



> 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