Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net>]

My responses to Greg H.'s questions interspersed below:

> 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.

That's been exactly my experience, with regard to dressed meats. Though 
now that I think about it, there's been a consumption problem with *any* 
carcasses with pelts I've tried feeding raw. I mentioned earlier feeding 
roadkill squirrels. Well, that's as thin a pelt as you'd find, I guess, 
but the birds wouldn't eat it well with the pelt on.

As I think I said earlier, I don't have any idea why the birds don't 
"clean their plates" when served pelt-on entrees. It's 
counter-intuitive: Aside from scratching, what do chickens love to do 
more than anything? Pecking. One would think that the sheer 
entertainment value would lead to pelts and bones picked clean. But when 
feeding carcasses with pelts, I've always subsequently found funky 
chunks of carcass later, buried in the litter or abandoned out on the 
pasture.

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

Yes, with beavers, and they ate the meat. Have you ever skinned a 
beaver? I find putting the carcasses thru the buckets *much* easier.

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

No, I don't raise rabbits, and I'm not a hunter. As said, I've fed 
squirrel, with results noted.

Joel Salatin's son Daniel has raised rabbits for many years, and it's my 
understanding that he always disposes of the heads, offal, and pelts by 
throwing to the chickens on a deep wood-chip litter. I guess he's gotten 
results that differ from mine if he's still using that method. However, 
I never saw any of the pelts he'd passed on to the chooks myself.

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