Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net>]

> I've read that Joel Salatin composts the chicken "residue" from butchering, 
> but I'm talking a whole chicken. . . .I have 2 horrible inedible roosters that need culling...
>
> --Joanna in Whatcom County, WA

I've written before on the list about my maggot breeding setup for 
turning carrion into high-quality protein for the birds, and now there 
is info about my system up on the site:

http://themodernhomestead.us/article/Feeding-Chickens-Maggots.html

I would never use a sick bird in the maggot buckets, of course, but have 
more than once used a bird that died by accident. (I also process 
slaughtering day's entrails thru the maggot buckets.)

> Old roosters still make a great chicken stock, so you might want to butcher 
> the rooster, skin it, toss the skin and feathers and head on the compost pile 
> or in it.  After the carcass has been used to make a good chicken stock, you 
> can still put it and the veggies on the compost pile or in it.  . .
> Carrie
> meat eating Okie

But I'm with Carrie: The stockpot is a much better place for a tough or 
ornery old bird that's begging to be culled. And note she said "skin." 
If I'm doing a proper slaughtering, I scald and pluck. But if I have 
just one or two birds to cull on the run, it's much faster to just skin, 
gut, and throw in the stockpot. But a better use of the stock-making 
residues, Carrie, is--feed them to the flock. Ain't nothing they like 
better than--chicken!

~Harvey in northern VA
www.themodernhomestead.us