Feeding deer parts to chicken

[DEKE01]

I'm all for feeding found food to the hens but I haven't fed deer yet. This article says to grind the organ meat if you won't eat it and freeze it in a daily serving sizes.

http://www.grit.com/animals/poultry/...20Tough%20Grit

Anyone tried something like this? Why not skip the grinding? I'm not into doing extra work where there is no benefit. I toss whole mice in the pen and they disappear, why not just cut up the deer parts into appropriate sizes and freeze till needed?

[Fire-Man]

Originally Posted by DEKE01

I'm all for feeding found food to the hens but I haven't fed deer yet. This article says to grind the organ meat if you won't eat it and freeze it in a daily serving sizes.

http://www.grit.com/animals/poultry/...20Tough%20Grit

Anyone tried something like this? Why not skip the grinding? I'm not into doing extra work where there is no benefit. I toss whole mice in the pen and they disappear, why not just cut up the deer parts into appropriate sizes and freeze till needed?

My chickens get every bone from a deer I process The day I process it. Also every Hog bone and I have done 3 hogs in one day. They also get some Parts from the inside. I have a PILE of bones close to the woods that I rake out of the chicken yard after the chickens clean them up.

[Megaputz]

I like maggot buckets. Doesn't work well in the winter... being that there are no flies. That's more or less for the stuff the birds won't eat or for meat that I wouldn't want to feed to the birds directly.

For the most part the birds get all the table scraps and meat and carcasses after I strip the meat off the bones. They'll strip every last bit off the skeleton. Lungs and such... have seen the muscovy ducks swallow the rabbit lungs whole. Bigger animals... I would go so far as to chop up the organs and fat a little but wouldn't go as far as grinding it up. Depending on the size of the flock, only give them as much as they'll eat so it doesn't lay there.

YouTube

[secuono]

Mine got anything and everything...they are pigs of the chicken world...Though they prefered cooked meats far more than raw.

[K.B.]

an hour or two in a pressure cooker and the bones will turn soft enough to eat. free calcium and phosphorous

[brownegg]

We always save the liver and heart and either roast or fry it and cut into small pieces for treats during the brutal cold weather here. We wash and freeze after the harvest till needed. The carcass is my redneck suet feeder in the backyard..LOL!

[KSALguy]

meat scraps of any kind are great for chickens, chickens need protein and what better sours than meat, I have watched them clean up the guts from cleaned rabbits and even other chickens in just a few minuets, guts from a larger animal would probably need chopped some what but very doable, especially if you have a large flock,

[Sumatra]

If there's one thing to know about chickens.... it's that they're like small winged velociraptors. They will eat anything from mice(whole), other chickens, and definitely the innards of other animals. The grinding is just to make the stuff easier of them to pick apart. Be careful that you don't fall asleep in the coop or run!

[Elizabeth]

Our chickens would never eat the butchering offal, either from rabbits or hogs

However, I feed them TONS of meat scraps ( a little at a time, lol). I do this mainly during the winter because during the summer they are pastured. The only problem I have with doing this is that during really cold weather the meat/bones freeze. The chickens will still peck at them, but it takes a bit of work to get the frozen meat off of the bones.

I tried something different this year- I had a couple of skinned raccoons in the freezer so I cut them up with my sawzall into pieces which would fit in an old crockpot. I have been cooking them overnight, along with any other kitchen scraps that we save for them, and in the morning the meat falls right off the bones. I mix it with the lacto-fermented chicken feed and place several bowls/dishes around the coop. The chickens go crazy for it.

I have one more meals' worth of the raccoon, after which I will start feeding them meat scraps from our processor, which I get for free.

To the OP, I also feed venison during hunting season.

eta: since I cook the meat until it is falling off the bone, I do not grind it. But if I had a lot of it at one time and intended to feed it raw, I would grind it, mainly to ensure a fair distribution amongst the chickens. I have a mixed flock of different ages and the little ones can't really compete with the bigger ones if I just throw chunks of meat into the coop.

[bluefish]

Every so often I butcher a goat for the dogs to eat. When I call the dogs, the chickens come running as well and almost run the dogs off. They have no problem eating any it!

[Pony]

Oh, our chickens can be vicious when it comes to raw meat. When we butcher, they're standing right there with the dogs and cat to get their fair share!

We don't bother grinding, we just chop it up and toss it out to the birds.