Ahhhh, the good ol' days

Very occasionally, I find myself longing for the good ol' days ... the days when I fed a kibble diet. Oh sure, that feeling only lasts a nano-second, but still, pouring kibble from a bag was pretty darn easy.

I've been feeding my crew a raw meat diet for over 6 years now. In that time, I've gone from an apartment-sized freezer, to a 20 cubic footer, then another, and another, and then another, this time 25 cubic feet. I somehow always manage to keep them pretty darn full, but have never had to turn down anything meat-wise that was offered. I'd buy another freezer before I said "no" to a good deal on meat.

So, speaking of good deals, twice a year I buy from the local Hutterite colony a few hundred of their "old hens", their laying chickens. On Monday, Glenn and I picked up 800 of the birds. Yes, EIGHT HUNDRED. Five hundred went to raw-feeding friends also appreciative of a deal, but we still hung on to 300 of them. And so, by 10:00 a.m. Monday morning, I was well on my way to raw-feeding chicken hell. We spent the day cutting each bird into 10 pieces, packing them into ziplocs, and hauling them downstairs to the "chicken freezer".

The rewards, however, are huge and nothing makes me smile more than watching babies enjoying their first meal of raw chicken necks. They don't really consume much of it, but they sure love gnawing away and tearing off bits of meat. Today was that day, when I laid a blanket out in their pen and sat and watched. Maggie, true to herself, was the first one in and the last one to walk away. That girl sure does love her food! Madison also, but seemed much more methodical in her eating, much less of a frenzy than Maggie. Chloe could get her own reality show with the way she hoarded a collection of 3 or 4 necks. The boys all enjoyed theirs, too, with Bucky Chavez always wanting to drag his chickie neck up onto Granny's lap and have his lunch there.

Of course, the big guys took up position on the outside of the pen, waiting patiently, like vultures, for the babies to be finished as they knew they would get the leftovers. Capri, however, thought an attempt at tunneling under the expen would speed the sharing process along.


So far, the babies have enjoyed ground turkey with bone, ground chicken with bone, beef, lamb, chunks of llama, ground tripe, and one meal of kibble.


Happy Trails ... Theresa