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I'm curious if anyone has fed their dogs with home-raised meat chickens?
The feed store guy who knows I have a bunch of dogs, recently tried to convince me to buy a bunch of the breed of chicken that mature to butcher weight at just 8 weeks. I am thinking about buying 20 or so in August and butchering in the fall when it would be cool. I'd freeze the chickens, and then probably use a meat grinder to supplement the dog's food.
Costs: Chicks: $60
Feed: around $50- $100?
Brooding (minimal, August is hot)
Freezer and electricity (? not cheap- $300)
Butchering supplies/butcher (?)
And... when on sale I can buy chicken thighs for just .79 cents/lb, so, that's something to think about.
Just curious if anyone has done this, how it all worked out, and what the end-costs ended up being. The human family members would also eat the chickens, but I was thinking of doing this mostly for the dogs.
With all this talk about kibble and raw feeding, I'm trying figure out if I could home-raise at least part of my dog's food.
The feed store guy who knows I have a bunch of dogs, recently tried to convince me to buy a bunch of the breed of chicken that mature to butcher weight at just 8 weeks. I am thinking about buying 20 or so in August and butchering in the fall when it would be cool. I'd freeze the chickens, and then probably use a meat grinder to supplement the dog's food.
Costs: Chicks: $60
Feed: around $50- $100?
Brooding (minimal, August is hot)
Freezer and electricity (? not cheap- $300)
Butchering supplies/butcher (?)
And... when on sale I can buy chicken thighs for just .79 cents/lb, so, that's something to think about.
Just curious if anyone has done this, how it all worked out, and what the end-costs ended up being. The human family members would also eat the chickens, but I was thinking of doing this mostly for the dogs.
With all this talk about kibble and raw feeding, I'm trying figure out if I could home-raise at least part of my dog's food.