We’re writing in a quiet house today. Our two kids have gone down to Cape Cod with their grandparents, so we’ve gone from a house of 5 adults and 2 children to 3 adults. We slept in this morning. ‘Til 8:30. Luxurious. While we’ll miss them, their departure gives Nathan and I a bit more breathing room to work odd hours and to connect as he continues to heal and process the stress that has contributed to this pain.
Last week Nathan finally got the news that he does have a seriously bulged disk between L5 and S1 in his lower spine. He has found some significant temporary relief from massage and meditation. We’re grateful for three amazing local practitioners who have been able to see him weekly. Given this relief, surgery is not recommended, but he’s waiting to get an appointment for a Cortisol shot. We hope that will happen this week and provide more relief.
Work on the farm continues, with chickens and cows moving every day, meat shipping on Monday and planning for our third chicken harvest of the season next week.
This is our second year parting whole birds and selling the parts retail – breasts, thighs, tenders, wings, drumsticks, legs, feet, hearts and liver. The chicken parts and whole birds move well for us, but what to do with the carcasses? These are the ribs and back bones of the chickens that are left after taking the parts off. Some of the carcasses get roasted and made into delicious Chicken Bone broth, but we’ve also been looking for another product to keep our waste as close to zero as possible.
Meet Ground Chicken Frames. These are 1lb bags of our Organic ground chicken, bones, kidneys, fat, skin and some feet. No other ingredients added. The grind is fine, imagine ground beef consistency, and the bone pieces are tiny. While this is a totally food grade product, we recommend feeding it to your feline or canine (or porcine?) friends. Our cattle dog, Susu-Pup, weighs about 80lbs and eats a half pound raw in the morning and evening with his kibbles. Mostly he eats the chicken and leaves the kibbles.
We pull a bag from the freezer each evening when the last bag was done and it is defrosted by the morning, ready to go. Cut the top off, squeeze out half (we let the three the three year old do this), fold over the bag place in a bowl and back in the fridge for the pup’s dinner.
Susu has eaten a lot of raw chicken in his life, and has been eating the Ground Chicken Frames for about a month now. We’ve noticed he has a shinier coat (like when he eats raw eggs) and he seems to be building muscle in his leg that is recovering from an injury last year.
If you give the Ground Chicken Frames a try, let us know how it goes!
Reber Rock Farm Blog 