Choox

[dreamer_easy]

A puff piece for chook growers in today's SMH:

Helter Shelter

The executive director of the Australian Chicken Meat Industry: "People who pay $30 per kilogram for an organic chicken are off their bloody heads." Apparently so, since the organic delivery service I use will sell you an entire chook for $15 - $20, or a kilo of drumsticks for $13. (You will pay $30/kilo for a tray of breast meat, tho.) If the boys would actually eat the stuff, I'd buy it for them, but raw meat seems to be beyond their culinary grasp.

Comments

cooking for cats

[(Anonymous)]

You can actually cook chicken for cats quite easily, so long as you keep their cooking bits seperate from your own and don't mind doing a seperate bit of washing up*. Moosifer had a treat of a bit of freshly cooked fish once a week and, being lazy, cold chicken slices from the deli torn up and put in his normal bowl. The deli counter woman got used to my requests for "just a few of those scrappy slices - it's for the cat". The fish was either microwaved in a "just for cats" bowl, or cooked in tin foil in the regular oven, then left to cool for a bit. Normally, he would be more interested in the warm juices than the flesh.

When he was very ill, I did end up cooking chicken breasts for him (wrapped in tin foil, placed in an old cake tin I didn't want any more). Set it going for about 10-15 minutes at 200C and poke it with a "just for cats" fork to check it's cooked. Ask the delivery service if they ever get chickens that are a little below par and would they consider selling them for your cats - they will probably offer you advice on cooking/storage as well.

*being a veggie living with meat eaters is rather like being kosher, I suspect.

Mags (http://moosiferjonesgrouch.blogspot.com)

Re: cooking for cats

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Ta! When the boyz wouldn't eat a chunk of breast meat I bought for them - they just circled it warily and licked it a bit - I ended up microwaving it in desperation, and that seemed to make it acceptable. At the moment I just wash the cats' stuff up separately to ours, but I really should establish a proper kosher kitchen. :-)

Re: cooking for cats

[(Anonymous)]

It's primarily due to the temperature of the meat. Moosifer had no qualms about freshly killed things but would never touch cold raw stuff. Cooking it gives them the false satisfaction of thinking they are big strong wild cats who can kill their own food. It's why they tend not to eat tinned food that's come straight from a fridge but yum it down an hour later.

Re: cooking for cats

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

That's very useful info indeed - ay thenk yew!

The boyz are currently tearing the fur off each other - rampaging over every inch of the house. They've discovered that you can be King of the Castle, and boof the other fellow over the head with a paw, by getting up on the windowsill and lurking behind the curtains.