I picked up a bunch of beef "parts" Saturday morning (pictures will be up in a few days). I ended up with 4 whole lungs, 4 whole tracheas, spleans, pancreas, hearts, livers, some actual beef meat and a little bit of lamb meat. All in all I ended up with about 125-150lbs of organs & meat for $20. That's enough organs to last us 2ish months and enough muscle/meat to last us about a week. I think that's a great deal. This all came from a new butcher (one I have not used before). We talked (for about an hour) and he's going to save me some even better parts and get me a great deal on chicken too. He's even willing to store up to 120-ish lbs of meat for me at a time, which I can have up to 3 or so months to pick it up, which results in even cheaper deals. I got a tour of his shop which was very clean and all his meats are hormone free, most are completely organic. This is a great score.
I then went to a few grocery stores to gather some other meats. Ended up finding whole roaster chickens for 23 cents per pound and chicken quarters for $2.89 per 10lb bags. Got some pork feet/legs, pork neck bones, chicken backs & another pork shoulder roast. I also got some chicken livers as it was on sale, only 15 cents per pound.
All in all, I spent a grand total of about $50 and have enough meats to last about a month and enough organs to last 2-3 months. Thats WAY cheaper than feeding premium kibble & all the supplements & medications I would need if I were to feed kibble.

I knew I was getting most of the parts whole & had to cut them up but I didn't realise how much work it is cutting up WHOLE beef lungs (those things weigh about 25-45lbs each and are squishy & slimy which makes cutting them very difficult even with a sharp butcher knife). I gave up on the third lung and gave it to the dogs whole. I had to throw some of it away as I didn't have any more room in my freezer (I also didn't realise how big they are). I have to say that I will only request 1-2 of them at a time in the future and more of the other parts. Joe had to step out of the room, he couldn't stand the fact I was cutting up part of a cow. My dad used to be a butcher so I am used to it. I just thought it was funny. lol



Anyways, onto the menu:

Saturday:
They munched on scraps while I was cutting & packaging all the meat (just lamb & beef). They also split a beef lung but only ended up eating about half of it, maybe a little less which was good cause it was huge (even though it was the smallest one I had). They also had 2-3 chicken feet each.

Sunday breakfast:
Chicken quarter
beef lung

Dinner:
Chicken quarter
beef lung
egg (Nanook had 2)
sardines in oil
cottage cheese
chopped garlic clove
2-3 chicken feet each



Does anyone know what I can do with pure beef fat? There was quite a bit of it on the lungs. I did save some, and left it on the sections that I cut up but not much. I knew that too much of it can be harmful and also cause runny poops so I had to throw a lot of it away. I felt bad but couldn't think of what I could do with it. Can birds eat it? (isn't it in suet or something?)