Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

we've got some leftover chicken pet mince (lower grade chicken mince, can contain extras people don't like to eat - bone, feathers etc) that we're going to try in a mix similar to the beefheart recipe. We'll also use eggs and silverbeet. Once the worms are producing spares we'll toss some of them in too.

dumb question, but is beef heart a "saleable item" or is it usually scrap obtainable free?

nah, they sell everything these days I used to buy boxes of hearts from the abattoirs for bird food, 25Kg for about $30. That was yonks ago. I know the supermarkets sell them as pet food.

I got mine at a butcher for a couple of dollars, was hoping i could get them to mince it for me...but they only had a big industrial mincer, and most of the minced heart would stick to the insides...

I wish they were free tho, i doubt they manage to sell the heart of every cow slaughtered for beef (unless its used in pet food or fritz or salami or something) mmm meat

What I feed the fishies
1. Scrambled Eggs with a touch of ground up commercial pellets mixed in.
2. Composting worms fresh and wiggling.
3. Live male guppies, sorry boys ya gots to go.
At the first sign the fish are full, (at least when feeding worms and egg) stop feeding, this stuff will really gob up a pump.

Do you put milk in your scrambled eggs or are they plain? At the risk of sounding like a silly question I ask this in all seriousness! I think it was Steve who recently trialed his silvers and catties with fried egg. Would milk (calcium) be of benefit to the fish? Can they digest it?

No milk in mine, although I have considered it. Tried a dehydrated batch, fish didn't eat it. Doing a frozen batch next. For me it will be a big waste if they will eat only fresh as only a table spoon of egg is needed per feeding.

My goldies LOVE frozen peas.

Some ideas .. Mung beans sprout pretty quickly. Anyone tried lawn seed? Clover?

My dad today suggested that when they catch fish and have wastage and rib cut offs etc, they could run it through the mincer for me, and freeze it in ice cube trays. Can anyone think of a reason why this would be no good to feed to the barra without adding anything else to it? I was just thinking drop a few cubes in every now and again as a treat.

I am assuming all the bones will be cat up to digestable size then I don't see a problem with it. Mix in some gelatin so it holds together and doesn't cloud the water too much.

I made a beef heart concoction yesterday, with moderate success, I will post my 'experience' soon. Barra loved it but it does cloud the water a bit.

i put my 22 DO death silver perch through the mincer with some veggies and chicken pellets. Made yummy food for the jades

remind me steve, did you make it into a pellet and dry it or just feed it to them as mush?

i extruded it as a spaggetti type thingy, dryed it and then crushed it with my hands before feeding, but considering your barra are carnivores i'd go tims suggestion of mixing some geletine with ti to give it "holding power" and feed straight.

You may or maynow want to cook it first to kill any bac that may have grown between fish slaughter and mincing/freezing.

As a plus, gelatine is 100% protein.
Steve

Cool, sounds like a done deal. The fish are usually (99% of the time) filleted on the same day so they should be free of nasties

Did you use liver in it? because that can cause cloudiness ( i left liver out of my beef heart fish food, and it was fine)


As for using wild caught fish frames, could it introduce disease? Even when frozen if there are any parasites/diseases in a cyst i dont think they are harmed at all