other uses for fish by prosucts

Hubby does alot of fishing this time of year. I was wondering if there was anyything to do with the misc. parts that are not used. They bury some if it around the tomatoe plants. Can you feed it to chickens, hogs (bones is what I am worried about). Is there something You can do with it besides waste it.

Fish offal is great for making "fish head" tea or for putting into the compost.

For small quantities of fish offal my dad taught me to make a fish-offal tea to use as plant food. You use a bucket of water with several weeds rotting in it and place fish heads, tails, fins and guts in there, cover it and let it decompose for a week to 10 days until the water is a dark golden brown. Then strain off the liquid into another bucket and dump the left-over weeds and fish offal into your compost pile. Dig it into the middle of the pile and cover it over and the worms will finish breaking it down. Use the tea a cupful at a time for each of your plants.

When I was a kid we used to take a wheelbarrow down to the river during salmon spawning season and fill it up with hundreds of pounds of dead salmon, bring them all back to the compost heap and dig them in, cover it all over with soil to a depth of 2 feet (or more) and then let it rot over the winter. Come spring time we would dig in there, stir it all up and then spread it in rows in the planting fields.

Nothing beats rotted fish parts for fertilizer.

Legend has it that the indians put a fish under each corn seed they planted.

I would not say that using the fish parts in your garden is a waist, now if you where puting it down the garbage disposal...

You might look for a gumbo recipe?

No fish in a gumbo. Shrimp, oysters, chicken, sausage, snails, yes. No fish. Fried fish, Redfish Court Bouillon, Grilled fish, Baked fish, Stuffed fish. As for fish leftovers, I have heard a people who did feed them to their chickens. I have even done it in small amounts. Two weeks ago I feed my chickens uncooked shrimp peelings. My eggs tasted like rotten shrimp for about a week. Yuk! I will not do that anymore. I would throw the leftovers in the compost pile. It would be safer.