Duck necks!

We're trying something new at Casa Magica tonight (and this month and probably the month after) - a case of duck necks. When I feed meaty bones I generally feed chicken or turkey necks - mostly chicken necks. In general I like the ratio of meat to bone in necks, certainly enough meat to fill in as a meal on most necks. With chicken necks I feed 3-4 necks per dog. I do like larger size of the hen turkey necks - but find the tom necks too much for my boys so I've bought mostly chicken necks over the last year. I generally feed each dog three or four chicken necks if that is the only component of that meal. If I'm feeding an Oma's mix in the same meal, I might feed one or two necks at a time. I never mix proteins, so I'd feed chicken mix with chicken necks, and turkey mix with turkey necks.

8/02/2011: Kipling settles in for his dinner.

In all my orders from Oma's I don't know why I hadn't thought about getting the duck necks (duck is a TCM cold protein) instead of chicken necks, but they certainly fill in nicely: each big enough to be one small meal for all three dogs, the same meat/bone ratio as other poultry necks and a bit fattier than the chicken necks. Duck necks are in the $1.19/pound range, chicken necks (purchased in 40 pound cases) are in the $.96/pound range, Turkey necks by case end up being about $1.08/pound. So duck is more expensive per pound.

Another upside to the duck necks is that I get to rotate in another protein source - I've purchased ground duck meat and bone, but I haven't bought any recently - my dogs do like duck (they still seem to like beef the best - which together with lamb is the protein I feed the least). If there are local folks who'd like to try some duck necks, you should be in touch, I'm happy to share if you'd like to try some before the next wholesale order (September).

Our 30 pound bundle of duck necks arrived with the rest of the order this afternoon as one solid brick of necks. I thaw cases of dog food in the bath tub - on the plus side the tub is really easy to bleach clean and the mess is totally self contained, on the downside30 minutes later my knees hurt from kneeling on the tile floor breaking the necks apart and my fingertips are FREEZING. So with a bit of time, a lot of ziploc bags and some elbow grease I separated and repackaged approximately 105 necks. For those wishing to do the math that makes each duck neck about 4-5 ounces (chicken necks are approx 2 ounces each, turkey necks 3 (hen) -6 (tom) ounces each).

All three boys had their first duck necks for dinner tonight - though we still have quite a bit of chicken necks to work our way through in the next few weeks as well.