“Butcher’s scraps”

[Antonia]

When I tell people I feed my cats raw they often ask what it is that I feed. Butcher’s scraps? Well, yes… but I have discovered that “butcher’s scraps” have changed a lot over the years. They're no longer things like tripe, windpipes or chicken heads and feet.

I found a wonderful supplier, who are continually expanding their range. They sell an amazing variety of organs, meat and bone-in meat, and also many kinds of whole prey animals. You could say I’m spoilt for choice.

Everything (except of course items like mice and rats) is from animals raised and slaughtered for human consumption. Their chicken is even biologic. (Shame El Monto won’t eat it… he prefers factory-farmed chicken from the supermarket, little brat.) What they sell are basically the “leftovers” from the slaughterhouse.

That said, it’s mindboggling what’s left after the “good” (meaning marketable) meat has been removed. Chunks of muscle meat too small to be sold als “filet”. Rabbit carcasses still containing heart, lungs, liver and kidney, plus lots of meat attached to the ribs. Lovely meaty duck legs and chicken backs.

All perfectly good stuff, but people won’t buy it anymore. Gone are the days when tongue, chicken necks, heart, liver and kidney were perfectly fine for the dinner table. When meat was scraped from the bone to make râgout and the bone used for making broth. Surely we humans have become spoilt and lazy, but my cats and me don’t mind a bit.

This is what was delivered today. I have my work cut out for me chopping and bagging everything for the freezer.

Herring, veal chunks, duck hearts, duck livers and duck legs.


Quail, turkey chunks, deer tongue.


8 kgs of rabbit carcasses.


El Monto guarding it all.