Alternate title: What’r’ya gonna do with #150 of rotten dog food?
No, seriously, I had to figure that out.
So Landlady came up this weekend, only then remembering that Dharma’s food barrel was empty. “No problem,” said I, “We’ve got a hundred fifty pounds of it going to waste.” I hadn’t actually meant that literally.
I blame Little Bear, who started falling down on his kibble-demolishing duties shortly before he died, which was over a year ago. Also Torso Boy, who refuses to touch it. Three sacks of prepper security have been molding and decomposing in the rat-resistant shed since then, rarely thought of. Of course I didn’t know that, never having actually checked their condition. The first sack I pulled out was the oldest, and disgusting right through the still-intact sack. The newest was only a few months past its best-by date, and already thoroughly moldy as Landlady found out after she hauled it to her house.
So I’m going to take the oldest two sacks out to a place in the boonies where it won’t cause any trouble for neighbors no matter what it attracts…
…and part of the one that was opened this weekend I’ll use to bait the game camera, just to see what if anything happens.
Good news, a whole shelf has been freed up. Also, no rats ever succeeded in getting into my dog food stash.
Will the chickens eat it? I’m asking because I don’t know.
Thought crossed my mind. It’s not worth the risk of sickening them.
Lots of retail foodstuff comes pre-innoculated with things that you don’t really want in your pantry.
We have had to purge ALL our bulk food supplies and sterilize the pantry to get rid of a weevil infestation, only to find that the damn things are coming back in the newly purchased flour, rice, etc.
We’ve taken to buying smaller, air-tight containers, and splitting bulk supplies into multiple separate lots. This has helped some, as usually most of the stuff is OK, with about one-in-five of the small containers being contaminated with weevils. mold, or some other nasty.
I wish I knew a solution.
Chicken feed. If they don’t like it, they won’t eat it. Just make sure they still have their normal offering. Ours are free range, they come running for it. Just limit the total amount per offering, because if they gorge on it, and then drink a lot, they get kind of bloaty as it swells up inside them.
If it’s mouldy the only use is in a compost pile. I wouldn’t feed it to chickens if you don’t feel good about feeding it to a dog.
Sendarius, try freezing your new purchases overnight.
What John said. I freeze all of my flours and grains. But it’s still interesting to think of all the dead frozen weevils, mites, bug eggs etc. that are getting eaten in my baked goods. If I have to store them there’s an endless supply of different size metal tins for about 50 cents each at thrift stores. I keep rice and noodles in original packages in those.
Many people who think they have a wheat allergy actually are reacting to the bug protein. Only way around that is grow, dry and grind and freeze your own.
We had weevils infest a 25 pound bag of brown rice. We learned that if we freeze it 3 full days, the weevils don’t hatch. There’s a high temp solution, but I don’t recall the particulars.
We keep dog food in a storage shed, but it’s pretty dry. Working quantities go in 5 gallon buckets with Gamma screw-on lids and/or bigger Gamma storage containers. Haven’t had any trouble with the bagged stuff, but the bags are on shelves and the entire shed is above ground on short posts. In winter it’s pretty cold; we hit below zero a few times each year.
I’ve noticed things are not lasting nearly as long past the expiration date as they used to. Peanut butter was a big one.Used to be good three years past. Now, six months and you get a nasty smell. Kind of negates the trade off of that hydrogenated oil.
John of the GMA & Zelda:
Thanks for the tip!
I’ll see if I can pick up a cheap chest freezer for the task – the existing one is full of frozen meats & vegetables (and pizza, and ice-cream).