Ground Turkey as Beefheart alternative, precautions to take for fish safety?

[kris2341]

Hey guys, I am in the middle of a 2nd take on raising discus and am looking into good food for the fish.

Now, I am well aware that beefheart is the definite champ for cost and lean protein for fish, BUT in my case, it appears to be horribly messy and I dont think my family would appreciate me blowing up the kitchen for hours on end cleaning meat making food for my fish, and in larger quantities than I can really use at that.

So after a bit of searching for a lean, easily digestible and effective protein source, I happened across 99% fat free ground turkey! Now just thinking about it sounds a fair bit excessive compared to cheap beefheart but ive always spent a good amount of money of food for myself and prepared foods for my fish, the small quantities i need would be no problem at all.

Is there anyone on here that uses ground turkey or poultry in general as a main feed for their fish? If not, I suppose I will just wing it and modify a beefheart recipe to take the turkey.

Also since it is a ground meat, do i need to cook the stuff for my fish or is raw fine? This is going to be my first time making homemade food for my fish and I want to know as much as possible before i dive in.

[seanyuki]

I also use raw minced turkey breasts with Pro More or Pro Growth according to their age.hth.

[kris2341]

What is Pro More and Pro Growth?

and would you be willing to share the gist of your preparation? is it raw minced turkey breasts that are just frozen and fed like that?

[kris2341]

Found out what those things are, they are supplements for feeding that aid in growth and development as well as overall health. Sounds excellent.

For reference: http://inlandempirediscus.com/shop/index.php?route=product/category&path=60_68

[seanyuki]

have a look here.....post 89 the making of homemade foods.

http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/member-photo-video-gallery-17/albino-platinum-discus-blue-diamonds-discus-update-20225/index9.html#post284242

[kris2341]

the dinner-plate esque stature of your discus truly speaks strongly about the food you have made, simple and clean preparation! I have all the items on hand for that as well.

With that, it is probably easier and cheaper to just use chicken or turkey breasts and grind them myself as I would have to to mix the ingredients anyways. Very nice! thank you for sharing!

[DISCUS STU]

I use raw turkey hearts instead of beef heart these days and it's MUCH easier to prepare. I purchase them from a local poultry farm. The protein content seems to be similar but I don't have to go through days of cutting away fat and draining off excess blood. This is turkey heart not ground turkey. Basically you just remove the top of the heart that has most of the fat and the bottom lobe. About 60 hearts is 8 lbs.

Outside of that, the processing and recipe are the same that I used for the beef heart. Knox gelatin powder and raw shrimp for binders and other benefits, various vitamins, spinach or seaweed, paprika, etc.

[kris2341]

pretty much sounds like we can use any good lean cuts of meat to create food mixes with great success! And in my case, it appears either turkey hearts or boneless chicken/turkey breast are a good choice for ease of use and can be fed raw and frozen.

[DISCUS STU]

To be honest I don't know what properties the heart of a turkey or cow has over other cuts of meat from a chicken or cow that aren't from the heart. It would make my life easier if I didn't need to use turkey/beef heart but could use other more readily available parts that have the same protein content.

It's always been the recommended doctrine to use the heart over the breast or other parts. While I've always wondered if other parts of the animal were usable I didn't know enough to go against the commonly accepted practice.

Does anyone have a good answer here?

[kris2341]

I wouldnt call my answer a 'good' one but from what i heard before, the heart is one of the leanest bits of meat on the animal and it is not really used in culinary due to an odd flavor and texture hence the cheap price.

so with that in mind, i would think it can be replaced with any equivalently lean cut of meat that is popular with health food junkies given that it is safe to feed raw or slightly cooked

this is probably why seafood mixes seem to be gaining a bit of traction and have good success when i was browsing the stickies on this forum.

[kris2341]

http://s3.mmoguildsites.com/s3/gallery_images/756089/original.jpg?1413601298

It turns out that Mishka uses the same ground turkey that I was considering to use to feed her fish all the time.

And since I got my latest batch of fish from her, I decided ground turkey was worth attempting to use.

So my first attempt at a food mix involves:

99% fat free ground turkey breast
Spirulina powder
Garlicguard
Boyd Vitachem

mainly because these were things I had laying around.

What does everyone think?