I'm trying to come up with a good use for the excess fats (since I have a small collection of my own developing) and came up with pie crust/pastry. If you use savory fats to make the crusts, you can use them for things like chicken/beef pot pies, quiches, pasties, etc. Though, if they're old enough and have lost their flavor, dumping them was the right thing to do, of course.

Martha

Pre-COVID I used animal fats in lots of different ways, especially making roux for gravies for a particular meat. I didn’t put it in pie crust tho’; I never even thought of it.

kate, it must be in the air, I cleaned my refrigerator today and although I didn't get quite the windfall of jars you did, I did manage to reclaim half a dozen.

I feed the fat trimmings and drippings to my chickens, especially in the winter when bugs are scarce, and they love it. Dad used to make homemade suet cakes for the bird feeders, but I like my chickens better than the wild birds. My "girls" convert that fat into lovely fresh eggs!

Annie

Annie, question from my daughter: How do you "feed" the chickens the fat (raw or cooked?) and the liquid fat?

I wonder if I should mention this to my sister who keeps chickens. I've seen her make their breakfast platter and she loads it with beautiful organic fruits and vegetables and yogurt and all kinds of good stuff. I've never seen her add something like fat trimmings, though. She brings her chickens into the cool basement when it gets too cold outside, so they are very very spoiled chickens. :p

Ohhhh, party_music, you made me laugh. 😂 My daughter lives in upper Oregon and it's really cold now. She brought her two in last night and they made a proper mess. They went back outside to their pen and she spent the morning cleaning.

Excess fat can be spread on cardboard to help start a fire. I sometimes will work saved fats into cornbread.

For old liquid fat from frying fish, I have been able to find someone local (Craigslist) who used it for making fuel for his car. I hate sending fats to a landfill when our plants soaked up so much sun to make the calories, then they or the plant-eating animals condensed it into fat. Such a sad waste of primary energy to just bin it.

Annie, thank you. Yes, her two girls are spoiled. She is finding these relavent posts interesting and instructive. I'll C&P this post to her yet today.

My sister always wanted chickens and I finally talked her into getting them a few years ago. She has 5 now, but she lives in Mass., so I have only seen them up close once. I was amazed at how big and dinosaur-like their legs and feet are!!! They are scary to me, but I think my sister probably kisses them. lol!

eta: I asked her if she feeds them fat and she definitely does. :)